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|genre=For SharingArt|summary=There are few positive things which can be said about a substandard apartment when you’re on holiday but this time, in trying to avoid looking at a problem I'm going to tell you found myself looking more closely at a story about Dog, Man, Lady and couple of pictures on the Pup. They all work on an industrial site walls - in fact Dog and Man live there in a caravan and Man drives was completely taken by the sort work of digger which is dreamed about by boys large and smallBrian Lewis. Lady I searched online and the Pup run the snack bar could only find ‘used’ versions of this book and one day as they're all having something to eat, the Pup goes missingprint I wanted was ‘not available’. Man and Lady search everywhere but it's Dog's sharp ears which finally track him down Oh, dear - caught in then a branch over few doors down from the apartment, I found a fast-flowing stream. And it's Dog who works out how to rescue him. I needed 88 words to tell you that story, but Kate Prendergast does it without using gift shop with a single one stack of brand new books - and she tells it in a far more engaging way than framed print of the picture I could ever managewanted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910646148</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Will Jones|title= How to Read New York: A Crash Course in Big Apple Architecture|rating= 5|genre= Travel|summary=New York is home to some of the most iconic and instantly-recognisable pieces of architecture in the world. The city is a mishmash of architectural stylesAntoine Laurain, a place where Classical and Colonial meet Renaissance and Modernist. The result is a glorious fusion that works perfectly Le Sonneur and upon closer inspection has a plethora of secrets just waiting to be revealed. Welcome to New York...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782404104</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=@dogsofinstagramJane Aitken (translator)|title=Dogs on InstagramRed is My Heart
|rating=3.5
|genre=PetsLiterary Fiction |summary=I'm a sucker for dogs[[:Category: Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in my house. And so was this one, although I can't walk past could have spelled that more accurately – this one in the street without stopping was, and having a conversationis, sometimes without bothering to speak to the ownersblack and white and red. Yes, so a book of pictures of dogs was going to be right up my street. The wildly popular @dogs_of_instagramhe has an artistic collaborator on this piece, run by Ahmed El Shourbagy and his wife Ashley and launched just four years ago gives us this book of over four hundred photographs of dogs. Originally I had ''no'' intention of reviewing think it: in fact I wasn't even intending s possible to read say not one page lacks the book, just to have a quick flick through, but within five minutes I was showing other people in the office the picture influence of the Weimaraner riding a bicyclesome striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1452151970</amazonuk>1913547183
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catherine Hickley1912242052|title=The Munich Art Hoard: Hitler's Dealer and His Secret LegacyO Joy for me!|author=Keir Davidson|rating=4.53|genre=HistoryArt|summary=One of ''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the most newsworthy events in modern art history happened seemingly by chance. When tax police raided first person to walk the house of an aged man in Munich it was mountains alone, not because they assumed he had been moving too much money about and paying no tax – this six months after he was seen on the train between Bavaria and Switzerland with 'nearly too much' cash. The investigators had no caseto for work, as a miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack-horse driver, but because he had something much more complex wanted to for pleasure and rich – a massive legacy of 20th Century German and European artadventure. But that collection had to have an origin – one of dubious and at times nefarious beginningsHis rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and one that could have quite a rich and convoluted background. Hickleyits literary consequences, in these pages, gives us much in changed our view of the way of context as well as ironing out those convolutions, so this story is both of interest to Nazi historians and art scholars – as well as to those larger numbers who just like a good story told wellworld''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0500292574</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Wade Graham1980891117|title=Dream CitiesG Engleheart Pinxit 1805: Seven Urban Ideas That Shape A year in the Worldlife of George Engleheart|author=John Webley
|rating=4.5
