Difference between revisions of "Newest Art Reviews"

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[[Category:New Reviews|Art]] [[Category:Art|*]]__NOTOC__ <!-- remove -->
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{{Frontpage
[[Category:New Reviews|Art]]
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|isbn=0957181167
[[Category:Art|*]]
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|title=Blue Skies and Boat Trips: The Norfolk of Brian Lewis
__NOTOC__
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|author=Alan Marshall
{{newreview
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|rating=5
|author= Jackie Morris
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|genre=Art
|title= The Wild Swans
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|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 found myself looking more closely at a couple of pictures on the walls - and was completely taken by the work of Brian LewisI searched online and could only find ‘used’ versions of this book and the print I wanted was ‘not available’Oh, dear - then a few doors down from the apartment, I found a gift shop with a stack of brand new books - and a framed print of the picture I wanted.
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Confident Readers
 
|summary= The most well known version of the wild swans is probably the one penned by Hans AndersenThis extended retelling by Jackie Morris adds depth, emotional resonance and a number of new twists to the taleAs 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>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Stephen Hickman
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|author=Antoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)
|title= The Art of Stephen Hickman
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|title=Red is My Heart
|rating= 4
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|rating=3.5
|genre= Fantasy
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|genre=Literary Fiction
|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.  
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|summary=[[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in my house. And so was this one, although I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, and is, black and white and red. Yes, he has an artistic collaborator on this piece, and I think it's possible to say not one page lacks the influence of some striking visual ideas.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783298456</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1913547183
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lewis Carroll, Mark Burstein (editor) and Salvador Dali
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|isbn=1912242052
|title=Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
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|title=O Joy for me!
|rating=4
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|author=Keir Davidson
|genre=Confident Readers
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|rating=3
|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 thingBut 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 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.
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|genre=Art
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0691170029</amazonuk>
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|summary=''Oh Joy for me!'' gives Coleridge credit for being ''the first person to walk the mountains alone, not because he had to for work, as a miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack-horse driver, but because he wanted to for pleasure and adventureHis rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of the world''.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=David Hollis
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|isbn=1980891117
|title=Practical Landscape Painting: Materials, Techniques & Projects
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|title=G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart
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|author=John Webley
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Art
 
|genre=Art
|summary=Almost any of us can visit the countryside and capture 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 of us (me included) dream of. It was therefore with great excitement that I picked up this compact book of seven lessons in landscape painting.  As I believe (with good evidence) that I have the artistic ability of a house brick, it would be a challenge but I also have a dream to follow.
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|summary=George Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from the 1770s to the Regency era. He was also one of the most prolific, painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the names of each of his clients, and subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782402802</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher Dell
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|isbn=Hewitt_Renoir
|title=Mythology: An Illustrated Journey Into Our Imagined Worlds
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|title=Renoir's Dancer: The Secret Life of Suzanne Valadon
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|author=Catherine Hewitt
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Spirituality and Religion
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|genre=Art
|summary=What does a rainbow mean to you?  How would you explain the creation of the world if you had no science as such, or the changing of the seasons?  What other kinds of natures – chaotic trickery, evil personae or even the characteristics of goats – people your world?  And why is it that the answers man and woman have collectively formed to such questions have been so similar across the oceans and across the centuries?  This highly pictorial volume looks at the mythologies that formed those answers, and locks on to a multitude of subjects – blood, music, godly activity – to show us what has followed.
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|summary=Deep 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, but a full generation of both creative and societal change. And if you were to expect that someone, they would like as not be male. But almost stumbling into the hedonistic culture of Montmartre came Marie-Clementine Valadon. She started in the circus that first caught her teenaged eye, although her gymnastic career was short-lived. But what she did have from that was the poise to be an appealing model for some seriously important painters and a natural beauty and figure to appeal to both them and their audiences. And what she also had, much to the surprise of many and the distaste of some, was artistic talent of her own…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0500291519</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jules Nilsson
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|isbn=Murakami_Music
|title=The Hounds of Falsterbo
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|title=Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa
|rating=4
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|author=Haruki Murakami and Seiji Ozawa
|genre=For Sharing
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|rating=3.5
|summary=''In between the beach huts''<br>
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|genre=Art
''Where the white sands meet the seas,''<br>
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|summary=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 a music soundtrack in a brilliant display of atmospheric setting. With this, all that love is here. And like all who have a good taste in music, Murakami's is eclectic and very well considered. I found myself looking up musicians after reading this because I found many of his opinions quite convincing.
''The heather meets the sand dunes''<br>
 
