Chronicles of Old London Exploring England's Historical Capital by Kevin Jackson

Chronicles of Old London Exploring England's Historical Capital by Kevin

Jackson is a new touristic guide released by Museyon Books.

The history of London is lost in the fog of the time because she has an ancient history populated by the domination of Romans. The nation had also a great catholic history 'till at the arrival of Henry VIII, who, for a reason or another, officially he wanted to divorce from one of his numerous wives and the Pope said no, decided of breaking the relationship with Rome with the creation of the Anglican Church. Luther had previously done the same in Germany followed by Calvin in Switzerland.  Temptatives of a return to the past and the catholicism? Of course, with Mary I, Queen of England, second wife of Felipe II,the so-called nicknamed Bloody Mary. She killed all the possible protestants, punishing with her paranoid behavior a lot of innocent people.

Elizabeth I was a special character. Beautiful when young, when not anymore so fresh, she asked in a daily base to everyone if she was as attractive as she was before. They could be servants or important people. 

The big love story with Essex was in part tragi-comic. For various reasons the two stayed separated at long and once returned, Essex asked for his price. He entered in the bedroom of the Queen, finding her as she was before make-up and various embellishment and his surprise was pretty, ahem, shocking. He was imprisoned and considering that the Queen remained nasty with him after all he publicly declared that:  “Her conditions are as crooked as her carcass!”

After all he was executed and that beautiful head, once the Queen was in love forwas severed from the rest of the body after three strokes. 

It's in this period that a lot of fertile authors became successful and some of them like Shakespeare and Marlowe immortals: 

Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson and William Shakespearem Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, John Donne, Thomas Nashe, Thomas Chapman and many more.

 The Great Fire of London from the 2-5 September 1666 helped under many ways the plague and its disappearance. It seems that from the kitchen of the Queen something went wrong and a little burn started to take place, invading later all London. It was the most profound chaos, reported diligently also by Samuel Pepys in his famous Diary and the destruction of London. 

I found touching the love story between Keats and Fanny Brawne. One of my favorite british poets, John Keats lived a short life, died at just 25 years, loved a girl that couldn't never become his wife because he was too poor, but his production is immortal and fresh as if written today or just yesterday.

Charles Dickens is another tribulated genius of british literature. His lifepretty complicated, he gave us back masterpieces like The PickWick Papers, A Christmas Carol and much more.

Queen Victoria inaugurated also the period called by everyone the Victorian-one; lights and shadows would have characterized this reign.

Everything started on Nov 9 1888, when in one of the poorest corners of London a prostitues Mary Jane Kelly is found killed and ripped. If you look on the net at the imagine of the faces of all these girls once dead you will notice their personal desperation, fear and horror. Also once dead they could not find peace. A peace removed by a still unknown serial-killer. Between April 3, 1888, and February 13, 1891, there were at least eleven cases of prostitutes being killed. London was in a complete chaos. People wanted justice, but this justice never arrived and the murder of these crimes hasn't never had a name. Why this?

A lot of important people ended in the list of the potential murders including, can you belive it? Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll and Jekyll and Hide actor Richard Mansfield. As known and as also reported here, it sounded that a member of the entourage of the Queen loved to spend his free time in that places and in company of prostitutes; other names evidenced a lot of lack of imagination but strangely, after a while the Ripper didn't kill anymore anyone. Who knows why?

Oscar Wilde: I adore this writer, I will always adore him and no one is in grade of writing as profoundly as he did. 

Oh: he wasn't perfect at all. He was married but he was also homosexual and in UK this one was a terrible crime once and for this reason there was a trial on 1895. Recognized guilty Oscar Wilde died poor, deaf, friendless mostly, and devastated. In prison he wrote the De Profundis, the longest love-letter never written before.

He was a special and authentic soul in a land of falsity.

With the new century we discover Winston Churchill and later The Beatles, the band maybe more famous in the world.

Without forgetting the great big sadness left by Lady Diana, gone too soon, a new wonderful wedding cemented the union between Prince William and Kate Middleton. 

The book as always suggests various walks: Kensington, Chelsea, Westmister, Strand and Covent Garden,  Soho, Bloomsbury, and more.

London is like a magnet. A magnet for everyone because London contains, also your own history to live in that city. 

Characters, writers, musicians, it's impossible to remain insensitive at a city like this one!

