Ancient Ireland: An Explorer's Guide (Travel)

Book Description

A splendid guidebook to Ireland's spectacular antiquities-its passage tombs, ring forts, castles, Neolithic settlements, and monastic sites. With its witty and erudite explorations of Irish mythology, history, literature, archaeology, and architecture, this travel book makes for an excellent companion on a journey to Ireland that is also a journey back in time.

Along with fascinating overviews of prehistoric, Celtic, early Christian, and early medieval times, Meagher gives the traveler concrete help in finding the most stunning sites that preserve and breathe that history today (some are surprisingly unknown). After the day's exploring is done, readers can consult the same volume to find where to stay and eat... or entertaining bed-time reading in Meagher's lore about these ancient sites.

In Ancient Ireland, Meagher brings both his passionate scholarship and knowledge of the country and its history to a guide that is at once personal, humorous, engaging, scholarly, and still minutely practical.

Customer Reviews:

Useful car tour guide to some of the best sites .......2006-06-03

The "Book Description" given under Editorial Reviews is a fair account of the book content.
Other than the introductory historical overview, the book comprises three itineraries for those with a car. The book is not aimed at those using Irelands public transport.
The itineraries are not based geographically but on three historical periods:
-Pre celtic, neolithic and Bronze age
-Pre Christian celtic and late Bronze age
-Early Christian, Irish golden age and medieval

The first itinerary covering 4000BCE to 700BCE starts in Dublin and takes you to the following principal sites: National musuem of Ireland in Dublin, Bru na Boinne-Newgrange and Knowth passage tombs, Loughcrew hilltop passage tomb complex, Carrowkeel and Carrowmore neolithic cemetery complexes near Sligo, Knocknarea mountain top cairn, Creevykeel court cairn, Ceide Fields neolithic farm settlement, Pulnabrone portal tomb and wedge tombs in Burren National Park (south of Galway), Lough Gur neolithic settlement site, Grange stone circle (largest in Ireland) and nearby wedge tomb (all south of Limerick), Fourknocks passage tomb and Pipers Stones stone circle, and thence back to Dublin. In my opinion it is a good selection of the sites from that period.
The other two itineraries take you to such sites as the Hill of Tara, Croagh Patrick, Clonmacnoise, Gallarus oratory near Dingle, Skellig Michael off the west coast, Ardmore, Rock of Cashel, Jeppoint Abbey ( I loved the wonderful carvings), and Glendalough ( just south of Dublin). Again I think these are a good selection of the best known sites.

There are maps of the individual sites. However there is just one overall map that shows the 3 routes on one page. Most travelers will want to see sites from all three periods as they tour around, and the book really offers no advice if you wish to do this. But you can do it, as I did, with help of good maps. There are few suggestions of many additional sites to visit if you are keen and have more time. A short gazetter of such sites and location at the back would have been useful.
The book also offers no suggestions for further reading on particular periods or sites if you wished to do so.
With these reservations aside, as a colourful travel introduction to ancient sites of Ireland, it is a very good book.

For more advice on other sites worth visiting try Peter Harbisons "Guide to the National and Historic monuments of Ireland" 2001 edition with map references you can link to the very fine 1:250,000 scale touring maps produced by the Irish Ordnance Survey which show lots of such ancient and historic sites as named small red dots (and lots of tourist sites as well). I know as I used these maps.
Go and explore!

A handy, "must-have" for Irish history buffs.......2004-07-09

Gorgeous color photography illustrates Ancient Ireland: An Explorer's Guide, which leads both the prospective tourist and the armchair traveler on itineraries following landmarks from prehistoric times to medieval ages. Maps, extensive descriptions, lodging recommendations, and inviting background information on the sites that allow one to view Ireland as it has been through the ages of time distinguish this handy, "must-have" for Irish history buffs planning to travel and see the land's wonders for themselves.

