About Me
- Satima Flavell
- Perth, Western Australia, Australia
- I am based in Perth, Western Australia. You might enjoy my books - The Dagger of Dresnia, the first book of the Talismans Trilogy, is available at all good online book shops as is Book two, The Cloak of Challiver. Book three, The Seer of Syland, is in preparation. I trained in piano and singing at the NSW Conservatorium of Music. I also trained in dance (Scully-Borovansky, WAAPA) and drama (NIDA). Since 1987 I have been writing reviews of performances in all genres for a variety of publications, including Music Maker, ArtsWest, Dance Australia, The Australian and others. Now semi-retired, I still write occasionally for the ArtsHub website.
My books
The first two books of my trilogy, The Talismans, (The Dagger of Dresnia, and book two, The Cloak of Challiver) are available in e-book format from Smashwords, Amazon and other online sellers. Book three of the trilogy, The Seer of Syland, is in preparation.I also have a short story, 'La Belle Dame', in print - see Mythic Resonance below - as well as well as a few poems in various places.
The best way to contact me is via Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/satimaflavell
Buy The Talismans
The first two books of The Talismans trilogy were published by Satalyte Publications, which, sadly, has gone out of business. However, The Dagger of Dresnia and The Cloak of Challiver are available as ebooks on the usual book-selling websites, and book three, The Seer of Syland, is in preparation.
The easiest way to contact me is via Facebook.
The Dagger of Dresnia
The Cloak of Challiver, Book two of The Talismans
Mythic Resonance
Mythic Resonance is an excellent anthology that includes my short story 'La Belle Dame', together with great stories from Alan Baxter, Donna Maree Hanson, Sue Burstynski, Nike Sulway and nine more fantastic authors! Just $US3.99 from Amazon.
Got a Kindle? Check out Mythic Resonance.
Follow me on Twitter
Share a link on Twitter
For Readers, Writers & Editors
- A dilemma about characters
- Adelaide Writers Week, 2009
- Adjectives, commas and confusion
- An artist's conflict
- An editor's role
- Authorial voice, passive writing and the passive voice
- Common misuses: common expressions
- Common misuses: confusing words
- Common misuses: pronouns - subject and object
- Conversations with a character
- Critiquing Groups
- Does length matter?
- Dont sweat the small stuff: formatting
- Free help for writers
- How much magic is too much?
- Know your characters via astrology
- Like to be an editor?
- Modern Writing Techniques
- My best reads of 2007
- My best reads of 2008
- My favourite dead authors
- My favourite modern authors
- My influential authors
- Planning and Flimmering
- Planning vs Flimmering again
- Psychological Spec-Fic
- Readers' pet hates
- Reading, 2009
- Reality check: so you want to be a writer?
- Sensory detail is important!
- Speculative Fiction - what is it?
- Spelling reform?
- Substantive or linking verbs
- The creative cycle
- The promiscuous artist
- The revenge of omni rampant
- The value of "how-to" lists for writers
- Write a decent synopsis
- Write a review worth reading
- Writers block 1
- Writers block 2
- Writers block 3
- Writers need editors!