|genre= HistoryArt|summary=Between 1950 and 2014 George Engleheart was one of the world's urban population increased leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from 746 million the 1770s to 3the Regency era.9 billionHe was also one of the most prolific, painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). The urbanising trend is set to continue with the United Nations predicting Throughout most of that by time he carefully recorded the middle names of the century 66% each of us will be city dwellershis clients, a massive six billion people. How have city planners and architects tried subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to cope with the recent surge? How can they avoid repeating mistakes from the past? Both of those questions are considered in Dream Cities – Seven Urban Ideas That Shape The World, Wade Graham's excellent field guide to the modern worldas his fee book. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445659735</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul JarvisHewitt_Renoir|title=Mapping the AirwaysRenoir's Dancer: The Secret Life of Suzanne Valadon|author=Catherine Hewitt
|rating=4.5
|genre=Art
|summary=Before I startDeep in the rural parts of France in the 1860s, you would never really expect to find someone who would come to embody a full artistic period – and not just a movement at that, there is nothing wrong with being an anally retentive trainspottery typebut a full generation of both creative and societal change. Having said And if you were to expect thatsomeone, do you see what on they would like as not be male. But almost stumbling into the front cover hedonistic culture of this first edition marks this book out as being completely and utterly for Montmartre came Marie-Clementine Valadon. She started in the trainspottery type? It is the fact circus that the foreword is both creditedfirst caught her teenaged eye, and datedalthough her gymnastic career was short-lived. Yes, unless a major change But what she did have from that was imminent and the Executive Chairman of BA was going poise to be someone else within weeks, this book gladly states that March 2016 was when he put finger an appealing model for some seriously important painters and a natural beauty and figure to appeal to laptop both them and came up with his page-long contributiontheir audiences. Have you ever known such attention And what she also had, much to detail? I guess it's to be expected, when the book concerns such a singular entity as the visual history surprise of charts many and maps as used by the airlines that became British Airways.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445654644</amazonuk>distaste of some, was artistic talent of her own…
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matt SewellMurakami_Music|title=Penguins Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa|author=Haruki Murakami and Other Sea BirdsSeiji Ozawa|rating=43.5|genre=Animals and WildlifeArt|summary=I've always been fascinated Murakami loves music, any reader of his could tell you as much. Norwegian Wood was named after a Beatles song (albeit one not very well known) and After Dark is framed by Penguins: I think it's because they look so ''smart'' and striking, yet survive a music soundtrack in extreme conditionsa brilliant display of atmospheric setting. With this, so the opportunity to review all that love is here. And like all who have a book which contains fifty penguins and other seabirds was too good to miss. Just the pictures would have been enough - the minimalist watercolours of street artist and ornithologist Matt Sewell - but Sewelltaste in music, Murakami's whimsical wit is eclectic and ability to teach without being preachy makes very well considered. I found myself looking up musicians after reading this a book to treasurebecause I found many of his opinions quite convincing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785032224</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David P ColleyRavilious_Recent|title=Seeing the War: The Stories Behind the Famous Photographs from World War IIRecent Past|author=James Ravilious|rating=45|genre=HistoryArt|summary=As anybody could tell, a still photograph is only part of the truth, if that. There is a beforehand we don't see, and an after we can only fantasise about unless we know otherwise. Take the famous image of wartime grunts pushing the flag pole upright – an icon of the War in the Pacific for the US soldiersJames, and the films made about Iwo Jima since. But other images son of the war have been just as long-lastingartist Eric Ravilious, and the people in the photos doninherited his father't always have movies made of their full story arcs artistic talents. This book is Although he was a collection of the imagesgifted painter, and a corrective his main career was to that narrative lack, giving much more of be as a full biography with which to pay tributephotographer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1611687268</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Isabel Sanchez Vegara and Eng Gee FanWood_Gothic|title=Little People, Big DreamsAmerican Gothic: Frida Kahlo|rating=4|genre=Emerging Readers|summary=Frida Kahlo was born in Mexico. When she was a young schoolgirl she contracted polio and was left with a leg which was ''skinny as a rake'', but she bore the problem stoically and in some ways delighted in being different. Then one day Frida was in a bus which crashed into a car. She was badly injured and even when she was over the worst she still had to rest in bed and filled the time by drawing pictures, including a self portrait. Eventually she showed her pictures to a famous artist - Diego Rivera - who liked the pictures, ''and'' Frida. They married and Rivera encouraged Frida's painting. She exhibited, eventually in New York, to great acclaim.