Reading For Pleasure Research Articles

What Do Children Want to Read? A Case Study of How One Primary School Library Supported Reading for Pleasure

In a landscape where children report that they enjoy reading less, parents, educators and policymakers are increasingly concerned about how to engage children in reading for pleasure. School libraries are core spaces for encouraging reading for pleasure. This mixed-methods case study examines the reading choices and preferences of students in one primary school to understand what children read, how their reading tastes change across the primary years, and how the school library supports their reading for pleasure. Findings showed a shift in children’s reading tastes across the years as they mature in their reading and interests. Children engage in repeated reading and the multiple reading of many books, series books, and comics remain popular, and recommendations are a key strategy for children to discover new reads. Two key priorities for school libraries keen to promote reading for pleasure emerge: building a contemporary book collection in school libraries that is interesting to children’s similar and diverse tastes and creating opportunities for children to find new materials to pique their interest in reading.

Scaffolded extensive reading: a case study of an extensive reading programme in China

ABSTRACT With the aim of investigating effective approaches to extensive reading (ER) implementation, this study examines a reading programme carried out in an EFL classroom in China. Data were collected from two interviews with the teacher participant, teacher’s reflective journal, student survey (n = 59), student focus group interview (n = 5) and various documents related to the reading programme. Findings of the study indicate that teacher scaffolding, embodied in the roles of motivator, strategy guide and monitor, is essential for students’ sustained pleasure reading. In light of this, scaffolded extensive reading (SER) is put forward to denote a student-centred and teacher-facilitated reading approach.

Who Engaged in Home-Based Arts Activities During the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Data From 4,731 Adults in the United States.

Arts engagement is a health-related behavior that may be influenced by social inequalities. While the COVID-19 pandemic provided new opportunities for some people to engage in the arts, it might have created barriers for others. We aimed to examine whether there was social patterning in home-based arts engagement during the pandemic in the United States, and whether predictors of engagement differed according to the type of arts activity. We included 4,731 adults who participated in the United States COVID-19 Social Study between April and July 2020. Three types of home-based arts engagement were considered: reading for pleasure, arts or crafts activities, and digital arts activities. Using logistic regression models, we tested cross-sectional associations between a broad range of demographic, socioeconomic, psychosocial, and health-related factors as well as adverse events and worries during lockdown and each type of arts engagement. The factors most strongly associated with all three types of arts engagement were social support, social network size, age, race/ethnicity, keyworker status, and experiencing physical or psychological abuse during the pandemic. However, most socioeconomic and health-related factors were not associated with arts engagement, including household income and mental and physical health problems. Overall, our findings indicate that the social gradient in arts engagement was reduced in the first 4 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Given the health benefits of arts engagement, the potential diversification of arts audiences during the pandemic is promising for both population-level health and wellbeing and the future of the arts and cultural sector.

A Rhinoceros with a Butterfly Heart: Antonino Ferro in Conversation with Giuseppe Civitarese

ABSTRACT At the time I was specializing in psychiatry in Pavia, Antonino Ferro was already a famous analyst. Although we lived in the same city, because of the age difference, I did not know him personally. He was no longer working in the clinical services of psychiatry, but only privately. I only really got to know him through his books. My first distinct memory of him, some thirty years ago, was when, in association with a dream of mine, I expressed to my analyst the enthusiasm I was experiencing from reading his book on the technique of child psychoanalysis. 1 1 A. Ferro, 1992, The Bi-Personal Field: Experiences in Child Analysis, London: Routledge, 1999. It was incredible the sense of freedom, creativity, humanity that I felt in that text and in others that I later got hold of. Afterward, it was the most natural thing in the world to ask him to be one of my supervisors for analytical training. We worked together for six years. Then, after becoming an analyst, a strong bond of collaboration and friendship developed, as evidenced, among other things, by the three books we published together. 2 2 The Analytic Field and its Transformations, 2015, London: Routledge, 2018; A Short Introduction to Psychoanalysis, London: Routledge, 2020; Playing and Vitality in Psychoanalysis, London: Routledge, 2022. In both of us, curiosity and passion for psychoanalysis are more alive than ever, although there is also a hint of bitterness, because of the sometimes gratuitous difficulties that, as it is well known, you suffer in the life of psychoanalytic institutions everywhere. The idea that guided me in conducting the interview (perhaps, more of a conversation) was to bring out the figure of Ferro not so much as a scholar – for that there is an abundance of literature available – but as a person. I will say no more, so as to leave readers with the pleasure (I hope) of reading. I would just like to express my gratitude to Daniel Goldin, editor of this issue of Psychoanalytic Inquiry, for giving me the opportunity of being part of this very interesting project.