Producing and the Theatre Business: American Theatre Wing (Working in the Theatre Seminars)

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Producing and the Theatre Business: American Theatre Wing (Working in the Theatre Seminars)

Manufacturer: Continuum International Publishing Group
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Binding: Paperback

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The Commercial Theater Institute Guide to Producing Plays and Musicals (Commercial Theater Institute)
From Option to Opening : aguide to Producing Plays Off Broadway - Revised and Updated
Producing Theatre : A Comprehensive and Legal Business Guide

ASIN: 0826418112

Book Description

The newest volume drawn from the American Theatre Wing--creator of the Tony Awards--archive of transcripts from the popular discussion series of Working in the Theatre seminars is now available. Theatre is a creative and collaborative enterprise. But like any enterprise in a capitalistic culture, it must rely on the initial flow of money from entrepreneurs and investors. There can be an uneasy relationship between commerce and creativity. But this book dispels this easy notion, in the process demystfying the work of producers on Broadway, off-Broadway, and the West End. As Oscar Hammerstein observed: "A producer is a rare, paradoxical genius--hardheaded, soft-hearted, cautious, reckless, a hopeful innocent in fair weather, a stern pilot in stormy weather, an idealist, a practical dreamer, a sophisticated gambler, a stage-struck child." By examining the funding of theatre today, this book is an invaluable examination of what a producer does in terms of selecting the work, finding backers, dealing with unions, advertising, and much more. Although economics is called the dismal science, nothing could be further from the truth in this lively collection of free and collegial discussions.

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Only one side of a great songwriter
A Revelation
A massive monument in Americal musical history

The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin
Robert Kimball , and Linda Berlin Emmet
Manufacturer: Applause Books
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Binding: Paperback

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Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
The Complete Lyrics of Frank Loesser
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The Complete Lyrics of Lorenz Hart
Cole Porter: Selected Lyrics (American Poets Project)

ASIN: 1557836817

Book Description

Gathered together in one volume for the first time, here are all of the incomparable song lyrics of Irving Berlin - the lyrics of more than 1,200 songs, 400 of which have never before appeared in print - along with anecdotal, historical, and musicological commentary and dozens of photographs. Berlin came from a poor immigrant family and began his career as a singing waiter, but by the time he was nineteen he was publishing his songs and quickly found fame with "Alexander's Ragtime Band" in 1911. In the extraordinary six decades that followed, Berlin wrote one popular hit after another: Blue Skies * Always * Cheek to Cheek * White Christmas * God Bless America * There's No Business Like Show Business * and many more. He also wrote a number of the classics of musical theater's Golden Age, climaxing with Annie Get Your Gun. He penned three Astaire and Rogers films - Top Hat, Carefree, and Follow the Fleet - as well as the scores of Holiday Inn, Easter Parade, and other films. The breadth of his accomplishment is staggering.

Customer Reviews:

Only one side of a great songwriter.......2007-02-21

The problem with pop-tune anthologies is that song lyrics have to be heard, not read, and only with their music. Especially so with an Irving Berlin, who did nearly all his work for the theater and films, and for whom the presentation was as important as the song. (Picture "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody" without Ziegfeld's beauties -- impossible.) And the fact is Berlin's lines could be flat-out flat-footedly corny. "A melody mellow/Played on a cello" can only provoke giggles in those unfamiliar with the songs, which I fear is the norm these days; at his worst he's downright clueless. (As in his proposed jingle for an unproduced NBC spectacular: "Everybody step,/Have a drink of Coca-Cola -- /It's the finest pepperola...." Pepsi-Cola?) But this is the problem with comprehensiveness. There are too many "rag" songs and "coon" songs and "step-step-step" songs, too many singing musical notes and dancing edibles, too much high-flown love treacle, too little of the poetry and wit that marked golden-age pop songwriting at its finest. Even the most interesting ones like "Sadie Salome (Go Home)", fresh with their impudent suggestiveness, can only hint at their marvels. And the chronological layout inevitably sets up the drab finish of the decades of verbal noodling, reclusion and despair. Yes he wrote catchy tunes in the early days, but Berlin didn't really come into his own until late, with his thirties revues, and the Fred-and-Ginger scores, and "Holiday Inn", and "This is the Army", and "Easter Parade", and his one true masterpiece, "Annie Get Your Gun." These are works to be savored, not anthologized. And it took a special talent to bring out Berlin's real measure: listen to Blue Eyes and TD and their larger-than-life rendition of "Be Careful, It's My Heart" to know it. Moreover Red Norvo's "Remember" and Les Brown's "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" and the sumptuous instrumental "New Amsterdam Roof" from "Easter Parade" (on the Rhino soundtrack album) make the strong case that Berlin is at his best without words.