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847807704</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Jackie Morris|title= The Wild Swans|rating= 5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= The most well known version of the wild swans is probably the one penned by Hans Andersen. This extended retelling by Jackie Morris adds depth, emotional resonance and a number Life of new twists to the tale. As in most versions, Eliza and her brothers live a happy and privileged life until their father's remarriage brings jealousy, mistrust and trouble in its wake. The brothers are magically changed into wild swans and it is up to brave Eliza to rescue them. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847805361</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewGrant Wood|author= Stephen Hickman|title= The Art of Stephen Hickman|rating= 4|genre= Fantasy|summary= Stephen Hickman has been a well known artist in the Fantasy and Science Fiction worlds for a number of years now, having created covers for authors such as Harlan Ellison, Robert Heinlein, Anne McCaffrey, and Larry Niven. His paintings are vibrant, kinetic, sometimes scary, often sensual, traditional, and yet modern. ''The Art of Stephen Hickman'' collects hundreds of these paintings, and the artist himself provides an intriguing commentary alongside which offers a fascinating glimpse into the artistic process. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783298456</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Lewis Carroll, Mark Burstein (editor) and Salvador Dali|title=Alice's Adventures in Wonderland|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=If you don't know the story now, then where have you been for a hundred and fifty years? A young girl sees a hurrying white rabbit, follows it, falls down a hole, fails to recognise the 'stranger danger' in partaking of random foods and drinks just because of a label on them, nearly drowns a whole menagerie of animals in a lake of her own tears, takes advice from someone on drugs, plays cards, or croquet, or both or neither, and wakes up to find it all a dream. Someone else tried out such gibberish on a young girl, wrote it down in a flurry, made a hugely successful name for himself, and woke up to find even at this remove that most people (unlike me) adore the thing. But it's not just for now, its 150th birthday, that the work gets reprinted. In the 1960s, someone came up with the idea to put the esoteric, surreal and daft mind of Salvador Dali in cahoots with the esoteric, surreal and daft world of Carroll's Alice, and the result was a very rare Susan Wood and valuable edition – a box set of illustrated booklets, perfectly suited to the very surrealistic 105th birthday. Since getting sight of one is like seeing a flat clock in Dali's pictures, this decent hardback replication is the nearest you'll get to owning one of the most special of Alice editions.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0691170029</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=David Hollis|title=Practical Landscape Painting: Materials, Techniques & ProjectsRoss MacDonald
|rating=4.5
|genre=Art
|summary=Almost any Who won a national prize for a crayon drawing of us can visit the countryside three oak leaves before he was properly in his teens? Who sought acclaim as an artist and capture came to Europe to study from the view in our memory or on our camera with comparatively consummate ease. However capturing it in paint is more difficult and yet something some greats, only to reject all they had to offer? Who instinctively knew a picture of us his dentist (me includedyes, his dentist) dream of. It would be more appealing and say more to people than floating water lilies and frilly ballet dancers? The answer in all cases was therefore with great excitement that I picked up this compact book of seven lessons Grant Wood, practically the most well-known painter in landscape painting. As I believe (with good evidence) that I have America at one time, and still the artistic ability of a house brickbest, alongside Edward Hopper, it would be a challenge but I also have a dream to followat presenting his world minus any Modernist trappings.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782402802</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher DellV&A_Patchwork|title=MythologyPatchwork and Quilting: An Illustrated Journey Into Our Imagined WorldsA Maker's Guide|author=Victoria and Albert Museum
|rating=4.5