Investigating the pleasure of reading habit during the Covid-19 pandemic: A study in University of Islam Malang

This research aimed at investigating the students' pleasure reading habit during pandemic since they spend most of their time at home including their school activities done at home. This research used qualitative descriptive method. There were 25 students of 8th semester of English education Department of University of Islam Malang as the subjects of this study. The data were collected using questionnaire and interview. The findings showed that the students' reading habits during this pandemic continued but with a different frequency than before the pandemic. Then, the students revealed that their duration of using devices, especially mobile phones increased because they spent most of their time at home during the pandemic. All students said that they used their mobile phones more often to read because it was more practical. Next, from the data collected, it could be concluded that the main factor that hindered students from reading during the pandemic was social media.

Chilean preservice teachers and reading: a first look of a complex relationship

Two pillars of the curricula for primary education and early childhood education in Chile are, respectively, the formal teaching of reading and the promotion of the pleasure of reading. These two objectives depend, in part, on the relationship that teachers themselves establish with reading. Previous studies have been critical, suggesting that teachers seem to act as “false readers,” endangering the formation of new readers. Under this premise, this research investigated the reading life of future teachers who are trained, among other things, to mediate subsequent learning, as well as the acquisition and development of committed readers. The study focused on the importance of reading, preservice teachers’ motivation to read different types of texts, reading habits, and actual reading done during 1 year. The research participants were 365 prospective Chilean early childhood (n = 164) and primary education (n = 201) teachers, who responded to Likert-type and open-ended questions. In line with previous studies, we observed teachers’ high reading valuation but low effective reading praxis. Regarding the importance of reading, we observe reading utility as a first dimension while “enjoyment” or “connecting with my history” are the least valuable dimensions. The implications of these findings for initial teacher training—and especially the role of children’s literature in this framework—are discussed.

17세기 호남 문인 南圃金萬英의 삶과 濂洛風詩의 전개

This study aimed to examine the development aspect of Yeomrakpung poetry by Nampo Kim Man-Young, a literary person of Honam in the 17th century and the meaning and perspective of the poetry. Yeomrakpung is related to the poetical style of Confucian scholars in Song Dynasty. Kim Man-Young’s poetry was connected to Yeomrakpung because it was mentioned in the preface and epilogue of his collection of literary works and his records. Kim Man-Young is a local Confucian scholar who was born in Naju, Jeonnam in the 17th century and finished his life there. At that time, he was recommended for an official post by many people due to his learning and virtue, and good behaviors, but he was a local scholar from noble family who stayed out of the government service. He was also much respected by many local people as he lived a life as a Confucian scholar. Meanwhile, he was naturally engaged in writing poems while living a common life and approximately 530 poems with 460 themes were handed down. Of all the poems handed down, 85 poems with 73 themes were classified into Yeomrakpung poetry. It was suggested that the main themes of Yeomrakpung poetry by Kim Man-Young were moral mind, government property, nature and reading. Specifically, he expressed the will of moral mind training, acquired the exquisite principles through government property, admired nature, declared he would obey to nature, dealt with pleasure of reading and criticized Scriptures. Therefore, this study recognized that they were main themes of Yeomrakpung poetry and specifically examined the development aspect. In Chinese poetry history in Korea, Yeomrakpung poetry continued since Confucianism of Song Dynasty had been introduced. It is meaningful that Kim Man-Young’s Yeomrakpung poetry naturally reflected his academic world through poetry and revealed his peculiar characteristics. Kim Man Young witnessed difficulties of local people while living in local areas and expressed what he saw in his poetry. This study suggested that future studies should pay attention to it.