''And long grasses dance the breeze.''
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0992708419</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Paula Briggs
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|isbn=Ravilious_Recent
|title=Drawing Projects for Children
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|title=The Recent Past
 +
|author=James Ravilious
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Crafts
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|genre=Art
|summary=''Drawing Projects for Children'' is a beautiful, full-colour guide that encourages children to use a range of materials to create stunning and thought-provoking artwork. As the author points out, the end result is not always as important as the journey and this book helps children to move away from the more traditional, or 'safe' type of drawing styles and indulge in a little more experimentation and risk taking. The book is ideal for parents to use with their children, but each chapter is a self-contained lesson plan that facilitators and teachers can use with groups.
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|summary=James, son of the war artist Eric Ravilious, inherited his father's artistic talents. Although he was a gifted painter, his main career was to be as a photographer.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908966742</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Anna Weltman
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|isbn=Wood_Gothic
|title=This is Not a Maths Book
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|title=American Gothic: The Life of Grant Wood
|rating=5
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|author=Susan Wood and Ross MacDonald
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Art
 
|genre=Art
|summary=I have to admit, I wasn't a huge fan of maths at school. Maybe if I'd had this book when I was a child, I would have been. 'This is not a Maths Book' cleverly bridges the gap between maths and art and teaches kids how to make beautiful patterns and shapes by using mathematical principles. We learn about parabolic curves, Pascal's triangle, the stomachion, tesselation and 3D drawings. Because the pages are interactive and hands-on, kids are learning the rules of maths without realising it. After all, there is no reason why maths shouldn't be fun!
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|summary=Who won a national prize for a crayon drawing of three oak leaves before he was properly in his teens? Who sought acclaim as an artist and came to Europe to study from the greats, only to reject all they had to offer? Who instinctively knew a picture of his dentist (yes, his dentist) would be more appealing and say more to people than floating water lilies and frilly ballet dancers? The answer in all cases was Grant Wood, practically the most well-known painter in America at one time, and still the best, alongside Edward Hopper, at presenting his world minus any Modernist trappings.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782402055</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Andrew Wilson
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|isbn=V&A_Patchwork
|title=Alexander McQueen: Blood Beneath the Skin
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|title=Patchwork and Quilting: A Maker's Guide
|rating=4
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|author=Victoria and Albert Museum
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=On the face 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 driver, but there was history in the rag trade within the family, although his father told him that if he wanted to sell clothes he should get a market stall.  Determined to do it ''his'' way, 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 you, but at the time McQueen began his own business he was claiming benefits and decided to use his middle name to avoid detection.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471131785</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Quentin Blake
 