- Writers, Depression and Addiction
- Writing in dialect, accent or register
- Writing it Right: notes for apprentice authors
Interviews with authors
My Blog List
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In Praise of Episodic Enthusiasm - Do you worry, as I do, that you’ve frittered away your best years and are coming to your real work too late? If so, consider the examples of two nineteen...51 minutes ago
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How to cowrite a book 3,000 miles apart: In Dialogue with Dickens [long read] - How to cowrite a book 3,000 miles apart: In Dialogue with Dickens [long read] RB lives outside Boston in the United States, PD across the Mersey...2 hours ago
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My Season for Scandal by Julie Anne Long - I sit here stunned. Yes, I have written this review twice. The first version was too overwrought because I was entirely overcome by this book. This is such...3 hours ago
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Medieval Coins with Rory Naismith - This week on The Medieval Podcast, Danièle speaks with Rory Naismith about the complex world of medieval coins.6 hours ago
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A To Z Blogging Challenge 2024 - Villains! - V Is For Voldemort - Voldemort, known to his followers as the Dark Lord, is the main villain of the Harry Potter series. The people of the wizarding community call him “...11 hours ago
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Attending Salar’s April Wine Dinner - I tend to write about restaurants I like, so it’s funny to me that I have never written about my actual favorite restaurant. It’s a Peruvian restaurant in ...12 hours ago
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Jaclyn Moriarty books… - More of the Moriarty sister’s wonderful work. This is a book I bought at Somerset and started reading immediately. Wonderful writers create colourful world...19 hours ago
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The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 14: Lords And Ladies - After the colossal success of Small Gods, you might think that Terry Pratchett might have wanted to try out some other new ideas. However, given the way th...4 days ago
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Ada Lovelace - by Sue Purkiss - On a recent stay on Exmoor, I came across an article about someone called Ada Lovelace. I had vaguely heard of her, but if you'd asked me why, I wouldn'...6 days ago
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5 Common Problems With Beginnings - *By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy* *If your beginning isn't working, no one will get to the ending.* A novel’s beginning is under a lot of pressure. It has...1 week ago
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I promised photos from the trip - I feel like a slacker but I have been busy. There’s so much going on, so much to write about. We’ve been back six weeks. It feels like a short time and a l...1 week ago
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Mastering Blog Post Creation: 10 Essential Steps to Enhance Your Writing Process - The post Mastering Blog Post Creation: 10 Essential Steps to Enhance Your Writing Process appeared first on ProBlogger. It hits you like a TON of BRICKS!...1 week ago
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Newsletter 16th April 2024 - Here’s a copy of my newsletter from April 16th, 2024. Sign up via my website to get newsletters directly to your inbox (and remember to check your Spam f...1 week ago
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'The Tic-Toc Boy of Constantinople' in the revered The Conversation as one of five "Australian literary works of particular relevance to national conversations about AI" - I've always respected and admired *The Conversation, *so it is a humbling privilege to have 'The Tic-Toc Boy of Constantinople' written about in *The Con...2 weeks ago
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Ourselves: 100 Micro Memoirs - I am lucky enough to have a non-fiction piece, ‘Helicopter Parents’, in this new release from Night Parrot Press, Ourselves: 100 Micro Memoirs. This is the...2 weeks ago
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The Dead Boys Detective Agency. It is a very silly name. But accurate. - April 25th. DEAD BOY DETECTIVES. It's really good -- it's funny, it's smart, it's scary, and it even has a few familiar faces... (And no, you won...3 weeks ago
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#3 WEP GET TOGETHER - APRIL 2024 - IT'S THE A - Z CHALLENGE! - Hi WEPpers and friends! Already time for out third Get Together. Life is flashing by! Hit us with your news, writerly or personal. We'd love to hear fro...3 weeks ago
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Henry of Lancaster and His Children - The close bonds which Edward II's cousin Henry of Lancaster, earl of Lancaster and Leicester, forged with his children have fascinated me for a long time...3 weeks ago
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Urbenville Adventure - Wow, Urbenville, what an adventure! An approach so tough I nearly threw up. Climbs so hard I’m still hurting. Plants so vicious, one grass-spike tore my co...3 weeks ago
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Researching the birth of the first domestic violence refuge - Read a researcher's journey exploring the first few years of Chiswick Women's Aid. The post Researching the birth of the first domestic violence refuge ...5 weeks ago
