Collected Miscellany

***What follows is an except from Guinness: The 250 Year Quest for the Perfect Pint by Bill Yenne.  I am fascinated by beer, its creation, and its history – and of course its consumption.  Thinking that perhaps some readers might share this fascination I offer the excerpt below.***

By the beginning of the twenty-first century, two billion pints of Guinness were being poured annually in more than 150 countries around the world. According to the industry newsletter, Impact: Global News and Research for the Drinks Executive, Guinness Stout is the seventeenth largest selling beer brand in the world, and by far the best-selling beer brand that is not a pale yellow lager.

Ireland and the United Kingdom remain the largest markets in the world for Guinness, with Nigeria in third place. In fourth place, the United States is the fastest growing Guinness market. According to Jonathan Waldron, the Dublin-based Guinness Draught marketing manager, “Our top four markets explain 95 percent of our volume.”

Though no longer the largest in the world, the Guinness Brewery at St. James’s Gate remains the largest in Ireland — and the largest stout brewery in the world — with a capacity of 6.5 million barrels. After 69 years, the huge Guinness brewery at Park Royal was closed in 2005. It had once been Guinness’s largest brewery, but as production at the site declined, the company decided to close it, and to concentrate stout production for the United Kingdom and Ireland — as well as for the United States — at the birthplace of Guinness in St. James’s Gate.

In Ireland , the company also has an additional 1.5 million barrel capacity in Dundalk , as well as 1.2 million barrels at Kilkenny. At Warerford, the former Cherry’s Brewery has been upgraded to a state-of-the-art special ingredient plant to produce Guinness Flavor Extract for export to the 50 countries where Guinness is brewed, either under license or at brewing companies in which Guinness is a partner.

Overseas, the company still owns a share in Malaysia ‘s Guinness Anchor Berhad and it operates 10 breweries in six African countries, including Nigeria , Ghana , Cameroon , Kenya , Uganda , and the Seychelles . Africa is a key market for Guinness. Indeed, Africans drink more than one third of all the Guinness in the world.

Continue reading →

Let me just state up front that I am not the smoothest sound technician around.  The problem with trying to do these podcasts is that I haven’t done them with enough regularity to get the hang of it.  I had just about figured things out when I took half a year off before trying another.  End result = awkward learning curve and much consternation.

But put that aside for now.  As I state in the audio, I recorded an interview with Richard Lewis earlier this year but never posted it.  There were technical, personal, and substantive reasons for not posting it.  But I finally decided that it was a waste not to post it.  So again, apologies for the delay and I hope the content overcomes any technical issues.

Richard Lewis is an author of two young adult novels, The Flame Tree and The Killing Sea, both highly recommended.  The son of American missionaries he lives in Indonesia where he is a full time writer.  He blogs at Novelist in Paradise.  I hope you enjoy our conversation.  Click the icon below to listen.

I have been busy trying to get the templates and sidebar how I want them and that has prevented me from posting.  Never fear, I have some reviews, interviews, and other stuff coming.  I didn’t make the change just to let the site die!

In the meantime, check out Between the Covers over at National Review Online.  John J. Miller offers some interesting discussions with a variety of authors with short ten minute podcasts.  Very useful utilization of technology, IMHO.

To kick off the return of Collected Miscellany Dot Com I am offering a chance to win free Mad Hatter comic books.  I have the first three issues of the Hatter M comic books based on the Looking Glass Wars books by Frank Beddor.

If you would like to win the comics simply leave a comment, send me an email, or write a post on why you think comics are an important art form.  I will pick the best one and send the winner the comics.  Please do so by Thursday Tuesday October 9th. I will announce the winner Wednesday.

Look for my review of the books this week.

Black Gold by Charles O’Brien is an excellent follow-up to his first novel, Mute Witness.  O’Brien moves the setting of Black Gold from Paris, France to Bath, England.