I thank Museyon Books for the copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Pennsylvania Germans An Interpretative Encyclopedia Edited by Simon J. Bronner and Joshua R. Brown

Pennsylvania Germans An Interpretative Encyclopedia Edited by

Simon J. Bronner and Joshua R. Brown is a tome published by Johns Hopkins University.

Pennsylvania Germans are profoundly known for their unicity and this encyclopedia wants to put together all the most important facts  of this ethnic and sunny group.

Pennsylvanian Germans once arrived in the South of the State centuries ago decided also for historical reasons of staying all together. 

No dispersion, no research of other stories if not the own created and lived in their internal social tissue; not the research of the unknwon now that they were in the new world. 

This behavior, under many ways pretty radical and distant meant the preservation of their language, not intacted by english; the creation of their American dreams have been a chant with their personal  faith (see at the voice Amish); Pennsylvania Germans created in the rural areas occupied by them big and warm houses thanks to exceptional stoves; they had oversized barns, a rural life pretty rich of animals, veggies, every sorta of fruit you can think at; often these rural houses had also extra buildings; great and robust food the German one, ladies researched from the beginning their own unicity in the expression and the creation of warm objects for the house. The biggest symbol of their domestic work during the long winter-nights are quilts. Less or more elaborated, they became the flag of the warmth of Pennsylvanian Germans although it would be reductive writing that these women just created and create quilts. 

Men are great wooden-workers, leather workers, (and not only: name a creative activity where the use of hands is implied and I am sure it's in this book) but also great clockmasters.

People of strong opinion, only during the XX century a part of them tried an assimilation thanks to the education, with the common culture.

For the rest, Pennsylvania Germans are an ethnic group pretty strong in terms of opinions and personal beliefs and nothing, nothing, changed a destiny that they wanted to preserve; they didn't experience the intrusion of other communities from the rest of the world afforded to the Usa; they didn't search for these intruders. They stayed compact, all together, and they created their own world in the new world.

This book, accompanied by a lot of pictures is divided in two parts.

In the first one the story of the Pennsylvania Germans, the second part is dedicated to culture and society.

So you will find literature close with religion; a chapter is dedicated to the Amish; Agriculture and industries, Food and Cooking, Medicine, Floklore and Folklife, and much more.

Who should read this book? Everyone, because it is written with extreme clarity.

If you are in love for Amish or other Germans minority of the USA, this one could be the good occasion for discovering much more in terms of history and curious anecdots.

I thank Johns Hopkins University Press for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori 

CHRONICLES OF OLD PARIS Exploring the historic city of light City by John Baxter

Paris is one of the most stunning cities of the world; often choosen for finding ourselves; choosen by couples for romantic week-ends or trips. For this reason no other one like John Baxter can guides you through Paris telling to you in this latest book published by Museyon the CHRONICLES OF

OLD PARIS Exploring the historic city of light City, what Paris means to Parisiennes and tourists.

Let's start to say that maybe French people are fixated with heads and...headless people and everything started with the 

saint protector of France, Saint Denis. 

Catholic, he vibrantly tried  to convert a lot of pagans of the area; the story didn't convince at all the protectors of paganism and so Saint Denis was killed. Legend wants that Saint Denis, once killed keeping his own head on his hands walked for various miles before to dying. The author writes: "The severed head preached a sermon on love and forgiveness... Arriving at the home of a parishioner, a wealthy woman named Catulla, he handed her his head and died at her feet. She buried him on the spot. Wheat and other plants sprouted miraculously from the grave..."

And the story sounds real. No, wait: not that the saint walked keeping on his hands his head but as reported by the author: "Some accounts suggest the swordsman missed his mark and sliced off only the top of his skull – by no means rare;

executioners were notoriously inept. Such slipshod work may explain why he didn’t die immediately, since not all such head wounds are immediately fatal." 

The Left Bank is surely the place more culturally fertile of Paris and same it was in the High Middle Ages when a young boy called Pierre Abelard afforded there. Abelard joined the cathedral school of Notre Dame and after a while he started to interact with Heloise, a relative, maybe of Fulbert. Considering that, according to Abelard the girl needed some private lessons,"He convinced Fulbert he should move into their home as her tutor. Inevitably, the couple became lovers" writes Baxter. And soon the arrival also, of a child. Illegittimate. What to do? Heloise was more sure that "it would be dearer and more honorable to me to be called... your whore” declared to Abelard. She didn't want to become a nun, and Abelard didn't want to become a friar.