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Trip to Brazil 2024 - Landing in the Megalopolis of Sao Paulo On February 7th I flew to Sao Paulo, Brazil to start a 17 day teachi...1 month ago
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Photo Parade 2023 - A bit of fun at the beginning of the new year. I’m following several German travel blogs, and that way came across the annual Photo Parade (Fotoparade) on ...3 months ago
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Happy Public Domain Day 2024, the end of copyright for 1928 works - My annual reminder that January 1st is Public Domain Day, and this year copyright has ended for books, movies, and music first published in the U.S. in 192...3 months ago
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The White Horse Band - Live Blues/Rock - 31 March 2023 Hi All, Time for some LIVE Video Music from me… (as opposed to my original stuff)…. I got into a blues/rock band for a one off gig at ...4 months ago
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Konrath Thanksgiving - Black Friday - Cyber Monday Kindle Bundle Sale - *Get all of my ebook box sets on Amazon Kindle for 99 cents each, November 23 - 28.* *THAT'S 33¢ PER BOOK!* Almost my entire backlist of fifty-four ebooks...5 months ago
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Questions from year 9 students - Recently – actually, not very recently but I somehow forgot to write this sooner – I did what has become an annual online Q&A with the Year 9 girls at Bedf...5 months ago
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On Ohio, and the novels, and the new class - Just small news here. The new class is finished in first draft, and I’m now (and for the first time ever) doing the complete course bug-hunt and clean-up B...6 months ago
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Big disruption hit book publishing before AI showed up - Publishers Weekly recently hosted a stimulating and smart online session about AI and publishing, thanks to the organizing and moderating skills of Peter...6 months ago
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Flogometer 1180 for Christian—will you be moved to turn the page? - Submissions sought. Get fresh eyes on your opening page. Submission directions below. The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me ...8 months ago
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Storny Weather - I've just been out fixing up the damage from last night's storm. This is pretty much the first time I've been able to spend much time outside and do any...8 months ago
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#347 - I've been querying agents for the last 6-months and have over 50 rejections. I'm not sure if my novel isn't very interesting/sellable or if my query let...8 months ago
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Parody - The other day, for the first time in a very long time, I heard the Barbie Song. So, being me, I decided to parody it, in hour of Alianore Audley and *The...9 months ago
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Parody - The other day, for the first time in a very long time, I heard the Barbie Song. So, being me, I decided to write a parody. Hope you like it! *Hiya, Ali...9 months ago
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To Live and Love - To live and love for the both of us Ten years ago today I made that vow I've struggled in the decade since Not always knowing exactly how Ten years you've...9 months ago
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“It’s Random” – a random scribble - “Why am I even here? It’s random. No Divine Thing. No actual “purpose” except what we make of it. I haven’t made anything of it except to be restless, to a...9 months ago
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#MemorialDay, remembering a female patriot ancestor - *© 2022 Christy K Robinson* We are taught stories about heroic men who gave their lives to bring independence and liberty to their families, friends--and...10 months ago
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A tale of two titles - I have done something notably foolish. Which is perhaps nothing new, though the circumstances on this occasion are unusual. To whit, I am publishing two bo...1 year ago
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Poem: If Wishes were horses - A team of horses racing toward me Brown like the uniforms of soldiers fortressing me around Speckled like a found family, salt of the earth Whit...1 year ago
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another review for the Christmas Maze - *The Christmas Maze by Danny Fahey – a Review by David Collis* Why do we seek to be good, to make the world a better place? Why do we seek to be ethi...1 year ago
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Children’s Rights QLD Ambassador - Children’s Rights QLD appointed Karen Tyrrell (me) Ambassador for Logan City, ahead of Children’s Week, 24-29 Oct 2022. I’m an award-winning child-empowe...1 year ago
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ANWERING THE CALL: LESSONS FROM THE THRESHOLD - NEXT STORY SANCTUARY "Anwering the Call: Lessons from the Threshold" Sept. 20, 7 pm eastern $30 Online Whether you're starting a project, a school year, ...1 year ago
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The Green House, Chapters 1-4 (Revised) - [Dear Reader: Having refined my intentions for this novel based on a lot of recent thinking about life and art, I have restructured and revised the first f...1 year ago