Foreword

The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age in the price we pay for the vigor of youth. (Steven Pinker) …, however, from the viewpoint of a linguist, it is definitely worth having it all. The articles for the summer 2022 issue mainly involve topics either on second language learning and acquisition or historical language changes and the motives for them. They were carefully picked up from numerous proposals, and we are very grateful to every single contributor and also to the reviewers. This issue opens with the article “Examples of Corpus Data Visualization: Collocations in Chinese” in which Ľuboš GAJDOŠ and Elena GAJDOŠOVÁ lightheartedly share a highly beneficial practical procedure that can be used in the visualization of language data, especially in language pedagogy. In a very similar manner to the visualization, DENG Qi presents a tangible example from Japanese in the article “Choice Between the Synonymous Pairs of Sutoppu and Teishi: A Case Study on Synonyms of Western Loanwords and Sino-Japanese in Modern Japanese Based on Corpus”, discussing their usage and functions. Yet another article “The Roman Alphabet Within the Japanese Writing System: Patterns of Usages and Their Significance” by Hironori NISHI explores the usages of the Roman alphabet within the present writing system of Japanese, which is, as the author suggests, induced by more and more frequent horizontal writing and the ever-increasing international interaction. The following article was written by GUO Qingli and CHEW Fong Peng and is entitled “Liushu-based Instruction and Its Effects on the Motivation and Intended Learning Efforts: The Case of Laos Learners of Standard Chinese”. It introduces the Liushu-based instruction and examines its effects on the students' motivation and intended learning efforts. LIU Sha wrote the article “Exceptions vs. Non-exceptions in Sound Changes: Morphological Condition and Frequency”, in which the author tries a unique approach to locate factors that explain exceptions in the diphthongization of [i] to [ei] in Mandarin. Last but not least, Nina GOLOB in her article “Word-Prosodic Typology: The Traps of Seemingly Similar Japanese and Slovene” offers a brief review of research trends on prosody, and by introducing the phonetic properties of the two languages and acquisition difficulties by Slovene speakers of Japanese questions the typological similarity between Japanese and Slovene. Editors and Editorial board wish the regular and new readers of the ALA journal a pleasant read full of inspiration, and a rise of new research ideas inspired by these papers.

In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing by Elena Ferrante

Reviewed by: In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writingby Elena Ferrante Enrica Maria Ferrara Elena Ferrante In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and WritingTrans. Ann Goldstein. New York. Europa Editions. 2022. 112 pages. elena ferrante's new book, In the Margins, is an exciting reading experience reminiscent of captivating nonfictional works such as Italo Calvino's Six Memos for the Next Millennium. It confirms that the Italian writer's global success stems from her ability to combine craftmanship—perhaps developed in that (often disregarded) hotbed of creative writing talents that is literary translation—and formal knowledge of the classics; independent research of noncanonical stories with the unbridled flow of an inspired writing that tends to spill out of the margins. In the Marginscomprises four essays: "Pain and Pen," "Aquamarine," "Histories, I," and "Dante's Rib." The first essay, which sets the tone for the collection and explains its evocative title, illustrates the author's struggle with two impulses, which she identifies as separate styles of writing: "the first compliant, the second impetuous." The first style abides by the rules dictated by authority—be it of teachers, editors, publishers, audiences—that requires us to stay within the set margins of what constitutes correct and beautiful expression; the other is vehement and unruly. Ferrante seems to be caught by surprise when the second mode manifests itself. This tends to happen because women writers are used to censoring their sensibility and training themselves to work according to set rules. To write like men, women struggle to hear their own voices. The account Ferrante gives us about the time in which she felt "becoming male yet at the same time remaining female," therefore "invisible," is poignant. What it really takes is for a woman to recognize her own value, escape her "abject" destiny, and create "a garment of words sewn with a pain of her own and a pen of her own." Paraphrasing a poem by fifteenth-century writer Gaspara Stampa, and corroborating her argument with examples from Virginia Woolf's A Writer's Diaryand Samuel Beckett's The Unnamable, Ferrante illustrates how hard it is to keep the two kinds of writing in balance. In the second thought-provoking essay, "Aquamarine," the author tackles the thorny issue of realism. Can we write reality as it is? We certainly can, Ferrante initially thought. But then she realized that the meaning of every object depends on its interactions with other objects and people. A beautiful aquamarine ring, belonging to the author's mother, is used to exemplify her reasoning: "the aquamarine was changeable, part of a changing reality, a changing me." Ferrante fans will be reminded of the bracelet in The Lying Life of Adults, which seems to possess magic powers, becoming a character in its own right. The bracelet shows how incompatible individuals become associated and confused in the mind of an observer when an object gets entangled with them. In that novel, the refined Costanza and the vulgar Vittoria become enmeshed as "the bracelet pressed them into one another and confused them, confusing me." There is no such thing as objective reality in Ferrante's oeuvre: the writing emerges not from a carefully drafted plan or from an epiphany of the real but from "collisions" between the narrator and the world "in which not only the narrator but the author herself, a pure maker of writing, was enmeshed." In other words, the narrator is not an external observer; she is deeply interconnected with that tangle, too. If these reflections confirm Ferrante's embrace of a neomaterialist worldview, they also help us make sense of that unruly writing tension she mentions in her first essay. Invoking the digressive literature of humours by Diderot and Sterne, the writer identifies the models of that impetuous style struggling against the margins of the written page. She then proceeds to tell us how, in her first three novels ( Troubling Love, The Days of Abandonment, and The Lost Daughter), she managed "to calibrate the two kinds of writing, using the more compliant for a slow-fake realist pace and the more unruly to break down with its fiction the fiction...

