Rome: pagan days to papal centuries The Popes: A History By John Julius Norwich (Chatto & Windus, €33 / £25.00) Rome: A CulturalHistory By Robert Hughes (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, €33.00 / £25.00) Michael Collins The leading art critic, Robert Hughes, familiar to many for his history of his native Australia, has distilled his life-long passion…
If the Inquisition is Exhibit A in the case against religion and more specifically the Catholic Church, then the Crusades are probably Exhibit B. A few nights ago BBC 2 aired the first of a new three-part series about the Crusades kicking off with the First Crusade. I was hoping for a slightly more balanced…
Lyric FM Gloria Listeners to Sunday morning’s Lyric FM Gloria will instantly recognise Tim Thurston. His rich baritone voice and unusual name arrests anybody turning the dial and tuning in. The popular Sunday morning radio programme, which runs from 8am to 10am, had its beginnings in December 1996. It was a selection of Christmas…
Sending letters of love from Zambia Wexford’s Fr Fritz O’Kelly tells of life on the African Missions in a collection of letters now published in book form Dear friends, A word of encouragement from Helmut Kathower prompts me to attempt to write a newsletter to my friends this Christmas. He was a young German…
Christmas books for all tastes As always at this time of year we publish a selection of books suitable for all ages at Christmas Compiled by the Books’ Editor Keeping Christmas Well By Artemsia D’Ecca (Phaeton Publishing, €29.00 / £25.00) This is an amusing and seasonal book from a newish Irish publishing house…
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… A year of predictable sequels, dire re-makes, the occasonal gem, eccentric ‘indie’ films getting swallowed up by the comglomerates — so what else is new? It began with a lot of whataboutery as to whether Roman Polanski was going to do…
Just a century ago, the firm of Karl Baedeker in Leipzig issued a new edition of their guide to Palestine and Syria. I have been looking through this stout, but easily handled little volume of over 400 pages, bound in bright red cloth, hoping to catch glimpses of the Holy Land as it was…
Aubrey Malone
Peter Costello