Here is a summary of the book from Publishers Weekly:

In the winter of 1787, Col. Paul de Saint-Martin, who played a leading role in Mute Witness, travels to England to track down an Irish rogue, Captain Maurice Fitzroy, who’s been accused of raping a young woman of aristocratic birth while visiting Paris.  A side benefit of the trip is the opportunity to see Anne Cartier, a teacher of the deaf, whom Paul befriended in the earlier book.  Anne is employed as a tutor to the young son of Sir Harry Rogers, a self-made merchant and slave-trader who resides near Bath.  Paul and Sir Harry strike up a friendship during a training session of Sir Harry’s prizefighter slave, and Paul soon becomes the slaver’s houseguest at Combe Park.  Among the ill-assorted group are Sir Harry and his wife, Lady Margaret, Captain Fitzroy, and Anne and her charge, who bears a striking resemblance to the captain.  Also at Bath is the infamous Jack Roach, who is blackmailing several of the city’s inhabitants, perhaps even Lady Margaret herself.

As with Mute Witness, O’Brien fills this book with plenty of twists and turns.  He drops Cartier and Saint-Martin into a hornet’s nest of hate and intrigue at Combe Park.  O’Brien successfully describes the various conflicts between those who live at Combe Park.  In addition, O’Brien meticulously spins all of the intrigue into a spellbinding work.

The different characters are realistic and easy to like and hate as the case may be.  For example, you pick up from where the last book left off – hating Jack Roach and his devious plans to wreak havoc on Cartier’s life.  Alternatively, you sympathize with Jeff, Sir Harry’s prizefighter slave, on the injustices and abuses he has to withstand in order to live.

Furthermore, O’Brien continues to develop the three main characters – Saint-Martin, Cartier, and Georges Charpentier, Saint-Martin’s adjunct in the Royal Highway Patrol.  The love between Saint-Martin and Cartier continues to develop and Charpentier proves once again why he is an indispensable assistant to Saint-Martin.

In conclusion, I highly recommend Black Gold if you have any interest in historical mysteries set in Eighteenth Century Europe.

The Terror: The Shadow of the Guillotine: France 1792-1794 by Graeme Fife is a fascinating look at France as it was torn apart by the French Revolution.  As the publisher notes, Fife draws on contemporary police files, eyewitness accounts, and directives from the sinister Committee for Public Safety, and heart-wrenching last letters from prisoners awaiting execution.

Here is a brief synopsis of the book from the publisher:

1792 found the newborn Republic threatened from all sides: the British blockaded the coasts, Continental armies poured over the frontiers, and the provinces verged on open revolt.  Paranoia simmering in the capital, the Revolution slipped under control of a powerful clique and its fanatical political organization, the Jacobin Club.  For two years, this faction, obsessed with patriotism and purity–self appointed to define both–inflicted on their countrymen a reign of terror unsurpassed until Stalin’s Russia.

It was the time dominated by Maximilien Robespierre, Georges Danton, Jean-Paul Marat, and Louis-Antoine Saint-Just (called “The Angel of Death”), when Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette met their ends, when any hint of dissent was ruthlessly quashed by the State.  It was the time of the guillotine, neighborhood informants, and mob justice.

This is the first book I have ever read of the French Revolution and I would not suggest reading this book as your first dabble in the French Revolution.  I say this not to demean Fife’s book, but to warn any ignorant French Revolution readers that you need to know the general timeline of major events of the Revolution and what occurred on those dates.  Fife refers fleetingly to many of the major events (e.g. storming of the Bastille).  In addition, I do think some maps may have helped – I found myself looking on the Internet for maps of Paris and France to visualize where the events were occurring.

With that said, Fife does an excellent job of bringing the Revolution to life.  You can sense the insanity of the leaders as they grip the whole country in a state of fear – at the height of the Terror, a citizen never knew whether they were going to be arrested one day and sent to the guillotine the next.  Fife shows how the Committee of Public Safety led by Robespierre (pure evil) spiraled into paranoia and insanity.

After reading this book, I now understand why France is as messed up as it is.  Any country going through this baptismal of fire will be affected by the upheaval of a society in such a short period of time.  I don’t think that the Russian Revolution was the first Communist Revolution – the French Revolution was.