That said, there can be no doubting the completeness, the care, the diligence that went into this collection (even if the phrase "No music is known to survive" gets a little tiresome), the obvious love and respect for this show-biz titan. Alas, perhaps the only way to appreciate his greatness is to go back in time to experience it, a further frustration of books like this.

A Revelation.......2002-05-19

I was already a Berlin fan before I got this book. Some of his lyrics are known to almost everyone; he "is" American music. I love to read, hear, and sing his words. But the overwelming bonus of this book is to find out that he wrote so many bad lyrics along with his successes; and I mean downright lousey. I treasure knowing this because I am now aware that A) Writing fabulous lyrics is difficult for ANYONE! - and - B) Writing bad lyrics did not stop Irving Berlin; he just kept churning out material and some of it is immortal. This book is wonderful, particularly for those of us who write songs.

A massive monument in Americal musical history.......2002-02-23

Jerome Kern was not one to compliment other composers. However, when he was asked to assess Irving Berlin's place in American music, Kern replied that Berlin WAS American music. Not too long ago, the A&E channel did two "Classroom" broadcasts about Berlin's life; and by a coincidence, several items concerning this prolific composer have recently come my way. I want to share one of them with you.

It is a wonderful book from publisher Alfred A. Knopf titled "The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin," edited by Robert Kimball and Linda Emmet (one of the composer's three daughters). Now, considering that this man wrote well over a thousand songs, that is quite a bit of material for a single volume. But this one measures roughly 11" by 12" and holds 530 pages, which hold three columns of text. In this way, we get the lyrics to 1,200 songs for which he wrote both words and the music (only a few early songs were set to words by others).

The organization is chronological and intelligently packaged. Unlike Rodgers, Kern and Gershwin, Berlin wrote for Tin Pan Alley as well as for the stage. Therefore the editors have grouped the lyrics by "Songs" that were not intended for a specific show or film and by songs that were. So for 1914, for example, you will get all the independent songs composed that year in one chapter and those written for "Watch Your Step" the same year in a separate chapter. Even more welcome are the lyrics to many songs that were never published! It makes fascinating reading to surmise why these had to wait until this book came along to see the light of day.

To make this book even more valuable, each song is given a little preface concerning copyright dates and other items of interest to the American musical historian. And you will love the full-page photographs that stand at the start of each chapter. There is also an introductory essay and a very useful chronology at the start of the book, while the index at the end can help you locate in the body of the book any song by title with no trouble. So while Berlin's lyrics might not be as clever as those of Cole Porter, Lorenz Hart or Ira Gershwin, many of them will bring back memories of how Americans felt almost from the start to the finish of the last century.

(Take note. Knopf also has available similar tomes for the lyrics of Porter, Hart, and I. Gershwin. Each one is a definite Grabbit.

James Ivory in Conversation: How Merchant Ivory Makes Its Movies
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Intricate Maneuvers

James Ivory in Conversation: How Merchant Ivory Makes Its Movies
Robert Emmet Long
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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My Passage from India: a Filmmaker's Journey from Bombay to Hollywood

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ASIN: 0520234154

Book Description

James Ivory in Conversation is an exclusive series of interviews with a director known for the international scope of his filmmaking on several continents. Three-time Academy Award nominee for best director, responsible for such film classics as A Room with a View and The Remains of the Day, Ivory speaks with remarkable candor and wit about his more than forty years as an independent filmmaker. In this deeply engaging book, he comments on the many aspects of his world-traveling career: his growing up in Oregon (he is not an Englishman, as most Europeans and many Americans think), his early involvement with documentary films that first brought attention to him, his discovery of India, his friendships with celebrated figures here and abroad, his skirmishes with the Picasso family and Thomas Jefferson scholars, his usually candid yet at times explosive relations with actors. Supported by seventy illuminating photographs selected by Ivory himself, the book offers a wealth of previously unavailable information about the director's life and the art of making movies.

