Book Recommendations / Resources

I read ,over a couple of weeks both of the recent(4-5 years old) biographies of George Orewell.One was excellent and the other dreadful.I dont think it was the style that got to me ,it didnt have any , the one I liked was fun, busy, unputdownable and gave a real impression of my hero, why he is isnt a worry as I dont go for heroes but in his case I make an exception. Saying these things I know well not to meet up with him as hes not well and likely to be cantankerous.I cant remenmber who wrote them , ploggies. I will admit that my connection with Orewell comes from knowing Norah Harkin and Charley aswell as Betty and Frank edwards.In 77 I met Peader Odonnell in Norahs house and found him something of an enigma. Edwards was in Spain in 37 and fought Franco. Norah for all her faults , none that Im aware of, is the finest human I have ever met, her kindness knows bounds but I never saw them. I remember seeing a A4 size drawing of a familiar face in that wonderful bookshop between Dame street and the river and realising it was Frank Edwards , a man I hadnt seen since I was a child .The luck I had to have had my ears roasted by their conversations as a two year old is something I will always treasure, I am very lucky in life even though others would see it as tragic. I see it as my path and if I didnt lead it I would not be here now.

When I entered the above post I didnt realise I was in the Christianity section. Its great because when I went on to mention Frank Edwards it tied in with this section quite well. It is common knowledge that the Catholic church sided with Franco in the Civil war, in fact its fact . Are you aware that after Frank returned from Spain the Catholic hierarchy blacklisted him from employment in schools under their control. He eventually gained employment in a/the Jewish school in Dublin.There is more to the story but these are the essentials . The church as far as I can see never learns from its mistakes as to my mind it very foundations are based on a mistake, namely that if you fool enough of the people most of the time everything will be cool. When as a thirteen year old I asked the arch bishop of Tuams representative,who was visiting BNS Athenry prior to the confirmation, if what he had just said was true , he replied that of course it was. He had just told us one of the biblical fairy tales , it was a very tall story and I was just making sure that he had thought that we should swallow it whole. My disbelief in his belief that we should believe it was translated a week later into several pints of beer in the Jersey bar ,only hours after making the Confirmation. I have always wondered what I would have ended up doing if he hadnt let slip that little gaffe that day in 1976. I wouldnt refer to myself as a non believer as I believe in many things and suspending belief so as to believe is a stretch and a half but as they say, there you go.