Dvorak

Dvorak's cello concerto fills my home, its haunting melodies transport me back to the five wonderful days I spent in Prague. A city of extreme beauty filled with music, history and an ethereal sense of belonging I could not quite understand. Its new freedom pervades everything like wisps of fog filled with opera, authors, politics and chains thrown off.

I am almost at the conclusion of The Fourth Estate having listened to it in the wee small hours while coping with excruciating toothache. I feel it is a book that people interested in writing and journalism will follow with great interest but one reviewer has stated that the dialogue is quite cardboard. I would have to agree as in places one is waiting for the next takeover or swords at dawn between Armstrong and Townsend. It reads more like a series of newspaper reports in the financial section about the continual takeovers and underhand business affairs of these two famous - or infamous - men. I feel that other of Archer's books may hold my interest more.

This is a book I read several years ago which fascinated me and made me wish I could afford to be a rare book collector. The book chronicles the story of Christianismi Restitutio and the burning at the stake of its author, Servetus, during the sixteenth century.   Following my re-reading of several sections of Out of the Flames I visited the University of Edinburgh library where one of the three surviving copies is held. To my absolute surprise I was welcomed into the rare books room and the precious document was brought to me from the storage room below within minutes. I discovered that the copy I held was that of John Calvin and was marked with passages questioned during the trial of Servetus. To this day I feel honoured that I was given the opportunity to hold such a rare Latin manuscript.