What to Read Now: On War and Borders, Italian and Beyond

What to Read NowOn War and Borders, Italian and Beyond Enrica Maria Ferrara (bio) Giuseppe Ungaretti Allegria Trans. Geoffrey Brock Archipelago Books Elena Ferrante In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing Trans. Ann Goldstein Europa Editions Claudia Durastanti Strangers I Know Trans. Elizabeth Harris Fitzcarraldo Editions Marta Barone Sunken City Trans. Julia MacGibbon Serpent's Tail Click for larger view View full resolution Borders have always been a big bone of contention for Italy as a geopolitical entity. For centuries, its territory was fragmented, subdivided into city-states, duchies, seigneuries, run by local and foreign rulers. Even after it was unified in the late nineteenth century, the boot remained frayed around the edges, with the northeastern regions becoming the stage of bloody battles throughout the world wars, as the so-called unredeemed lands considered "naturally" Italian were reclaimed by patriots. It strikes me that this idea of a war justified by a territorial right grounded on a "natural" state of things needing to be restored is still haunting Europe, as we are confronted with spine-chilling images of ravaged cities, gutted buildings, refugee trains fleeing the ruins of Mariupol, Kyiv, or Kharkiv. Human lives are sacrificed in the name of a political and cultural identity that aspires to singularity rather than plurality, sameness rather than diversity. Because of its past, Italian literature is a privileged space to understand the present moment through its war literature produced in the first half of the last century. On the other hand, as Rosie Goldsmith mentioned recently in the Italian Riveter, echoing an interview with Jhumpa Lahiri, Italian literature is enjoying "a moment." This is perhaps due to the fact that its borders with otherness are becoming less neatly defined, more porous, welcoming to diversity. Italy no longer fears losing control of its boundaries. Here are some suggestions of Italian books dealing with war and borders. BORN IN EGYPT to Tuscan migrants in 1888, 1970 Neustadt Prize laureate Giuseppe Ungaretti is one of the most popular twentieth-century poets in Italy, with his first full-length book of verse now available in parallel text, the original Italian and its award-winning English translation. The poems were written in the muddy trenches of World War I, when the poet was drafted to fight in the Karst upon his return to Italy. Despite feeling the strong call of his "fatherland"—nurturing the affirmative tone of poems such as "Vigil," in which the poet describes being "flung beside / a butchered comrade" all night long and yet writing "letters full of love"—Ungaretti identifies as a nomad, shattering linguistic and cultural borders. [End Page 8] ________ IN HER LATEST collection of essays, the world-acclaimed author talks about two impulses animating her writing, one "compliant" and the other "impetuous." The first abides by the rules dictated by authority—of teachers, editors, publishers, audiences—that requires you to stay within the set margins of what constitutes correct and beautiful expression; the other is vehement and unruly. In four compelling essays brimming with citations from her literary models, Ferrante outlines an itinerary of personal discovery that brought her to rupture the patriarchal cage in which she was confined and listen to female voices in Italian and global literature, embracing them in her writing. ________ ACCEPTANCE of the other plays a crucial role in Claudia Durastanti's novel, a coming-of-age story in which the protagonist, the daughter of deaf parents, maps out the places where her nomadic identity develops amidst a constant sense of fluctuation, nonbelonging, in-betweenness. If it is true that "art can free an individual from difference, and difference from solitude," with her nonlinear memoir Durastanti's narrator invents a new hybrid artistic form to bridge the gap between her deaf parents—who believe only in literal truths—and her constantly shifting self. The notion of deafness as disability is deconstructed and challenged as the narrator suggests synesthesia, or a poetic blending of the senses, to define her mother's condition. ________ AT TIMES, WHAT urges to be told not only has no clear outline but is better defined as an absence. This is the case in a few contemporary novels written...

