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Recent Posts
- What’s New for the 26th of July:
- A Kinrowan Estate story: chicken pot pieces
- What’s New for the 19th of July: Charles de Lint’s Ottawa novels with a quote from Drink Down the Moon, Gary’s review of Nordic fiddle music, It’s Michele Walther and Irina Behrendt playing Aaron Copland’s ‘Hoe Down’ from his Rodeo album
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Midsomer Odd Things
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Library and Its Librarian
- What’s New for the Fifth of July: Remembering Jane Yolen; some new Americana and jazz music; Fishing Blues
- A Kinrowan Estate Story: Recursive Loops
- What’s New for June 21: Jennifer Stevenson’s ‘Solstice’
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Turkish Coffee
- What’s New for the 7th of June: Foxes in literature, live Balkan music, comforting jazz, Americana jazz, and wonderfully weird fusion jazz; and John Fogerty live
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Bloodied Kings
- What’s New for the 24th of May: Gary’s Review of Elizabeth Bear’s White Space novels, iain’s review of the Lonely Signal Burns novellas by her, she reading her own story, ‘The Chains That You Refuse’, and I see Gary has some tasty music reviews fir us as well
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Our Greensward
- What’s New for the 10th of May: books reviewed by Jennifer Stevenson, music by Teddy Thompson, Americana music from all over, and some live music from John Fogerty
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Walk
- What’s New for the 26th of April: the nature of Stories; some new and newish SF, plus new world, jazz, folk and Americana music
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Spring Day
- What’s New for the 12th of April: Some new and recent SF; new Americana, Norwegian folk rock and jazz; and thoughts on War For The Oaks
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Unified Theory of Libraries (A Letter to Anna)
- What’s New for the 29th of March: Beer and spirits, in song and text, some new Scandinavian fiddle music and jazz flute music, and more
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Ghostly Librarian
- What’s New for the 15th of March: some DeLint stories for early spring; lots of polskas, Serbian folk rock, progressive jazz, and Nordic music from the archives
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Hedge Witches
- What’s New for the 1st of March: Emma Bull’s War for The Oaks, Rosanne Cash’s ‘Runaway Train’, Johnny Cash at San Quentin, plus new Americana and jazz music
- A Kinrorwan Estate story: Cranachanh
- What’s New for the 15th of February: Some Seanan McGuire fantasy, Alison Bechdel’s latest, Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin; Nordic sounds, old time, Americana and Tex-Mex music
- What’s New for the 1st of February: Kage Baker retrospective; new Americana, Buddhist chants and Finnish songs, new and reissued jazz, and more
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Fireplaces in Kinrowan Hall
- What’s New for the 18th of January: World music and fiction by Amal El-Mohtar
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Bridges and Paths plus a Troll
Tag Archives: history
Suraiya Faroqhi: Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire
We tend to think of the Ottoman Empire as monolithic: a unitary state ruled from Istanbul and subject to a uniform system of laws. A moment’s reflection will lead to the inescapable conclusion that this couldn’t possibly be true: at … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged history, nonfiction
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Suraiya Faroqhi: The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It; Handan Nezir Akmeşe: The Birth of Modern Turkey: The Ottoman Military and the March to World War I
The Ottoman Empire and its successor, modern Turkey, have time and again played an important role in European politics, and yet there are vanishingly few sources in English to bring us the viewpoint of the Turks themselves, or, indeed, to … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged history, nonfiction
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Ibrahim Abdel Meguid’s Birds of Amber
Along with Great Cairo: Mother of the World, we received this book in a shipment of review copies from International Publishers Marketing. It’s an English translation from the original Arabic, although I should note that the translator (Farouk Abdel Wahab) … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Egyptian literature, fiction, history
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Desmond Stewart’s Great Cairo: Mother of the World
Three of the most memorable literary journeys I’ve made in 2008-09 have brought me to the ancient and venerable city of Cairo, Egypt. In Naguib Mahfouz’s The Cairo Trilogy (English translation easily available in several editions, both as a single … Continue reading
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Tagged history, nonfiction
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Bert Williams’ The Middle years, 1910-1918 and His Final Releases, 1919-1922
I know about Fanny Brice. Her portrayal of Brice in “Funny Girl” was the breakthrough that made Barbra Striesand a star. I know about W. C. Fields, and can recite many of his best-known lines in an approximation of his … Continue reading
Posted in Music
Tagged Americana music, history, music
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Various artists’ 1912: Waitin’ on the Levee and 1913: Come and See the Big Parade
The American company Archeophone has released several more chapters in its “Phonographic Yearbook” series, including these two from watershed years early in the previous century. As with all of its releases, Archeophone has included a wealth of historic background in … Continue reading
O. J. Padel’s Arthur in Medieval Welsh Literature
Lisa Spangenberg penned this review. Since the earliest references to King Arthur occur in medieval Welsh poetry, it has been almost de rigeur to assert that Arthur, and hence the ancestry of Arthurian literature and myth, lies in Celtic tales … Continue reading
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Tagged Arthurian studies, history
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Various artists’ 1920: Even Water’s Getting Weaker
If you’ve always had trouble finding a “greatest hits” recording for 1920, search no more. The good folks at Archeophone have produced a typically excellent package in Even Water’s Getting Weaker, which they plan as the first in their “Phonographic … Continue reading
Various artists’ The Pink Lambert
Archeophone Records, a Bloomington, Indiana, company that specializes in releasing CDs of old 78 rpm and cylinder recordings, may just do for Vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley pop what Harry Smith’s anthology did for American folk music. The Pink Lambert: … Continue reading
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Tagged Americana music, history, music
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John Berger’s Into Their Labours
‘My people are the poor ones their country made of stones Their wealth is in persistance, in stories and in bones… – Oysterband, “One Green Hill” Between 1979, when he wrote Pig Earth, the first volume of what was to … Continue reading