For some misunderstanding there was an escalation of facts: Abelard was castrated. It was an immense tragedy for the two lovers. Heloise became a nun although she wrote in a letter to her ex lover: "“Even during the celebration of mass,when our prayers should be purer, lewd visions of those pleasures take such a hold upon my unhappy soul that my thoughts are on their wantoness instead of on our prayers." 

I imagine you read some books by De Sade. Personally I was introduced at one of them The 120 Days of Sodom by a friend of mine during high school. The most lurid book I have ever read, De Sade had sex with female and male servants, imported prostitutes to one of the castles where he lived in and seduced his young sister-in-law when she came to visit.

The wife became the mistress of a man close to Robespierre and considering that De Sade was often incarcerated, he avoided the guillotine for this reason.

Onxe his most famous works published De Sade publicly admitted the horrified actions of the men described in that books in this wat: "If man is indeed born with free will,he has the right to commit the worst of crimes, just as his victims have the

right to avenge them". 

This was too much even for Napoleon. Imprisoned again, De Sade became in prison the lover of the prison governor’s 13-year-old daughter. The little woman was there when he died.

The book will also take in consideration Marie Antoinette. Hated and misunderstood by the folk, her life will end tragically.

In what way people were assassinated or killed in France? Execution could count before the invention of the guillotine on the wheel. "The victim tied to a wagon wheel and his bones broken one by one with an iron bar" explains Baxter.

For richest people the end was quickest:  strangled, stabbed or poisoned. 

With the Revolution monsieur Guillotine became a deputy of the Parliament and his genial idea of cutting heads pretty quickly sounded truly fascinating. The first execution April 25, 1792, this new method of execution became Madame La Guillotine.

At the end more than 40,000 people were killed with the guillotine and one of the last ones was Robespierre.

Mr.Guillotine in the while, decided of changing his last name, for the shame he constantly proved: he was the founder of this brutal method of execution. He needed a new, fresh start.

Napoleon and the sad existence of Chopin and his relationship with George Sand will also be taken in consideration. Madame Duplessis, once dead would have become La Dame aux Camelias. "Born Alphonsine Rose Plessis in 1824, she had a prostitute for a grandmother and a priest for a grandfather. Her father, Marin Plessis, was a violent alcoholic."

Once grown up and with tubercolosis Alphonsine understood that if she wanted to live a longer life she had to become the mistress of a rich man. Alexander Dumas became the lover of Alphonsine. Both 18 years, he completely lost his head for this girl, but Alphonsine didn't want to be "exclusive meat" of Dumas and so the relationship ended up pretty acrimoniously with an upset Dumas who in a bitter letter wrote: “My Dear Marie, I am neither rich enough to love you as I could wish nor poor enough to be loved as you wish."

Dumas didn't forget her and once she died, he wrote La Dame aux Camélias telling their love-story. The book was not a great success, but on stage it was. Giuseppe Verdi called this sad love story La Traviata. 

The characteristics of these women? “We don’t own ourselves” said Duplessis, once. Violetta in La Traviata searched for pleasure, love 'till the end, staying always free.

In this book Baxter will let us discover the story of Escoffier, maybe the most known chef of France, (Ritz, Savoy) but also the the creation of the Opera Garnier, thank at Charles Garnier, and the one of the Eiffel Tower thanks to Gustave Eiffel. 

We will indulge at Monmartre, we will understood the theft of La Mona Lisa, giving a look at Marcel Proust and at that research of lost time; Coco Chanel, Hemingway and the gang of the Left Bank in the 1920s with Sylvia Beach, James Joyce can't be forgotten, like also the so-called Black Pearl, and Jean Mulin.

A chapter will treat the Beat Generation and another one the Students Revolution of 1968.

The book ends with wonderful walks in Paris.

Ah, what a dream!

You can't lose this book. It's too fascinating!

I thank Museyon Books fot the copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori 

The Business of Writing for Children An Award-Winning Author’s Tips on How to Write, Sell, and Promote Your Children’s Books by Aaron Shepard

The Business of

Writing for

Children An Award-Winning Author’s Tips on How to

Write, Sell, and Promote Your Children’s Books by Aaron Shepard is an indispensible tool if you want to start to write children's books.