Review: Immanent Vitalities: Meaning and Materiality in Modern and Contemporary Art, by Kaira Marie Cabañas

Review: <i>Immanent Vitalities: Meaning and Materiality in Modern and Contemporary Art</i>, by Kaira Marie Cabañas

A Chip Shop in Poznań: My Unlikely Year in Poland

A Chip Shop in Poznań: My Unlikely Year in Poland

Studying with Miss Bishop: Memoirs from a Young Writer’s Life

Studying with Miss Bishop: Memoirs from a Young Writer’s Life

The Gateway to the Pacific: Japanese Americans and the Remaking of San Francisco

The Gateway to the Pacific: Japanese Americans and the Remaking of San Francisco

Practicing Reading for Pleasure in the EFL Classrooms: Using [The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time] in a College English Cou rse

This paper explores a college EFL course designed to practice reading for pleasure during the pandemic. Sixty EFL college learners in a required English course read Mark Haddon’s (2004) [The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time] within the structure of a regular reading and writing focused academic English course. Reading for pleasure is often considered unfit for inclusion in regular curriculum. Nevertheless, for digital natives, the act of pleasurable reading especially in L2, should be actively implemented into classroom activities. This study follows a case study which practices reading for pleasure by utilizing weekly quizzes, discussion questions and response paper. Students’ feedback was collected and analyzed in order to share students’ experiences in completing the tasks. The feedback shows how weekly quizzes and class discussions have encouraged them to continue reading the text, influenced their attitude on reading English books and how they were able to empathize with the characters. This paper invokes the need to include reading young adult literature into general English courses for college learners to make them lifelong readers of L2.

MANAJEMEN PELAKSANAAN PEMBIASAAN TILAWAH AL-QUR’AN DALAM MEMBINA SISWA BERKARAKTER RELIGIUS DAN GEMAR MEMBACA (STUDI DESKRIPTIF DI SMK BUDI BHAKTI UTAMA CIBURUY BANDUNG BARAT)

Characters that must be strived to be born and carried out consistently by students are religious characters and love to read. The facts show that not all students are religious in character and like to read. Lack of manners, manners, mutual respect for each other and sincerity in carrying out prayers, lack of enthusiasm for reading the Qur'an, reading book literacy and digital literacy. The purpose of this study was to obtain an overview and analysis of the management of the implementation of the habituation of recitation of the Qur'an in fostering the religious character and reading pleasure of students. This study uses a qualitative descriptive method using data collection techniques, through interviews, observations and documentation. The conclusion is that the management of the implementation of the habituation of recitation of the Qur'an can foster students with religious character and love to read. This can be proven by the behavior of students in the school environment and outside the school environment showing consistency in reciting the Qur'an, behaving politely, including greetings, performing Duha prayers, mutual respect among friends, respect for teachers and various achievements that have been achieved. in the field of religious extracurricular in PENTAS PAI competitions at the cluster level, sub-district and district level. The results of this study are recommended to be used as comparative study material for researchers personally, as well as for PAI teacher institutions and students

Marcel Proust: In Search of Chemistry in His Work. The Author and His Great Chemical Novel