|genre=Spirituality and ReligionArt|summary=What does Patchwork is a rainbow mean to magical craft: you? How would you explain the creation can take relatively small pieces of material and turn them into another piece of material with an entirely different pattern. Quilting converts a topper and a backing fabric with some wadding in between into a fabric of an entirely different weight. Combine the world if two crafts and you had no science as suchhave something more than magical, or the changing of the seasons? What other kinds of natures – chaotic trickeryoccasionally fashionable but always deeply satisfying. But where to start, evil personae or even the characteristics when there are so many different styles of goats – people your worldboth crafts? And why One answer is it that the answers man and woman have collectively formed to such questions have been so similar across the oceans read ''Patchwork and across Quilting: A Maker's Guide'' which looks - as the centuries? This highly pictorial volume looks cover says - at styles from Italian trapunto to Korean jogakbo and then delivers fifteen projects inspired by the mythologies that formed those answers, and locks on to a multitude of subjects – blood, music, godly activity – to show us what has followedV&A collections.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0500291519</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jules NilssonRutherford_Landscape|title=The Hounds of FalsterboLandscape Gardens|author=Sarah Rutherford
|rating=4
|genre=Art
|summary=My first experience of a ''big'' garden was Versailles as a teenager and whilst I have to admitwas impressed, I wasndidn't a huge fan really like it. I felt stifled and strangely underwhelmed by the flatness of maths at schoolit all. Maybe if As luck would have it I'd had this book when then saw Hampton Court and it was official: I was a child, off big gardens. It would be many years before I would have beenrevised my opinion. 'This is not On a Maths Book' cleverly bridges the gap between maths and art and teaches kids how trip to make beautiful patterns and shapes by using mathematical principles. We learn about parabolic curvesHarewood House, Pascal's triangleit was too hot a day to be corralled into the house, so I wandered the stomachion, tesselation gardens and 3D drawingsfound they were delightful. I felt uplifted. Because Then a cricket match at Stowe gave me the pages are interactive opportunity to walk the grounds for over an hour. I was completely won over and hands-on, kids are learning the rules a devotee of maths without realising itLancelot 'Capability' Brown. After all, there is no reason why maths shouldn Sarah Rutherford's ''Landscape Gardens''t be fun!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782402055</amazonuk>was an opportunity to put him in context.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew WilsonBarrie_Peter|title=Alexander McQueen: Blood Beneath the SkinPeter Pan and Wendy|author=J M Barrie and Robert Ingpen
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyArt|summary=On It's a childhood staple - the face story of it Lee McQueen might not have seemed like the ideal candidate for greatness in the world of haute couture. He was the youngest son of an East London taxi driverWendy, John and Michael Darling and their beloved nurse, but there was history in Nana the rag trade within the family, although his father told him that if he wanted Newfoundland dog who took them to sell clothes he should get a market stallschool each day. Determined to do it It''his'' ways George Darling, Lee borrowed the money from a relative to enable him to attend Central St Martins after doing a tailoring apprenticeship. The name 'Lee' might confuse youtheir father, but at who makes the time McQueen began his own business mistake when he was claiming benefits locks Nana in the yard and decided the children are whisked away to use his middle name to avoid detectionNeverland by Peter Pan and Tinkerbell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471131785</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Quentin Blake|title=Tell me a Picture - Adventures in Looking at Art|rating=4.5|genre=ChildrenThere's Non-Fiction|summary=When did you last read a children's book that absolutely flummoxed you in wonderful mix of characters, from Peter Pan, the way it showed or told you something you didn't know? (And please be an adult when you answer thatboy who never wants to grow up, or else it won't be quite so impressive.) Back in 2001Tinkerbell, Quentin Blake wasn't a Knight yet – he hadn't even got his CBE – but he did get allowed to put on his own show at the National Galleryrather unpleasant fairy, with other people's pictures that contain odditiesCaptain Hook, storiesTiger Lily, unexpected detail – sparks on canvas the lost boys and paper that would inspire anyone looking, - of whatever age, to piece things together, work things outcourse - Wendy, but then it wouldn''form t have been a narrative''. The pictures came with no major labelling, no context – just what they held, and some typically scratched Blake characters discussing classic since the images as a lead-original stage production in. They were simply hung in alphabetical order, 1904 and probably could not have been more different. This then is a picture book the novel of the most literal kind, with 26 stories1911 if it were otherwise.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847806422</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David EsterlyGrahame_Wind|title=The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of MakingWind in The Willows|author=Kenneth Grahame and Robert Ingpen
