This book is about parish ministry and how to survive it. 'Survival' means to make it through the storm and outlast ones opponents! This is a practical handbook based on the premise that with preparation and careful foundation work, the problems facing the life of the ordinary clergy can be prevented. Looking at themes of crisis management, models of leadership, resource-management and then at the risks taken in carrying out the God-given calling and providing concrete examples of difficult situations, Dudley and Rounding also give wise and heartening advice on limiting the damage if things do slip out of control.

The Parish Survival Guide

Reference

Dudley, Martin

Rounding, Virginia

Encyclopedias & Subject Guides

Society for promoting Christian knowledge

Becoming a churchwarden can be a richly rewarding experience, but the role is not an easy one. This warmly written handbook will help all those considering, or already in, office to understand what is involved. Focusing throughout on real-life situations, including many case studies, it is a guide to: The responsibilities of a churchwarden; How to become a churchwarden; Working with the minister; The duties of a churchwarden through the year; What a churchwarden should know; What a churchwarden should ask; New tasks appropriate for the 21st century; What to do when problems arise Appendices containing relevant legal documents and other useful resources complete the book, making it a comprehensive aid to negotiating this important office.

Churchwardens: A Survival Guide (Revised Edition)

Religion & Spirituality

Christian Books & Bibles

SPCK Publishing

Catherine the Great: Love, Sex, and Power

Dutiful daughter, frustrated wife, passionate lover, domineering mother, doting grandmother, devoted friend, tireless legislator, generous patron of artists and philosophers--the Empress Catherine II, the Great, was all these things, and more. Her reign, the longest in Russian Imperial history, lasted from 1762 until her death in 1796; during those years she built on the work begun by her most famous predecessor, Peter the Great, to establish Russia as a major European power and to transform its new capital, St Petersburg, into a city to rival Paris and London in the beauty of its architecture, the glittering splendor of its Court and the magnificence of its art collections. Yet the great Catherine was not even Russian by birth and had no legitimate claim to the Russian throne; she seized it and held on to it, through wars, rebellions and plagues, by the force of her personality, by her charm and determination, and by an unshakable belief in her own destiny. This is the story of Catherine the woman, whom power alone could never satisfy, for she also wanted love, affection, friendship and humor. She found these in letter-writing, in grandchildren, in gardens, architecture and greyhounds--as well as in a succession of lovers which gave rise to salacious rumors throughout Europe. The real Catherine, however, was more interesting than any rumor. Using many of Catherine's own words from her voluminous correspondence and other documents, as well as contemporary accounts by courtiers, ambassadors and foreign visitors, Virginia Rounding penetrates the character of this most powerful, fascinating and surprisingly sympathetic of eighteenth-century women.

History

Russia

St.Martin's Press

From the acclaimed author of Grandes Horizontales comes a book that the Washington Post calls "a vivid portrait of a sensual and intellectual woman."
Dutiful daughter, passionate lover, doting grandmother, tireless legislator, generous patron of artists and philosophers---Empress Catherine II was all these things, and more. Her reign, the longest in Russian imperial history, lasted from 1762 until her death in 1796; during these years she realized Peter the Great's ambition to establish Russia as a major European power and to transform its new capital, St. Petersburg, into a city to rival Paris and London. 
Yet Catherine was not Russian by birth and had no legitimate claim to the Russian throne; she seized it and held on to it, through wars, rebellions, and plagues, by the force of her personality and an unshakable belief in her own destiny. Using Catherine's own correspondence, as well as contemporary accounts by courtiers, ambassadors, and foreign visitors, Virginia Rounding penetrates the character of this powerful, fascinating, and surprisingly sympathetic eighteenth-century figure.

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

St. Martin's: Griffin

Alix and Nicky: The Passion of the Last Tsar and Tsarina

The dramatic story of Emperor Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra Fyodorovna, the last Tsar and Tsarina of Russia―A penetrating and deeply personal study that gives profound psychological insight into their marriage and how it shaped the events that engulfed them.
There are few characters in history about whom opinion has been more divided than the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, and his wife the Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna. On one hand, they are venerated as saints, innocent victims of Bolshevik assassins, and on the other they are impugned as the unwitting harbingers of revolution and imperial collapse, blamed for all the ills that befell the Russian people in the 20th century. Theirs was also a tragic love story; for whatever else can be said of them, there can be no doubt that Alix and Nicky adored one another. Soon after their engagement, Alix wrote in her fiancé's diary: "Ever true and ever loving, faithful, pure and strong as death"―words which met their fulfillment twenty-four years later in a blood-spattered cellar in Ekaterinburg.
Through the letters and diaries written by the couple and by those around them, Virginia Rounding presents an intimate, penetrating, and fresh portrayal of these two complex figures and of their passion―their love and their suffering. She explores the nature and possible causes of the Empress's ill health, and examines in depth the enigmatic triangular relationship between Nicky, Alix and their ‘favourite,' Ania Vyrubova, protégée of the infamous Rasputin, extracting the meaning from words left unsaid, from hints and innuendoes..
The story of Alix and Nicky, of their four daughters known collectively as ‘OTMA' and of their hemophiliac little boy Alexei, is endlessly fascinating, and Rounding makes these characters come alive, presenting them in all their human dimensions and expertly leading the reader into their vanished world.