The article analyzes the use of chemistry as a means of communication and imagination in the writings of the famous French writer Marcel Proust (1871−1922). The oldest work in which Proust uses chemistry is the unfinished novel Jean Santeuil from 1895−1900. The author demonstrated a remarkable knowledge of the possibilities of analytical chemistry, including spectral analysis, and drew attention to the risk of morphine addiction. In a collection of texts Pastiches et mélanges from 1919, Proust describes the period Lemoine's affair with the alleged production of artificial diamonds (unrealizable at that time), in which the name of the French chemist and Nobelist Henri Moissan (1852−1907) also appeared. However, we find the greatest representation of chemistry in his life's work, the novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time). Proust – walking in the footsteps of Johann von Goethe – literally created a great chemical novel. First, we analyze the chemical nature of the so-called Proust phenomenon based on the sensory effect of substances on memory. We identify the volatile organic compounds that are responsible for the effect in the novel. Next, we note all references to chemistry and chemists as such, including alchemy. Third, we observe how the writer masterfully used chemical phenomena and concepts as a metaphorical means to express the feelings and motives of the actions of the novel's characters. Fourth, we provide an annotated overview of chemicals that are introduced in the novel as drugs: acetylsalicylic acid, aminophenazone, atropine, barbital, caffeine, quinine, cocaine, ethanol, morphine, opium, pepsin, phenol, trional, veronal. Proust's personal experience with them is demonstrated by the remarkable details about their effects mentioned in the novel. Finally, we mention the reception of Proust's work by chemists. In addition to reading for pleasure, Proust's work can also play an important communication and inspirational role in chemistry teaching in schools, as well as in the education of the public, and thus help to manage chemophobia. At the same time, it can further strengthen the identity of chemists as an essential part of human culture.

How to creatively theorise the wonder of erotica: a womanist’s poetic manifesto on sexual desire and pleasure

ABSTRACT Theory provokes and stimulates. This theoretical essay blurs the boundaries between academic and creative non-fiction writing to illustrate Black women artists mining self-serving economies of embodied, affective pleasure by crafting womanist erotica, that is, Black woman/girl-centred, eros-charged art, music, and literature. I play with words to produce a polyvocal diptych essay theorising the wonder of womanist erotica and elucidating my politics, perspectives and practices as a Black woman(ist) creative writer and educator concerned with Black women and girls’ sex education. My illumination of, and indulgence in, corporeal pleasure is underpinned by knowledge of (a) the pain that characterises many Black women and girls’ educational and schooling experiences broadly, but also specifically with regards to sex education; and (b) the racialised, gendered, and culturally situated feeling of shame that arises for many during sexual play, that is, during our participation in sexually (self-)gratifying acts. Hence, I offer a potent(ially) viscerally pleasurable reading experience while aiming to deepen intellectual and embodied understandings of the empowering rapture that womanist erotica can ignite. In addition to naming and (re)claiming sexual desire as a prerogative, I think through womanist erotica as a tool for excavating a spiritually rooted erotic economy of (self-)pleasure.

San John Henry Newman: Un ensayo biográfico by Victor García Ruiz

Reviewed by: San John Henry Newman: Un ensayo biográfico by Victor García Ruiz Paula Jullian San John Henry Newman: Un ensayo biográfico BY VICTOR GARCÍA RUIZ Primera edición. Madrid: Editorial San Pablo, 2020. 472 pages. Paperback: $38. ISBN: 9788428558709. Víctor García Ruiz is one of the most renowned and prolific translators of Saint John Henry's works into Spanish. He has made many of his writings accessible to his Hispanic admirers with fine translations, including the Apologia, The Idea of a University, the Parochial and Plain Sermons, and a selected collection of his letters among others. Now, he inspires us once again with this remarkable biography. We may wonder, what else can be said about a life of which so much has already been written? In the introduction the writer asks himself the same question and gives an unexpected response. He alerts his readers that this is not a biography, but rather a "Biographical Essay." He justifies his choice of this rather atypical literary genre arguing [End Page 83] that this format gives him greater freedom in the presentation of the facts and allows him to move back and forth in time, to render a more thematic exposition than a systematic chronological sequence of events. However, despite his stylistic warning, the manuscript may be fairly classified as a biography—and a very good one. By definition, the essay is not an impersonal piece of writing. One of its literary properties is that the writer is entitled to take a stance on the issue at hand and so, to put forward his own views. That is very much what the reader will find in this extended essay. The author's voice can be clearly heard throughout the narrative, addressing and dialoguing with his readers, along with making remarks and offering his own personal assessment of the matters. This original approach results in a fresh outlook of a biography that otherwise could have sounded like a well-known and repetitive story. Because of these distinct traits, this new title does not resemble, nor does it compete with any other publications, but rather represents a piece of literature of a different nature and places itself in a position that is not really comparable to prior ones. Given the author's long trajectory with Newman's works, he moves with familiarity among them, and, in this case, uses them masterfully to reconstruct his life, especially his Letters and Diaries. The text is rich in extracts that have been rarely cited. Yet, despite their abundance, it is not a tiresome and over-quoted script. On the contrary, it makes a light and pleasant read in which the excerpts get neatly interwoven in the narrative, so that we may say that to some extent Newman himself also takes part in the recount of his own life. In addition to these unique qualities concerning style, it is striking in the novelty of its content. It is a well-documented manuscript, in which besides using Newman's materials lavishly, the author turns to numerous historical and literary sources, both of Newman's contemporaries as well as more modern ones. The foundation of the exposition on such resources gives credibility to the factual biographical data he presents and supports the claims he makes. Naturally, together with the recount of our saint's life, the social and political circumstances of nineteenth-century Britain are reported, and at times explained, thus setting a broader picture than his own life, to understand the context in which he lived. However, undoubtedly one of the most attractive features of the exposition lies in that it is sprinkled with little-known details and memorable anecdotes of the people, places, and occurrences that characterized those days. The author offers a few brushstrokes of the personality, deeds, and even fun facts of the multitude of his friends, acquaintances, and even notorious characters he came across. Likewise, with the physical background, the volume is clearly based on much in situ research since, as the story unfolds, the author presents us with vivid descriptions of the locations he frequented, so that we may figure out the buildings and landscapes that surrounded his...