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyArt|summary=Bouncing between his studio Kenneth Grahame's ''The Wind in upstate New York and the sites of various English sojourns, woodcarver David EsterlyWillows's seems to be an idyllic existence. Yet it's not all cosy cottages in was one of the snow defining books of my childhood and watching geese and coyotes when he looks up from his workbenchmore than sixty years after I first read the book I've just recently passed it onto another young reader. There is an element of hard-won retreat from Since the trials of life book was first published in this memoir, but at the same time 1908 there is an argument have been some notable illustrators: Paul Bransom provided illustrations for the essential difficulty 1913 edition, Ernest H Shepard (perhaps better known for his illustrations of ''Winnie the artistPooh's life. 'Carvers are starvers) in 1933,' a wizened English carver once told him. Certainly there is no great fortune to be won Arthur Rackham (possibly the leading illustrator from a profession as obscure as limewood carving, but the rewards outweigh golden age of book illustration) in 1940 and Robert Ingpen who illustrated the centenary edition of ''The Wind in the hard graft for EsterlyWillows''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715649191</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall SmithJenkins_100|title=A Work of Beauty: Alexander McCall SmithBritain's Edinburgh100 Best Railway Stations|author=Simon Jenkins
|rating=5
|genre=TravelArt|summary=It might be simplest if I begin by telling you what this book is ''not''. It's not a book of beautiful photographs (with some supporting text) of In the mid-twentieth century, the places you'll almost certainly want railway was something which harked back to visit if you're visiting Edinburgh as a tourist. If that's what you want then there are dozens of such books available all over the city at a fraction of the cost of ''A Work of Beauty''. This might have the look of a coffee table book (Victorian age with trains being supplanted by cars and it would certainly look impressive there) planes, but it has a lot more depth steam was being replaced by oil, even then and interest than you might expectin the twenty-first-century oil is giving way to electricity. This is a book of Alexander McCall SmithIt's Edinburghcleaner, more environmentally friendly and the city he walks around every daystations which we'd all rushed through as quickly as possible, constantly seeing something newkeen to escape their grime, something else with a story were restored and became places to tellbe admired, possibly even lingered in. Simon Jenkins has chosen his hundred best railway stations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1902419863</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|title=Beautiful Patterns|author=Various Authors|rating=4.5|genre=Crafts|summaryisbn=If you are going to make a colouring book aimed at adults I say do it 100% and go all out. You can keep your minimalist landscapes or your naïve animals; give me a page packed to the gills with something that needs filling in. This can make a creative colouring book for grownups feel more like a military operation, but at least you will have fun doing it and improve your skills.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782432787</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewHurst_Norfolk|title=Summers of DiscontentOn My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks|author=Raymond Tallis and Julian SpaldingJohn Hurst|rating=54
|genre=Art
|summary=Raymond Tallis is what some people may refer to as It was pure serendipity: after a Renaissance Man. He is a doctor (specificallyfive-hour drive, we were, a neurologist)annoyingly, a philosopherleft with an hour to fill in Blakeney before we could have the keys to our holiday cottage. There was an art exhibition in the church hall, so we went in - and found a poet display of the most gorgeous pictures. I'd cheerfully have bought every one and hung them on our walls, but thought that I would have to make do with a cultural critic. couple of greetings cards when I saw ''Summers of DiscontentOn My Way: The Purpose of the Arts TodayNorfolk Coastal Walks'' is a collection of excerpts from Tallis’s numerous other works, extracted and collated by Julian Spalding – curator and Tallis’ contemporary. It’s a testament to the free-flowing, all-encompassing way in which Tallis writes that these excerpts sit next to each other seamlessly; they feel like one complete discussion, which is an achievement in itselfI couldn't resist buying it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908524405</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David GentlemanBlackburn_Threads|title=In the CountryThreads: The Delicate Life of John Craske|author=Julia Blackburn|rating=54
|genre=Art