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Publishing Contracts 101: Beware Internal Contradications - It should probably go without saying that you don't want your publishing contract to include clauses that contradict one another. Beyond any potential l...1 year ago
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Tara Sharp is back and in audio book - SHARP IS BACK! Marianne Delacourt and Twelfth Planet Press are delighted to announce the fifth Tara Sharp story, a novella entitled RAZOR SHARP, will be ...1 year ago
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Website Update - My website www.stephendedman.com has been updated, with details of my latest books; please check it out!2 years ago
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Non-Binary Authors To Read: July 2021 - Non-Binary Authors To Read is a regular column from A.C. Wise highlighting non-binary authors of speculative fiction and recommending a starting place fo...2 years ago
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ATTENTION: YOU CAN’T LOG IN HERE - Hey YOU! This isn’t the forum. You’re trying to login to the Web site. THE FORUMS ARE HERE: CLICK THIS The post ATTENTION: YOU CAN’T LOG IN HERE a...2 years ago
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I'M INSIDE A SHORT STORY!! - Ok everyone, you have to read this very short short story. Firstly because it is good, (check out the Bligh story within it too), but also because I'm ...2 years ago
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Grandmother Dragon Forever - It feels like centuries since the last time I wrote something for the Dragon Cave. Only something of great importance would drag me out of my retirement...3 years ago
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What communicates power? - Well, I have to say, I wasn't expecting to get this far behind on my reports on the show, but the launch month was very busy, and then the next month turne...4 years ago
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The Legendary Game Pac-Man Has No Meaning. - [image: The Legendary Game Pac-Man Has No Meaning.] The Legendary Game Pac-Man Has No Meaning. Let's take a look at how this word came about. Actually, P...4 years ago
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Readers Notice and They Care - Readers care about story details and they care about characters. Both last night and this afternoon I had conversations with readers upset about the way au...4 years ago
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Review of Verdi's MacBeth (WA Opera) - *Our president, Frances Dharmalingham, has written a critique of a recent visit to the opera: Verdi’s ‘Macbeth’.* At Christmas 2018, my family’s gift to ...4 years ago
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Breakout 3: tips for engaging your audience - Tips for engaging your audience: how to improve presentation, public speaking confidence and presence on stage, no matter how small the stage is. Present...4 years ago
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The Trains Don't Stop Here - It's been a long, long time since my last blog post. One of the main reasons for this – apart from life being way too busy in general – is that, in my dwin...4 years ago
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Portrait of a first generation freed African American family - Sanford Huggins (c.1844–1889) and Mary Ellen Pryor (c.1851–1889), his wife, passed the early years of their lives in Woodford County, Kentucky, and later...4 years ago
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Revisiting the Comma Splice - One of the difficulties as an editor, particularly when working with fiction, is to know when to be a stickler for the rules. For some people this is not a...4 years ago
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New releases - SFFBookBonanza - StoryOrigin - SciFi and Fantasy Book Sale - New Releases – Jul 2019 The latest and greatest new releases in Science Fiction and Fantasy books! New releases July 2019 99 cent sale - July 22nd - 28t...4 years ago
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Assassin’s Apprentice Read Along - This month, in preparation for the October release of the Illustrated 25th Anniversary edition of Assassin’s Apprentice, with interior art by Magali Villan...4 years ago
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A Movie That No Writer Should See Alone - Really. REALLY. Trust me on this. particularly since this film, ‘Can you ever forgive me?’, is based on a ‘True story’ – and too many writers will see too...5 years ago
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Review: Trace: who killed Maria James? - [image: Trace: who killed Maria James?] Trace: who killed Maria James? by Rachael Brown My rating: 5 of 5 stars Absolutely jaw-dropping, compelling readin...5 years ago
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Dance Photo Shoots - Photo Session Planning & Preparation Have you ever wanted to do a photo shoot for dance but have been a little unsure about how and what really happens? ...5 years ago
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On Indefinite Hiatus - (Which I pretty much have been from this site for a while already, but for real now.) You can find most archive content through the On Writing page, and li...6 years ago
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2017 Ditmar Winners Announced - Over the Queen’s Birthday weekend, spec fic fans gathered for Continuum 13: Triskaidekaphilia. Continuum is always a great convention, and this year it was...6 years ago
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Writing about the Crusades and talking about a "meddlesome priest" - The Middle Ages are in the news again, so here is a roundup of recent news articles. We start with three good reads from historians talking about the crusa...6 years ago