You musn't never think that it is ssimple to write good children's books

Personally, when I pick up a children's book I am very selective. As also said Isaac Bashevis Singer in a famous quote: "In our time, when the literature for adults is deteriorating, good books for children are the only hope, the only refuge."

This book will help you to understand tips and tricks that, differently you would learn after a lot of years of experience in this field.

The first that should be understood is that it is not simple to make some money with children's books, if not after a lot of years of practice. 

If in the chapter Thruths and Myths we will see what it is real and what it is just a myth in the editorial field of children's books, in the second chapter, The Basics, the author will define the field of your work. Are you interested to work for beginning readers or for teenagers? For everyone tips and tricks, for creating a good and captivating story.

Then the submission of the story and what it is now a publishing house, with all the possible differences existing in the sector; a big one, an independent, an epublisher etc treating alsocontract and rights, royalties.

Shepard will also write down several pages about the distribution of the book once published. The second part start with the suggestion of scripting the story, where there are not too many dialogues,in particular when the children's writer writes mainly for toddlers and so he lacks some fantasy.

Dialogue and action must become two words close together. I also found interesting and funny the ways for promoting a first children's book.

Beautiful and interesting for sure, highly recommended to all the future children'swriters of this world.

Good Luck!

I thank NetGalley for this ebook.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Antonio Ligabue Gli anni della Formazione (1899-1919) by Renato Martinoni

Antonio Ligabue Gli anni della

Formazione (1899-1919) by Renato Martinoni analyzes the so-called formative years of his existence. Born in fact in 1899, and adopted by another family, the Gobels, when just 9 month old, this book take in consideration the first 20 years of Ligabue's existence, the years in grade to make the difference in the existence of a man for the rest of his life. It's a pretty sad and realistic book under many ways, plenty of documents, letters, certificates of psychiatric structures, articles of newsmagazines, because as you will read, not just the existence of Ligabue will be devastating, but also the one of his family of origin. At the same time also the adopting family experienced heavy problems with Antonio because of his difficult character, cause, this one of big sufferance. Plus there is the personal calvary of Ligabue, an immensity of internal sufferance, genereting later violence against her adoptive mother. The original family of Ligabue will be decimated on 1913, you will read the reason, a sad story and only the husband, the step-dad of Ligabue, Laccabue, will survive at that devastation, dying with tranquillity when old.

The new family of Ligabue hoped in a brilliant future for this poor baby, but little Antonio was a problematic human being so he started to spend most of his time in private institutes for special children and later in psichiatric structures. The family followed the mental illness of their son also changing house periodically for staying close to the various institutes where Antonio would have spent years sometimes.

There's to add that at the age of 7 little Antonio fell down from a tree injuring the head; said that, you musn't imagine that the toddler, the kid, then the teen-ager he became didn't have a formation. He studied and assimilated culture; he was fascinated by painting and sculpture, thanks also to the two years spent at the school of Marbach,  an innovative institute in the sector of curative pedagogy. Each student was stimulated in base at their natural tendencies. What this school wanted to do, was at the end, to trying to create a good manual job for all these people with some mental disturbs. For many reasons anyway the institute decided at the end of not keeping Antonio anymore.

Extremely complicated, Antonio was later expulse from Switzerland.

Ligabue became famous thanks to his paintings made in Emilia. Hills, fields, people and animals of that italian region; he lived there for more than 20 years!

A book that will reveal to all of you the tragedy and geniality of an existence still young lived in marginality. Ligabue was considered in Italy, "German", or Crazy and loved to spend more time close to animals than not humans.  

Antonio Ligabue, is called the "italian" Van Gogh. Same, in part, path, this painter has experienced a much more difficult existence if compared to the one of Van Gogh to my point of view. 

Van Gogh was supported by a lot of members of his family, and had excellent skills; he was a letter-writer, he read a lot, he had culture. He didn't suffer of particular deficincies. He travelled and stayed distant from his family at long. 

He was a brilliant man, with, of course, a lot of demons in his soul, but... He was surrounded by quality-friends and great artists. He didn't live marginalized but was part of the tissue of the society and operated in connection with the artists of the Impressionist's period.

Of course no one, if a real creative, would become great, if he wouldn't suffer a lot during the existence. 

This cover brings a curiosity: the painter, the Self-Portrait with Scarecrow was part of the collection of the ex patron of Parmalat and will be sold again soon.