Customer Reviews:

Intricate Maneuvers.......2005-12-27

The production values of a famous film auteur are revealed in Robert Emmet Long's book, JAMES IVORY IN CONVERSATION.

Merchant Ivory production secrets are revealed in great detail, with much gossip and in great depth. Long's questions are very knowledgeable, and James Ivory's answers are candid, humorous and often quite pointed. We learn much about his relationship with Anthony Hopkins. We find out such how frightening the Eiffel Tower scene was for the actors in LE DIVORCE. And, we go behind the scenes as Ivory interviews various cast members and finally lands them for roles in his beautiful movies.

His partnership with the late Ismail Merchant is set before us warmly, and his appreciation for India, Paris and Venice are detailed delightfully.

Throughout the interview, Ivory gives the specifics of his many uses for art and artists in his films. The difficulties in working with Picasso's family are well told, and the fabrication of many pieces of art for his films (with permission from the artists, of course) is well explained and fascinating.

Students of film and art will be smiling throughout the book as the settings in so many wonderful films are described with life-like realism.

Reviewed by Larry Rochelle, Author of BOURBON AND BLISS, DEATH AND DEVOTION, THE MEPHISTO DIARY, GULF GHOST and BLUE ICE.

James Fenimore Cooper (Literature and Life)

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James Fenimore Cooper (Literature and Life)
Robert Emmet Long
Manufacturer: Continuum Intl Pub Group (Sd)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Liv Ullmann: Interviews (Conversations With Filmmakers Series)

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Liv Ullmann: Interviews (Conversations With Filmmakers Series)

Manufacturer: University Press of Mississippi
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 157806824X

Book Description

Liv Ullmann (b. 1938) has played many roles over the course of her long life: actress, mother, activist, and author. Her lead performances in such Ingmar Bergman classics as Persona, Scenes from a Marriage, and Cries and Whispers kept her in close proximity to crafts involved in screenwriting, film direction, and production. In 1992, Ullman directed her first film Sofie and, with the quick succession of such recent masterpieces as Private Confessions, Kristin Lavransdatter, and Faithless, Ullmann has emerged as one of the most challenging, startling filmmakers working today. Tracing her artistic evolution, Liv Ullmann: Interviews reveals how her acting and her personal life have shaped her filmmaking. She also does not shy away from exploring her complicated relationship with Bergman. Ullmann candidly discusses how Bergman's work—he wrote the screenplays for Private Confessions and Faithless—has influenced her own, but she also points out the ways in which she has diverged from his cinematic and moral vision. She talks about her feminist activism, her interest in Jewish culture, and her work as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, and how all of these experiences have affected filmmaking.

Book Description

Meagher's translation of Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis captures the horror of a young girl's lonely struggle against a vast army led by her father. Under the ruse of a betrothal to Achilles, Agamemnon, leader of the Greek forces in the war with Troy, sends for his daughter Iphigenia as a sacrifice to improve the fortunes of the Greek army. Iphigenia in Tauris represents her legendary and miraculous salvation.

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Ingmar Bergman: Film and Stage
Robert Emmet Long
Manufacturer: HNA Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0810933225

The Seven Against Thebes (Dover Thrift Editions)

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Aeschylus' play that falls between Oedipus Rex and Antigone
excellent translation from excellent series
When the gods send destruction there is no escape.

The Seven Against Thebes (Dover Thrift Editions)
Aeschylus
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Bacchae

ASIN: 0486414205

Book Description

Third play of a trilogy (the other two are lost) about the doomed family of Laius and Oedipus and his sons. After the city of Thebes has banished Oedipus, the former ruler's sons vie for the crown. The victor, Eteocles, expels his brother, Polyneices, who then recruits 7 champions to lead an assault on Thebes, with a tragic results.