The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution by Lindsay M. Chervinsky

Reviewed by: The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution by Lindsay M. Chervinsky Ari Helo The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution. By Lindsay M. Chervinsky. (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 2020. Pp. xii, 416. Paper, $17.95, ISBN 978-0-674-27103-6; cloth, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-674-98648-0.) Let me first offer my most crucial criticism of this wonderfully readable book: the author fails to explicate what is new in her research work. What are the essential corrections or supplements to the huge research literature in political history on George Washington and his cabinet? The book is well written and thoroughly documented, but for those familiar with Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick's monumental The Age of Federalism (New York, 1993), Lindsay M. Chervinsky's book offers only good supplementary reading. One is also inclined to ask the purpose of the first one hundred pages of introductory information. After dozens of pages about the War of Independence, the reader is back again in colonial times on page 100. Moreover, while detailing Washington's various wartime headquarters correspondence committees and the Confederation executive departments' workings during and after the War of Independence, the author offers no hint that such developments might have connections to any larger Western history of modern bureaucracies or even colonial-era governmental experience. The world-famous British Bill of Rights (1689) is referred to as "a bill of rights," and is discussed in such a general manner that one might come away believing that before the Glorious Revolution the British Parliament had nothing to do with taxation (p. 95). Even early colonial assemblies levied taxes. One might also wonder why the author does not bring up the core principle of the British (and European) parliamentary system, namely, that the government must enjoy the confidence of the majority of the legislature, a crucial feature of the parliamentary form of government that America never adopted. Some of Chervinsky's formulations might well have been more cautious, such as "The cabinet worked to sideline Congress and to bring the state governments under federal oversight during this process" (p. 263). Before the Fourteenth Amendment (1868), the Constitution gave full license to the states to decide on all such issues as slavery and women's rights (regarding both property and political rights). Even religious freedom was secured only from the federal government's infringements. Many states did not yet guarantee such a right for their inhabitants, free or slave. [End Page 368] Now to the positive aspects of this fascinating story of Washington's cabinet and its workings from November 1791 until the end of his term in March 1797: First, it is wonderful, for a change, to encounter a history book about the early republic in which the author is genuinely interested in the subject and not only in moralistic judgments about slavery. Perhaps a paragraph or two would have been in order on that subject—marginal here in the sense that the cabinet had no constitutional powers to do anything about it. However, this book is truly about the cabinet, and it is admirably detailed on who said what on each and every subject brought to its attention. Once the author gets to the actual story from page 100 onward, her skillful prose truly catches the reader's attention. One learns about Washington's early hesitation in even forming any cabinet, of which the founders at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 gave very different opinions and eventually failed to either subscribe to such an innovation or truly reject it. Chervinsky's prose brings all the familiar developments to life again, the Thomas Jefferson–Alexander Hamilton controversies, the cabinet's occasional power struggles with Congress, the Whiskey Rebellion, the Jay Treaty mayhem, and others. Particularly mind-boggling is the telling of Edmund Randolph's eventual doom. All in all, The Cabinet is a very interesting read and, as is often the case with good traditional history books, makes wonderful pleasure reading as well. Ari Helo University of Helsinki Copyright © 2022 The Southern Historical Association