|title=Tell me a Picture - Adventures in Looking at Art
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
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|genre=Art
|summary=When did you last read a children's book that absolutely flummoxed you in the way it showed or told you something you didn't know?  (And please be an adult when you answer that, or else it won't be quite so impressive.)  Back in 2001, 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 Gallery, with other people's pictures that contain oddities, stories, unexpected detail – sparks on canvas and paper that would inspire anyone looking, of whatever age, to piece things together, work things out, ''form a narrative''.  The pictures came with no major labelling, no context – just what they held, and some typically scratched Blake characters discussing the images as a lead-in.  They were simply hung in alphabetical order, and probably could not have been more different.  This then is a picture book of the most literal kind, with 26 stories.
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|summary=Patchwork is a magical craft: you 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 two crafts and you have something more than magical, occasionally fashionable but always deeply satisfying. But where to start, when there are so many different styles of both crafts? One answer is to read ''Patchwork and Quilting: A Maker's Guide'' which looks - as the cover says - at styles from Italian trapunto to Korean jogakbo and then delivers fifteen projects inspired by the V&A collections.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847806422</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=David Esterly
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|isbn=Rutherford_Landscape
|title=The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making
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|title=Landscape Gardens
 +
|author=Sarah Rutherford
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
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|genre=Art
|summary=Bouncing between his studio in upstate New York and the sites of various English sojourns, woodcarver David Esterly's seems to be an idyllic existence. Yet it's not all cosy cottages in the snow and watching geese and coyotes when he looks up from his workbench. There is an element of hard-won retreat from the trials of life in this memoir, but at the same time there is an argument for the essential difficulty of the artist's life. 'Carvers are starvers,' a wizened English carver once told him. Certainly there is no great fortune to be won from a profession as obscure as limewood carving, but the rewards outweigh the hard graft for Esterly.
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|summary=My first experience of a ''big'' garden was Versailles as a teenager and whilst I was impressed, I didn't really like it. I felt stifled and strangely underwhelmed by the flatness of it all.  As luck would have it I then saw Hampton Court and it was official: I was off big gardens.  It would be many years before I revised my opinion. On a trip to Harewood House, it was too hot a day to be corralled into the house, so I wandered the gardens and found they were delightful.  I felt uplifted.  Then a cricket match at Stowe gave me the opportunity to walk the grounds for over an hour.  I was completely won over and a devotee of Lancelot 'Capability' Brown.  Sarah Rutherford's ''Landscape Gardens'' was an opportunity to put him in context.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715649191</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
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|isbn=Barrie_Peter
|title=A Work of Beauty: Alexander McCall Smith's Edinburgh
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|title=Peter Pan and Wendy
|rating=5
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|author=J M Barrie and Robert Ingpen
|genre=Travel
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|rating=4
|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 the places you'll almost certainly want 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 (and it would certainly look impressive there) but it has a lot more depth and interest than you might expect. This is a book of Alexander McCall Smith's Edinburgh, the city he walks around every day, constantly seeing something new, something else with a story to tell.
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|genre=Art
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1902419863</amazonuk>
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|summary=It's a childhood staple - the story of Wendy, John and Michael Darling and their beloved nurse, Nana the Newfoundland dog who took them to school each day. It's George Darling, their father, who makes the mistake when he locks Nana in the yard and the children are whisked away to Neverland by Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. There's a wonderful mix of characters, from Peter Pan, the boy who never wants to grow up, Tinkerbell, the rather unpleasant fairy, Captain Hook, Tiger Lily, the lost boys and - of course - Wendy, but then it wouldn't have been a classic since the original stage production in 1904 and the novel of 1911 if it were otherwise.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Beautiful Patterns
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|isbn=Grahame_Wind
|author=Various Authors
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|title=The Wind in The Willows
|rating=4.5
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|author=Kenneth Grahame and Robert Ingpen
|genre=Crafts
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|rating=4
|summary=If you are going to make a colouring book aimed at adults I say do it 100% and go all outYou 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.
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|genre=Art
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782432787</amazonuk>
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|summary=Kenneth Grahame's ''The Wind in the Willows'' was one of the defining books of my childhood and more than sixty years after I first read the book I've just recently passed it onto another young readerSince the book was first published in 1908 there have been some notable illustrators: Paul Bransom provided illustrations for the 1913 edition, Ernest H Shepard (perhaps better known for his illustrations of ''Winnie the Pooh'') in 1933, Arthur Rackham (possibly the leading illustrator from the golden age of book illustration) in 1940 and Robert Ingpen who illustrated the centenary edition of ''The Wind in the Willows''.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Summers of Discontent
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|isbn=Jenkins_100
|author=Raymond Tallis and Julian Spalding
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|title=Britain's 100 Best Railway Stations
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|author=Simon Jenkins
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Art
 