Customer Reviews:

Aeschylus' play that falls between Oedipus Rex and Antigone.......2003-11-12

After the banishment of Oedipus, his twin sons Eteocles and Polyneices were elected co-kings of Thebes. They agreed to reign for alternate years, but Eteocles, would not relinquish the throne at the end of the first year, accusing his brother of having an evil disposition and banishing him from the city. Eventually Polyneices would return with six other champions to lay siege to the city. "The Seven Against Thebes" expedition ends with both Eteocles and Polyneices dead, killed by each other, before the walls of Thebes. After that, the defenders crushed the besiegers and the seven proud generals were all killed, except for Adrastus, who managed to escape thanks to his divine horse, Arion. However, the defenders of Cadmeia, the acropolis of Thebes, had so many losses that from then on any victory which looked more like a defeat as called a Cadmeian victory.

The Aeschylus tragedy "Seven Against Thebes" is the only surviving play of a connected trilogy dealing with the sins of Laius (father of Oedipus) and the curse subsequently brought down upon his descendants. Aeschylus focuses on a prophecy that had been made regarding the sons of Oedipus: "They shall divide their inheritance with the sword in such a manner as to obtain equal shares." The play begins with Eteocles in command of the city and Polyneices arriving with his army of Argive soldiers. It begins with Eteocles making a call to arms and is followed by a description of the oath taken by the seven generals of the attacking armies. When the brothers kill each other during the battle by the walls of Thebes it becomes clear their "equal shares" refers to their common graves. The tragedy ends with a brief appearance by Antigone, who declares her intention to bury her brother Polyneices in defiance of the command of Creon, who now becomes king of Thebes.

This tragedy comes after the events related by Sophocles in "Oedipus at Colonus," but obviously before what happens in his "Antigone." What is interesting here is the psychological portrait that Aeschylus presents of the two brothers, even though only one of them appears in the play (the idea of having to different settings was apparently too much of a radical idea for drama at that time). Such insights are nominally something we would expect from Sophocles, but this is Aeschylus who is developing the split between the brothers in terms of oppositional pairs of characteristics. Clearly the idea is that one cannot exist (live) without the other, which makes their dying together justified by logic as well as the curse on the House of Oedipus.

It is difficult to judge this play and appreciate it as the climax to this particular trilogy without knowing much more about the preceding plays dealing with the two earlier generations of the house of Cadmus. What is clear is that Eteocles does not deserve much sympathy from the audience given that he has a greater culpability in his demise than either his father or his sister, at least in terms of what we know from the plays of Sophocles, which is the flaw in this assessment.

excellent translation from excellent series.......2002-03-16

This excellent edition of Seven Against Thebes is part of Oxford University Press' ongoing series Greek Tragedy in New Translations, the idea behind which is that these plays should be translated into English not just by Greek scholars, but also by poets, to preserve as much of the real communicative power and drama as possible.

This edition is ideal for reluctant students assigned to read Seven Against Thebes, and may even succeed in sparking their interest in the subject. The language is true to the play and stays vivid even through a few static moments.

As with all the plays in this series, the introduction provides information not only about how the translation was accomplished, but also about how the play would have been performed, and perceived, by the ancient Greeks, what's missing from the play (namely, the first two plays of a trilogy), and notes about how the play fits into the scheme of Greek tragedy.

Other plays in the series, such as Oedipus the King, are also highly recommended.

This review applies only to the Hecht/Bacon translation published by Oxford University Press in their Greek Tragedy in New Translations series, and not to the Dover Thrift edition.

When the gods send destruction there is no escape........1999-06-13

This is the third play in a trilogy, the other two being lost. The play results in an end to the curse on the Oedipus family. However, it is different from the approach later used by Sophocles. Here, there is no redemption from within. The curse ends only when the family becomes extinct. The two sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polyneices, who were to share power in Thebes, have quarrelled. Eteocles seizes power and Polyneices goes to get help from Adrastus, King of Argos, and six other kings. Eteocles sends champions to fight the six kings at six of the gates of Thebes. The seventh gate is left to Eteocles. However, that is the gate to which his brother comes. Eteocles feels that he has no choice but to fight and further incur the wrath of the gods by shedding kindred blood. "When the gods send destruction there is no escape." Eteocles had an "out" of his predicament but he choses not to use it. One really sees the pains of conflict and war in this play.

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