|summary=I had no intention John Craske was a fisherman, from a family of reading ''In The Countryfishermen, who became too ill to go to sea. He was born in Sheringham on the north Norfolk coast in 1881 and would eventually die in the Norwich hospital in 1943 after a life which could have been defined by ill health. There were various explanations for what ailed him, what caused him to sink into a stupor, sometimes for years at a time and he was on occasions described as 'an imbecile'. I opened it simply to see what it was likeBut John had a natural artistic talent, but by the time albeit that I shut it again I was nearly halfway through and I his work had no intention of giving to be done on the book to anyone else. Now available surfaces in his eighties David Gentleman is well known as watercolouristhome. Chair seats, window sills, specialising in landscapes. He's based in London but also has a home in Suffolk in the village backs of Huntingfield and it's this housedoors all carried his wonderful pictures of the sea. Then he moved on to embroidery, producing wonderful pictures of the village Norfolk coast - and , most famously, of the surrounding area which is the location for ''In The Country''evacuation at Dunkirk.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095715285X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeff Scott and Rachael AdamsBray Titania|title=Strictly Shale: Circling British SpeedwayTitania and Oberon|rating=4.5|genre=Sport|summaryauthor=When I was young I remember Speedway being a regular item on Saturday sport programmes on television. My father was an aficionado and loved the noiseJo Manton, the risk and the sheer energy of the sport - my mother less so and she quoted the noise and the strong possibility of there being 'a nasty accident' when the riders slid their motorcycles sideways. It is still on television but I'll confess to not having watched for many years and it was for this reason that Jeff Scott's ''Strictly Shale'' achieved the unusual feat of both being an eye opener Phyllis Bray and bringing back long-forgotten memories.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956861830</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|title=Winter|author=Adam GopnikDavid Buckman
|rating=4
|genre=ReferenceArt|summary=In this collection of five essays, each one offering a unique and fascinating perspective on the season of winter, Adam Gopnik takes the reader on a captivating journey, exploring history, art and society, through ''Romantic Winter''Equus, ''Radical Winter'', ''Recuperative Winter'', ''Recreational Winter'' Waiting for Godot and A Mid-summer Night's Dream'Remembering Winter''. In each essay, Gopnik focuses on one or two central themes, whilst also touching on surrounding ideas. For example– three very distinctive plays, in Romantic Winter his central topics are art and poetrymy favourite three, however, issues such as changing society, technology, sex and culture are also explored, in relation to these pivotal notions. He also includes two sections featuring collections out of artwork to illustrate his viewpoints, which add a charming, individual touch to this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780874472</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|title=The First Bohemians: Life and Art in Londonyou won's Golden Age|author=Vic Gatrell|rating=4t often get me choosing just one.5|genre=History|summary=It was in the eighteenth century that an area of London consisting of about half a square mile, from Soho and Leicester Square across Covent Garden’s Piazza But were I to Drury Lanedo so, and down from Long Acre to it might actually be the Strandlast, with Covent Garden at for the very centre, became what has simple reason that I would delight in modern times been recognised as the world’s first creative ‘bohemia’playing any and all characters from it. This was where the cream of Britain’s significant artists, actors, poets, novelistsYes, I know Hermia and dramatists Helena look a bit implausible now – but I put it to you stranger things happen on stage… Some of the age lived and workedstrangest things involve a player himself, side by side with the city’s chief market traders, craftsmen, shopkeepers, rakes, pickpockets and prostitutes. One might say that all human life was here.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846146771</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|title=Sea Monsters: The Lore and Legacy of Olaus Magnusa lowly actor who gets given an ass's Marine Map|author=Joseph Nigg|rating=4.5|genre=Popular Science|summary=A confession. When reading hardbacks I take the paper cover, if there head and is one, off, forced to keep it pristine. Sometimes there's be enamoured of a second benefit, with [[Longbourn by Jo Baker]] as an example of having an embossed illustration underneath, or suchlikefairy queen. But with this book I won't be alone, for the cover folds out into an amazing artwork, such as has only two extant original copies. It's a coloured replica of a large map this section of the northern seas and Scandinavia, dating from 1539, and is in a category of three major artful scientific papers from where the whole 'here be dragons' cliché about maps comes from. Its creator, Olaus Magnus, followed it up years later with a commentary of all the sea creatures he drew on it, but Magnus has waited centuries for play that this delicious volume to commentate book concentrates on both together, in such a lovely fashionquite stunning form.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782400435</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Judith KerrBM_Origami|title=Judith Kerr's Creatures: A Celebration of the Life Origami, Poems and Work of Judith KerrPictures|author=The British Museum