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The One and the Many – every Sunday - My first serious girlfriend came from good Roman Catholic stock. Having tried (and failed) to be raised as a Christian child and finding nothing but lifele...6 years ago
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A Shameless Plug Ian Likes: Bibliorati.com - A little-known fact is that I once had a gig reviewing books for five years. It was for a now-defunct website known as The Specusphere. It was awesome fun:...7 years ago
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Book Review - Nobody by Threasa Meads - Available from BooktopiaThe subtitle for this work is *A Liminal Autobiography*. Liminal: 1. relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process. 2...7 years ago
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A whole 'nother year-and-a-bit - Well, we have let this blog slip, haven't we? I guess Facebook has taken over from blogs to a very large degree, but I think there is still a need for blo...7 years ago
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2017 Potential Bee Calendar – & ladybirds and butterflies - Bees on flowers – all sorts of flowers (& bees) – and lady birds and butterflies. There were hundreds (literally) of photos to choose from. This is a small...7 years ago
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What is dyslexia? - *" **The bottob line it thit it doet exitt, no bitter whit nibe teottle give it(i.e ttecific lierning ditibility, etc) iccording to Thilly Thiywitz ( 2003)...8 years ago
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Rai stones - *(Paraphrased from Wikipedia)*: Rai stones were, and in some cases are still, the currency of the island once called Yap. *They are stone coins which at th...10 years ago
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Cherries In The Snow - This recipe is delicious and can also be made as a diet dessert by using fat and/or sugar free ingredients. It’s delicious and guests will think it took ...11 years ago
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Al Milgrom’s connection to “Iron Man” - Via the Ann Arbor online newspaper - I felt it was worth repeating as a great example of Marvel doing the right thing by a former employee and without the ...13 years ago
Favourite Sites
- Alan Baxter
- Andrew McKiernan
- Bren McDibble
- Celestine Lyons
- Guy Gavriel Kay
- Hal Spacejock (Simon Haynes)
- Inventing Reality
- Jacqueline Carey
- Jennifer Fallon
- Jessica Rydill
- Jessica Vivien
- Joel Fagin
- Juliet Marillier
- KA Bedford
- Karen Miller
- KSP Writers Centre
- Lynn Flewelling
- Marianne de Pierres
- Phill Berrie
- Ryan Flavell
- Satima's Professional Editing Services
- SF Novelists' Blog
- SF Signal
- Shane Jiraiya Cummings
- Society of Editors, WA
- Stephen Thompson
- Yellow wallpaper
Blog Archive
Places I've lived: Manchester, UK
Places I've lived: Gippsland, Australia
Places I've lived: Geelong, Australia
Places I've lived: Tamworth, NSW
Places I've Lived - Sydney
Places I've lived: Auckland, NZ
Places I've Lived: Mount Gambier
Places I've lived: Adelaide, SA
Places I've Lived: Perth by Day
Places I've lived: High View, WV
Places I've lived: Lynton, Devon, UK
Places I've lived: Braemar, Scotland
Places I've lived: Barre, MA, USA
Places I've Lived: Perth by Night
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Sunday 8 December 2013
Book review: The Book of Common Prayer by Alan Jacobs
Sunday, December 08, 2013 |
Posted by
Satima Flavell
The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography by Alan Jacobs
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
American academic Alan Jacobs is a Distinguished Professor in the honours program of Baylor University, a Baptist institution in Waco. Texas. He was previously the Clyde Kilby Professor of English at Wheaton College, where he almost became an institution in his own right, spending thirty years in the post. He has been compared to CS Lewis: a fair comparison, given his interests in classical literature and religion. He has, in fact, written on Lewis, with particular reference to his children’s books, in his 2006 opus, The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis. Nonetheless, Jacobs brings a contemporary perspective to his work, as is apparent from the book under consideration here, The Book of Common Prayer - a Biography. It is his thirteenth published book and it forms part of Princeton’s series Lives of Great Religious Books. There are already nine books in the series, with the promise of another dozen or so to come, covering the principal religions of the world and including works as disparate as The Book of Mormon and The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
The subject matter has been discussed by several other works, notably Sussex University’s Professor Brian Cummings’s comparative study The Book of Common Prayer: The Texts of 1549, 1559, and 1662 (OUP, 2010). One might suspect that the present work is in some measure Princeton’s response to the Oxford opus: the two works, however, similar though they superficially appear, serve different purposes, Cummings’s book being largely a study of the earliest versions of the texts while Jacobs takes a more straightforwardly historical approach, covering more ground in less detail. He traces the BCP’s origins from its beginnings in Tudor England to its transportation to the colonies and its recent history, with particular reference to its adaptation and development in the USA.
