Middle Ages

May 5 2010

In the Mail: The Templar Knight

The Templar Knight: Book Two of the Crusades Trilogy by Jan Guillou

Kirkus Reviews

The second installment of the Crusades Trilogy by Swedish author Guillou (The Road to Jerusalem, 2009, etc.). In his native country, Guillou is well-known as a journalist and as the author of a popular series of spy novels. His Crusades Trilogy features the fictional Swedish knight Arn Magnusson. The Road to Jerusalem chronicled Arn’s youth and his forced entry into the Knights Templar as a teenager. This second installment opens with Arn in the Holy Land a decade later, circa 1177. During the next several years he takes part in major battles of the period, including the brutal Battle of Hattin, and gets to know the powerful sultan Saladin, the leader of the Muslim armies. The novel also follows the complex story of Arn’s betrothed, Cecilia, who, after becoming pregnant by Arn before marriage, was confined to a convent. The prose style is reminiscent of ancient sagas, and the battle scenes are grand. A fine second volume in an original trilogy.

By Kevin Holtsberry • In The Mail • 0 • Tags: , , ,

Oct 24 2009

In the Mail: Science edition

–> The Alchemy of Paint by Spike Bucklow

Description

The Alchemy of Paint is a critique of the modern world, which Spike Bucklow sees as the product of seventeenth-century ideas about science. In modern times, we have divorced color from its origins, using it for commercial advantage. Spike Bucklow shows us how in medieval times, color had mystical significance far beyond the enjoyment of shade and hue.

Each chapter demonstrates the mindset of medieval Europe and is devoted to just one color, acknowledging its connections with life in the pre-modern world. Colors examined and explained in detail include a midnight blue called ultramarine, an opaque red called vermilion, a multitude of colors made from metals, a transparent red called dragonsblood, and, finally, gold.

[...]

The book looks at how color was “read” in the Middle Ages and returns to materials to look at the hidden meaning of the artists’ version of the philosopher’s stone. The penultimate chapter considers why everyone has always loved gold.

–> Who Turned Out the Lights?: Your Guided Tour to the Energy Crisis by Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson

Description

From the editors of PublicAgenda.org, an entertaining, irreverent, and absolutely essential nonpartisan guide to the energy crisis.

Energy: It’s a problem that never goes away (despite our best efforts as a nation to ignore it). Why has there been so much talk and so little action? In Who Turned Out the Lights? Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson offer a much-needed reality check: The “Drill, Baby, Drill” versus “Every Day Is Earth Day” battle is not solving our problems, and the finger-pointing is just holding us up.

Sorting through the political posturing and confusing techno-speak, they provide a fair-minded, “let’s skip the jargon” explanation of the choices we face. And chapters such as “It’s All Right Now (In Fact, It’s a Gas)” prove that, while the problem is serious, getting a grip on it doesn’t have to be. In the end, the authors present options from the right, left, and center but take just one position: The country must change the way it gets and uses energy, and the first step is to understand the choices.

By Kevin Holtsberry • In The Mail • 0 • Tags: , , , , , , ,