I thank Marsilio for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Collection of Love Gifts by Helen Steiner Rice

If you need a book in grade to cheer you up, changing the course of your day I would suggest this one by Barbour. I just jope I haven't reviewed this one. I discovered it in a folder classified as EPUB, PDF. I miss and I miss a lot reading and reviewing Barbour books,through NetGalley and I count to sort out the problem of my reader soon.

It's a real Love Gift A Collection of Love Gifts by Helen Steiner

Rice. When I started to read her reflections, her poems I remained surprised by their profoundity, their humanity and delicate touch. Written and dedicated to all of us, these poems and reflections are great because they  inspire only positive vibes, just words of encouragement if you need it. Of course you can read these phrases also when you want more energy, or when you are searching for a most profound connection with life, God, situations. Sometimes life is unfair, other times can be upsetting, although there is no problem that the author hasn't touched for cheer you up leeting you feel not just that you are alive, but important, and taken in consideration by God; your work is important whatever you do, and you life is precious. So let's stay cheerful everyday as suggest the author, because it is a mental state more healthy. Plus, when our heart is cheerful, fear can't stay close to us.

From a chinese proverb:

For you can't do a kindness

without a reward,

not in silver nor gold

but in joy from the Lord ---

You can't light a candle

to show others the way

Without feeling the warmth

of that bright little ray----

And you can't pluck a rose,

all fragrant with dew,

Without part of its fragrance 

remaining with you.

Beautiful, highly suggested to everyone! 

Anna Maria Polidori 

Books for Dogs stellarly on the net

It's with great joy that I can announce to all my local readers that the charity Books for Dogs created several years ago by a bunch of british and Americans ladies located in Umbertide, close to Perugia has a website: booksfordogs.org where you'll find a lot of news, photos of dogs in adoption and much much more.

If you are also curious, you can visit the profile of the various ladies behind this charity, sometimes "lived" as mysterious, because unknown, with a brief biography of some of them. Gill the scones lady, Penny, the founder, Angela, as the name tell that, the messenger of news for all estimators of the charity. 

Not only: the ladies launched themselves and the charity on Facebook creating a page called booksfordogs_libripercani, very well done and where you can post impressions, asking info if you want to adopt a dog or if you need to donate something to the ladies for this good cause.

The ladies are exttremely active and only on 2018 they accumulated more than 12.500 euros for the charity. "Never seen all that money before. It has been a wonderful year." 

At the moment Angela shared with us the news that the charity recently donated 3.100 euros to Ponte Pattoli refuge for various urgent urgently needed things. "We are very pleased to be able to be of help to Lia who runs the refuge and works tirelessly for the dogs in her care" confirms Angela while she sips a warm cup of tea, eating a delicious scone while we are talking.

It's a never-ending job the one of a charity like Books for Dogs, because shelters, refuge, dogs, first of all need constantly something else.

"At the moment we are searching for a new home for Rambo. This dog is 7 years old microchipped, vaccinated, sterilised, and has a passport, if you love to travelling a lot and you don't want to stay too distant from your beloved dog. His previous owner is dead and at the moment the dog is alone waiting for someone else in grade of loving him as his previous owner did."

The ladies are also searching for used books, DVDS, used cloths but in wonderful conditions, puzzles, games of various genre, kitchen items, cups, plates, forks, candlesticks, sofas, chairs, furniture, items for living rooms: whatever you can think at.

So: if you are throwing away something remember that these ladies will be more than happy of accepting your old but good clothes, your books if you can't keep them anymore because too many, DVDS and all the possible stuff you can think at.

These ones the latest books I brought home.

Tell if I don't have a great taste, and if they don't keep great literature. The best store where you can find great books.

I love spending a lot of time in their shop on Wednesday and Saturday. There is also a comfy chair where I can sit and read, while I am choosing the various books; but it's not just books.

If you need warm blankets for the long approaching winter-time you can find them at a cheap price; if you search for hot bottles of water, well, go for them, because they have them. I bought two hot bottle of water and they are of great quality!

I also bought a beautiful red shirt; wonderful color and again great quality. 

If you search for a good used bag, it's the best place where you can find it. 

It's not important the reason why you can stop by at the second hand bazar and bookstore of the ladies of Books for Dogs. I just know that in that place you will find what you are searching for.

Anna Maria Polidori