Although this is a scholarly work that will be of interest to church historians and students of Theology and Religious Studies, it will also be appreciated by laymen of similar interests. As a lapsed Anglican with a deep interest in Shakespeare and his life and times, I found it a joy to revisit Archbishop Cranmer’s beautiful prose. What was it about this era, that it could come up with the wondrous works of the Bard of Avon, the metaphysical poetry of John Donne and his contemporaries, the King James Bible – and the BCP? Or to give it its full title in 1662, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church according to the use of the Church of England together with the Psalter or Psalms of David pointed as they are to be sung or said in churches and the form and manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating of bishops, priests, and deacons.
Consciously or unconsciously, Cranmer utilised techniques that creative writing students of today struggle to do half as well – repetition, balanced antithesis, metaphor – all these and more Cranmer called into service, setting a high bar for later writers of devotional texts. It matters not what Christian denomination one follows: the solemnisation of marriage invariably begins with ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together…’ or something similar that closely echoes Cranmer’s words. Modernised versions of Cranmer’s text, or modern efforts to rewrite the Latin of the Mass into English, such as those that followed the Second Vatican Council, fail miserably when compared to the beauty of Cranmer’s work. Alan Jacobs makes us very aware of our debt to Cranmer.
The Book of Common Prayer – a Biography is well set out, easy to follow, well-referenced and indexed and pleasing to look at. The only thing I did not like about this book was its ’handle’. It’s a good size and looks attractive, but the dust jacket feels like some nasty synthetic fabric, even though it is definitely paper! However, dust jackets are easily removed or covered by some other material, and it certainly wasn’t enough to make me set the book aside.
The author runs a Tumblr blog for the book at http://bookofcommonprayer.tumblr.com/
This is a five-star book. Thank you, Professor Jacobs, and thank you, Princeton University Press.
Alan Jacobs The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography
View all my Goodreads reviews
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
American academic Alan Jacobs is a Distinguished Professor in the honours program of Baylor University, a Baptist institution in Waco. Texas. He was previously the Clyde Kilby Professor of English at Wheaton College, where he almost became an institution in his own right, spending thirty years in the post. He has been compared to CS Lewis: a fair comparison, given his interests in classical literature and religion. He has, in fact, written on Lewis, with particular reference to his children’s books, in his 2006 opus, The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis. Nonetheless, Jacobs brings a contemporary perspective to his work, as is apparent from the book under consideration here, The Book of Common Prayer - a Biography. It is his thirteenth published book and it forms part of Princeton’s series Lives of Great Religious Books. There are already nine books in the series, with the promise of another dozen or so to come, covering the principal religions of the world and including works as disparate as The Book of Mormon and The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
The subject matter has been discussed by several other works, notably Sussex University’s Professor Brian Cummings’s comparative study The Book of Common Prayer: The Texts of 1549, 1559, and 1662 (OUP, 2010). One might suspect that the present work is in some measure Princeton’s response to the Oxford opus: the two works, however, similar though they superficially appear, serve different purposes, Cummings’s book being largely a study of the earliest versions of the texts while Jacobs takes a more straightforwardly historical approach, covering more ground in less detail. He traces the BCP’s origins from its beginnings in Tudor England to its transportation to the colonies and its recent history, with particular reference to its adaptation and development in the USA.