The lives and legends of four women are examined in this fascinating book, all representatives of the golden age of the French courtesan. In the reign of Emperor Napoleon III the opulent and pampered demi-monde became almost indistinguishable from the haut-monde, with mythical reputations growing up around its most glittering and favoured celebrities. Marie Duplessis became the prototype of the virtuous courtesan when Alexandre Dumas Fils portrayed her in La dame aux Camellas. Apollonie Sabatier put men of letters at ease amidst the bawdy talk of her salon. The Russian Jew La Paiva appeared intent to prey on rich young men of Paris. The English beauty who called herself Cora Pearl was another 'foreign threat', with her athletic physique, sixty horses and ability 'to make bored men laugh'. Virginia Rounding disentangles myth from reality in her lively, thought-provoking study. Nineteenth-century Paris comes to life and so do its most distinguished and declasse inhabitants.

Les Grandes Horizontales

Literature & Fiction

Bloomsbury USA

Alix &amp; Nicky tells the dramatic story of Emperor Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra Fyodorovna, the last Tsar and Tsarina of Russia-A penetrating and deeply personal study that gives profound psychological insight into their marriage and how it shaped the events that engulfed them.
There are few characters in history about whom opinion has been more divided than the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, and his wife the Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna. On one hand, they are venerated as saints, innocent victims of Bolshevik assassins, and on the other they are impugned as the unwitting harbingers of revolution and imperial collapse, blamed for all the ills that befell the Russian people in the 20th century. Theirs was also a tragic love story; for whatever else can be said of them, there can be no doubt that Alix and Nicky adored one another. Soon after their engagement, Alix wrote in her fiancé's diary: "Ever true and ever loving, faithful, pure and strong as death"-words which met their fulfillment twenty-four years later in a blood-spattered cellar in Ekaterinburg.
Through the letters and diaries written by the couple and by those around them, Virginia Rounding presents an intimate, penetrating, and fresh portrayal of these two complex figures and of their passion-their love and their suffering. She explores the nature and possible causes of the Empress's ill health, and examines in depth the enigmatic triangular relationship between Nicky, Alix and their 'favourite,' Ania Vyrubova, protégée of the infamous Rasputin, extracting the meaning from words left unsaid, from hints and innuendoes..
The story of Alix and Nicky, of their four daughters known collectively as 'OTMA' and of their hemophiliac little boy Alexei, is endlessly fascinating, and Rounding makes these characters come alive, presenting them in all their human dimensions and expertly leading the reader into their vanished world.

Smithfield, settled on the fringes of Roman London, was once a place of revelry. Jesters and crowds flocked for the medieval St Bartholomew's Day celebrations, tournaments were plentiful and it became the location of London's most famous meat market. Yet in Tudor England, Smithfield had another, more sinister use: the public execution of heretics.
The Burning Time is a vivid insight into an era in which what was orthodoxy one year might be dangerous heresy the next. The first martyrs were Catholics, who cleaved to Rome in defiance of Henry VIII's break with the papacy. But with the accession of Henry's daughter Mary - soon to be nicknamed 'Bloody Mary' - the charge of heresy was leveled against devout Protestants, who chose to burn rather than recant.
At the center of Virginia Rounding's vivid account of this extraordinary period are two very different characters. The first is Richard Rich, Thomas Cromwell's protégé, who, almost uniquely, remained in a position of great power, influence and wealth under three Tudor monarchs, and who helped send many devout men and women to their deaths. The second is John Deane, Rector of St Bartholomew's, who was able, somehow, to navigate the treacherous waters of changing dogma and help others to survive.
The Burning Time is their story, but it is also the story of the hundreds of men and women who were put to the fire for their faith.

The Burning Time: Henry VIII, Bloody Mary, and the Protestant Martyrs of London

The Burning Time: The Story of the Smithfield Martyrs

World

Pan Books

In nineteenth-century Paris, the pampered demimonde became almost indistinguishable from the haut monde, with mythical reputations growing up around its most alluring and favored celebrities. Grandes Horizantales examines the lives of four of the era's best-known courtesans-Marie Duplessis, La Présidente, La Païva, and Cora Pearl-and the men who were their lovers, providing a provocative look into the parlors and boudoirs of the women whose lives became legends.

Grandes Horizontales: The Lives and Legends of Four Nineteenth-Century Courtesans

Europe

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Rounding, Virginia. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Rounding, Virginia

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Rounding, Virginia. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Parish Survival Guide

Churchwardens: A Survival Guide (Revised Edition)

Catherine the Great: Love, Sex, and Power

Catherine the Great: Love, Sex, and Power

Alix and Nicky: The Passion of the Last Tsar and Tsarina

Les Grandes Horizontales

Alix and Nicky: The Passion of the Last Tsar and Tsarina

The Burning Time: Henry VIII, Bloody Mary, and the Protestant Martyrs of London

The Burning Time: The Story of the Smithfield Martyrs

Grandes Horizontales: The Lives and Legends of Four Nineteenth-Century Courtesans