A TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY BESTIARY Animal: Exploring the Zoological World Introduction by James Hanken, London: Phaidon, 2018, hb., 352 pages, £39.95 Any volume examining ‘humankind’s fascination with animals’ can only hope to be a conspectus, but Animal is unusually ambitious and thoughtful, handsomely produced and with an introduction by a Harvard zoologist. It ranges far and… Continue reading
Posts Tagged → Derek Turner
The Secret Lives of Colour by Kassia St. Clair
COLOURFUL TALES The Secret Lives of Colour Kassia St. Clair, John Murray: London, 2016, hb., 320pps. History can be refracted through countless prisms – cultural, economic, environmental, ideological, moral, national, racial, religious – but one has been oddly unexplored, despite being not just obvious, but ubiquitous. That prism is colour, an element that suffuses every… Continue reading
Beauty seen, beauty sought – Beauty by Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh
BEAUTY SEEN, BEAUTY SOUGHT Beauty, Stefan Sagmeister & Jessica Walsh, Phaidon: London, 2018, hb, 280pps “A thing of beauty is a joy forever” Keats effused in Endymion – “Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.” His 1818 poem about the shepherd so handsome he was beloved by immortals was poorly received, and Keats… Continue reading
The Matter of Manners – In Pursuit of Civility by Keith Thomas
THE MATTER OF MANNERS In Pursuit of Civility – Manners and Civilisation in Early Modern England Keith Thomas, Yale: New Haven and London, hb., 457 pages Among the Bodleian Library’s celebrated Douce Collection of arcana, incunabula and later works is an instructional manuscript of circa 1350, which contains the first-known written English expression of what… Continue reading
Enlightenments – Little Demon by Michael Wilding
ENLIGHTENMENTS Little Demon, Michael Wilding, Melbourne: Arcadia, 2018, 260 pages, $29.95 Captain Cook named Cape Byron for ‘Foul-Weather Jack’ Byron, the adventuring Vice-Admiral who sailed past the easternmost point of the Southern Land in 1764, part of that endless English outpouring that shaped today’s topography. The weatherbeaten Enlightenment navigator, for whom beaches were only important… Continue reading
New light on the Lakes
NEW LIGHT ON THE LAKES We’d been dreaming about Andalusia. But plans sometimes must be altered, and so one August evening we found ourselves instead entering into Ulverston, thirteen hundred miles from Andalusia, and even more distant climatically, culturally, and historically. The Lake District – “England’s Switzerland”, Manchester’s playground, stamping-grounds of Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter,… Continue reading
Time’s terpsichorean – review of Anthony Powell by Hilary Spurling
TIME’S TERPSICHORIAN Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time Hilary Spurling, London: Hamish Hamilton, 2016, hb., 510pps Anthony Powell’s million word, twelve-volume novel sequence Dance to the Music of Time is one of the great achievements of postwar English literature, attracting near-universal praise for its subtle and textured evocation of England between the First… Continue reading
Upcoming Chronicles reviews
My review of Kassia St. Clair’s engrossing Secret Lives of Colour will be in the July 2018 issue of Chronicles I have also just sent them my review of David Cannadine’s Victorious Century (no idea yet when that will be published)
The Camelot-Chequers axis
THE CAMELOT-CHEQUERS AXIS Union Jack: John F. Kennedy’s Special Relationship with Great Britain Christopher Sandford, Lebanon, N.H.: ForeEdge, 2017, hb. 300pps Cultural historian Christopher Sandford’s enquiring eyes range widely, playing over everything from cricket to Kurt Cobain, the Great War to The Great Escape, Conan Doyle to Eric Clapton, and countless other late nineteenth and… Continue reading
My Quadrant review of Michael Wilding’s novel, Little Demon
Pleased to say the May issue of the renowned Australian journal Quadrant carries my review of Michael Wilding’s latest novel, Little Demon – https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/05/