Although this is a scholarly work that will be of interest to church historians and students of Theology and Religious Studies, it will also be appreciated by laymen of similar interests. As a lapsed Anglican with a deep interest in Shakespeare and his life and times, I found it a joy to revisit Archbishop Cranmer’s beautiful prose. What was it about this era, that it could come up with the wondrous works of the Bard of Avon, the metaphysical poetry of John Donne and his contemporaries, the King James Bible – and the BCP? Or to give it its full title in 1662, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church according to the use of the Church of England together with the Psalter or Psalms of David pointed as they are to be sung or said in churches and the form and manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating of bishops, priests, and deacons.
Consciously or unconsciously, Cranmer utilised techniques that creative writing students of today struggle to do half as well – repetition, balanced antithesis, metaphor – all these and more Cranmer called into service, setting a high bar for later writers of devotional texts. It matters not what Christian denomination one follows: the solemnisation of marriage invariably begins with ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together…’ or something similar that closely echoes Cranmer’s words. Modernised versions of Cranmer’s text, or modern efforts to rewrite the Latin of the Mass into English, such as those that followed the Second Vatican Council, fail miserably when compared to the beauty of Cranmer’s work. Alan Jacobs makes us very aware of our debt to Cranmer.
The Book of Common Prayer – a Biography is well set out, easy to follow, well-referenced and indexed and pleasing to look at. The only thing I did not like about this book was its ’handle’. It’s a good size and looks attractive, but the dust jacket feels like some nasty synthetic fabric, even though it is definitely paper! However, dust jackets are easily removed or covered by some other material, and it certainly wasn’t enough to make me set the book aside.
The author runs a Tumblr blog for the book at http://bookofcommonprayer.tumblr.com/
This is a five-star book. Thank you, Professor Jacobs, and thank you, Princeton University Press.
Alan Jacobs The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography
View all my Goodreads reviews
Thursday 5 December 2013
Here's a meme that's doing the rounds
Thursday, December 05, 2013 |
Posted by
Satima Flavell
To play along, just answer the following three questions…
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?
I'm currently reading several books. Since I've had a Kindle I've found I'm happy to skip from one book to another, although not without conscience as I'm not a natural book-hopper. In the past, if I ever read two books at once, one of them would be fiction and the other would be non-fiction of some kind. Now, however, I have become a promiscuous reader, dipping into one book after another as the fancy takes me. It's so easy when you can get a new book without leaving your chair - and excellent for reading on public transport! My selection at the moment includes The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge; Catalina by DannyFahey; Daughters of Icarus by Josie Brown; The Emotional Thesaurus by Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman; Saxons, Vikings and Celts by Bryan Sykes; Dangerous Women, (an anthology edited by George RR Martin and Gardner Duzois); Hal Junior: The Missing Case by Simon Haynes, William Shakespeare's Star Wars, by Ian Doescher and Kinslayer by Jay Kristoff.
The book I most recently finished is The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography by Alan Jacob. I shall write a review when I've had a few days to think about it. It's actually a biography of the prayer book, not of a person, and it is of considerable interest to me for several reasons. You'll find out what they are when the review turns up here!
What shall I read next? Well, I have a To-Be-Read pile taller than I am, and it will not get any shorter because I keep buying more. The newer books are nearly all in Kindle format, and it's just too easy - they are inexpensive and can be downloaded onto my Kindle with just one click on Amazon! I feel guilty for book-hopping and not finishing some of them in a timely manner, but I suspect that this is the new pattern of reading for many people. It has its problems, of course - if I leave some of the books alone for several weeks I find I can't remember which one is which! However, I am getting behind with Marianne de Pierres's output - I haven't read the last two Tara Sharp novels yet, and de Pierres has a new Sci-Fi Western called Peacemaker coming out soon, so one of these could be my next read. Here's the cover of the latest book, to whet your appetites!
Please pick this meme up and run with it if you want to - and do leave a message on this post to tell me where to find your answers!
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