The June issue of Chronicles contains my combined review of Sonia Purnell’s ground-breaking biography of Clementine Churchill, and David Lough’s illuminating Churchill and His Money. Teaser link here (you need to subscribe to read the full review) – http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2017/June/41/6/magazine/article/10839545/
Author Archives →
Dancing into darkness – Holbein’s Dance of Death
DANCING INTO DARKNESS The Dance of Death, Hans Holbein, London: Penguin Classics, 2016, 184pps., pb., £9.99 If age is synonymous with canonicity – an assumption increasingly questioned – Hans Holbein’s 1523-5 Dance of Death qualifies as ‘classic’ on that score alone. But his striking work is also defining in deeper ways, epitomising the Reformation, when… Continue reading
Into the valley – Michael Wilding’s In the Valley of the Weed
Into the Valley In the Valley of the Weed, Michael Wilding, Melbourne: Arcadia, 2016, $29.95 “Old radicals become quietist” a character in Valley of the Weed tells Plant, the appropriately-named private detective investigating the disappearance of a high-profile academic. “They stop socialising. Stay at home and surrender to the comforting millenarian conviction that change will… Continue reading
Dr. Johnson in Scotland – An Englishman in his Near Abroad
DR. JOHNSON IN SCOTLAND – AN ENGLISHMAN IN HIS NEAR ABROAD Samuel Johnson was nearly sixty-four when he made an unexpected journey. One day in 1773, the internationally-renowned lexicographer, essayist, poet, and novelist, who somehow combined being one of the great thinkers of Europe with being a personification of bluff Englishness, suddenly switched his great… Continue reading
Today’s book finds – Aeschylus, English letters, Hell Fire Clubs, Zweig…
An absorbing few hours today spent scouring old bookshops for anything interesting, with the usual mixed bag of long-sought books and serendipitous finds. First, the Seven Tragedies of Aeschylus, an 1843 edition of Prometheus Chained, The Seven Against Thebes, The Persians, Agamemnon, The Choephori, The Furies, and The Supplicants. Astonishing really to pick up a 174 year old… Continue reading
My “Australian Spectator” review of Michael Wilding’s new novel
My review of Michael Wilding’s latest novel, In The Valley of the Weed, is now online at the Australian Spectator – https://spectator.com.au/2017/01/spurred-on/
Dubliners of a different kind – Dublin Seven by Frankie Gaffney
DUBLINERS OF A DIFFERENT KIND Dublin Seven, Frankie Gaffney, Dublin: Liberties Press, 2015, pb. This uncompromising story about Dublin drug-dealers was published to acclaim in Irish literary circles, although this is the first UK review. Though the subject may seem parochial and is at times squalid, like Trainspotting (with which it was inevitably compared), Dublin… Continue reading
“Pity Poor Bradford”
“Pity poor Bradford” Bolling Hall has squatted on its plot since the fourteenth century, hunched against the wind and rain of the West Riding – a North Country architectural essay in dark yellow sandstone looking warily down a steep hillside onto Bradford’s vale. Old though the building is, the estate’s foundations go deeper than Domesday,… Continue reading
John Aubrey – remembrancer, romantic and forward-thinker – John Aubrey, My Own Life by Ruth Scurr
JOHN AUBREY – REMEMBRANCER, ROMANTIC AND FORWARD-THINKER John Aubrey, My Own Life Ruth Scurr, London: Chatto & Windus, 2015, hb., 518pp, £25 Just as English painting is renowned for portraiture, so English letters have been illuminated by some of the greatest biographers ever to burnish world literature. After Boswell, the best-known is John Aubrey (1626-1697),… Continue reading
Testing for humanity – The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams
TESTING FOR HUMANITY The Plague Dogs (book 1977, film 1982) I came across by chance recently a DVD of The Plague Dogs, a 1982 animation of Richard Adams’ bestselling 1977 novel. I was catapulted immediately back to childhood, when I had read the book shortly after publication, with a sense of distress and anger I… Continue reading