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyArt|summary=In childrenSometimes you find a delight of a book. On an afternoon when it was unseasonably cold and decidedly wet I discovered 's literature there are some authors whom you know are not just reliable'Origami, but always impressivePoems and Pictures'' and I was transported to Japan. One As the title suggests we're looking at three celebrated arts and crafts: the ancient art of those names is [[:Category:Judith Kerr|Judith Kerr]]paper folding, haiku poetry and painting. For decades sheI's been delighting our children (and grandchildren) ll confess that it was the origami which caught my attention, but it still came as I was surprised by the extent to which the rest of the book caught my imagination. We begin with something of very simple: a surprise to discover that she would be ninety boat and in June 2013. To celebrate thiscase you're worried, Harper Collins all the entries have published ''Creatures'' in which Judith tells not just her own story but that a degree of the difficulty (from 'simple'creaturesthrough to 'tricky' - the characters in her books ) and her family - who have contributed to her inspirational life. It this one is, though, far more than just an autobiography with a marvellous collection of paintings, drawings and memorabiliaat the lowest level.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007513216</amazonuk>}}'{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rick GekoskiForeman_Travel|title=Lost, Stolen or Shredded: Stories of missing works of art and literatureTravels With My Sketchbook|author=Michael Foreman
|rating=4
|genre=Art
|summary=Over I guess the centuriesbest children's literature can do away with complete veracity, many works as long as it has something about it that is recognisable – a little of art have disappeared the spirit, heart and character of the real thing, whatever it may be. And if that's the case then come backit definitely applies to children's literature illustrations, or been returned almost such as if they had never been awaythose provided close on two hundred times by [[:Category:Michael Foreman|Michael Foreman]]. OthersThis prolific artist leapt at a scholarship in the US when he'd completed his official, less fortunateformal studies, were simply destroyed. A very few and it would appear – huge credits list regardless – that he's never really existed at stopped moving since, as this book takes us to all. That is corners of the basis of this unusual and very intriguing read from rare book dealerworld, writer and broadcaster Rick Gekoskiback home again.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684919</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rosy SherryBiesty Trains|title=Boobadoodle|rating=5|genre=Humour|summary=Boobadoodle is a book of doodles. On boobs. Fifty doodles on a variety of boobs, some belonging to the author, some to her friends. Quite good friends, I imagine.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846059267</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewStephen Biesty's Trains|author=Christopher Simon Sykes|title=Hockney: The Biography, Volume 1, 1937-1975Ian Graham and Stephen Biesty
|rating=5
|genre=Art
|summary=As one of the major names of British twentieth century artTrains look imposing, but true fans (little boys, David Hockney has always been a larger than life figure. Published usually from about three years old and upwards) want to coincide with his 75th birthday, this is know what lies beneath the first volume of a biography skin which tells his story up you can see. They want to 1975know how it works.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846057086</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Carola Hicks|title=Girl Getting to grips with one in real life is quite a Green Gown: The History and Mystery of big ask, but the Arnolfini Portrait|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=The Arnolfini marriage portrait, as it next best thing is generally if perhaps inaccurately known, painted by Flemish artist Jan van Eyck, signed ''Stephen Biesty's Trains'' which features trains from all over the world and dated 1434, has long been one spanning the early steam train (complete with cowcatcher) right through to the trains of the most popular future which can reach a speed of 430 kph and enigmatic paintings of its timedon't even run on rails. Of modest size, Once the train reaches a little less than three feet high, it is one speed of 150 kph the wheels are raised and the oldest surviving panel pictures to be painted in oils rather than tempera. It train is also regarded as the first work of art which simultaneously celebrates both middle-class comfort and monogamous marriageheld up by magnetic forces alone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099526891</amazonuk>
}}
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