|genre=Art
|summary=Raymond Tallis is what some people may refer to as a Renaissance Man. He is a doctor (specifically, a neurologist), a philosopher, a poet and a cultural critic. ''Summers of Discontent: The Purpose of the Arts Today'' 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 itself.
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|summary=In the mid-twentieth century, the railway was something which harked back to the Victorian age with trains being supplanted by cars and planes, but steam was being replaced by oil, even then and in the twenty-first-century oil is giving way to electricity. It's cleaner, more environmentally friendly and the stations which we'd all rushed through as quickly as possible, keen to escape their grime, were restored and became places to be admired, possibly even lingered in. Simon Jenkins has chosen his hundred best railway stations.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908524405</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=David Gentleman
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|isbn=Hurst_Norfolk
|title=In the Country
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|title=On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks
|rating=5
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|author=John Hurst
 +
|rating=4
 
|genre=Art
 
|genre=Art
|summary=I had no intention of reading ''In The Country''.  I opened it simply to see what it was like, but by the time that I shut it again I was nearly halfway through and I had no intention of giving the book to anyone else. Now in his eighties David Gentleman is well known as watercolourist, specialising in landscapesHe's based in London but also has a home in Suffolk in the village of Huntingfield and it's this house, the village and the surrounding area which is the location for ''In The Country''.
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|summary=It was pure serendipity: after a five-hour drive, we were, annoyingly, left 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 display of the most gorgeous picturesI'd cheerfully have bought every one and hung them on our walls, but thought that I would have to make do with a couple of greetings cards when I saw ''On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks'' and I couldn't resist buying it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095715285X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jeff Scott and Rachael Adams
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|isbn=Blackburn_Threads
|title=Strictly Shale: Circling British Speedway
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|title=Threads: The Delicate Life of John Craske
|rating=4.5
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|author=Julia Blackburn
|genre=Sport
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|rating=4
|summary=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 noise, 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 and bringing back long-forgotten memories.
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|genre=Art
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956861830</amazonuk>
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|summary=John Craske was a fisherman, from a family of fishermen, 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'. But John had a natural artistic talent, albeit that his work had to be done on the available surfaces in his home. Chair seats, window sills, the backs of doors all carried his wonderful pictures of the sea. Then he moved on to embroidery, producing wonderful pictures of the Norfolk coast - and, most famously, of the evacuation at Dunkirk.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Winter
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|isbn=Bray Titania
|author=Adam Gopnik
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|title=Titania and Oberon
 +
|author=Jo Manton, Phyllis Bray and David Buckman
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Reference
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|genre=Art
|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'', ''Radical Winter'', ''Recuperative Winter'', ''Recreational Winter'' and ''Remembering Winter''. In each essay, Gopnik focuses on one or two central themes, whilst also touching on surrounding ideas. For example, in Romantic Winter his central topics are art and poetry, 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 of artwork to illustrate his viewpoints, which add a charming, individual touch to this book.
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|summary=''Equus, Waiting for Godot and A Mid-summer Night's Dream'' – three very distinctive plays, and my favourite three, out of which you won't often get me choosing just one. But were I to do so, it might actually be the last, for the simple reason that I would delight in playing any and all characters from it. Yes, I know Hermia and Helena look a bit implausible now – but I put it to you stranger things happen on stage… Some of the strangest things involve a player himself, a lowly actor who gets given an ass's head and is forced to be enamoured of a fairy queen. It's this section of the play that this book concentrates on, in quite stunning form.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780874472</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=The First Bohemians: Life and Art in London's Golden Age
 
|author=Vic Gatrell
 
|rating=4.5
 
|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 to Drury Lane, and down from Long Acre to the Strand, with Covent Garden at the very centre, became what has in modern times been recognised as the world’s first creative ‘bohemia’. This was where the cream of Britain’s significant artists, actors, poets, novelists, and dramatists of the age lived and worked, 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
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{{Frontpage
|title=Sea Monsters: The Lore and Legacy of Olaus Magnus's Marine Map
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|isbn=BM_Origami
|author=Joseph Nigg
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|title=Origami, Poems and Pictures
|rating=4.5
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|author=The British Museum
|genre=Popular Science
 
|summary=A confession.  When reading hardbacks I take the paper cover, if there is one, off, to keep it pristine.  Sometimes there's a second benefit, with [[Longbourn by Jo Baker]] as an example of having an embossed illustration underneath, or suchlike.  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 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 this delicious volume to commentate on both together, in such a lovely fashion.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782400435</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Judith Kerr
 
|title=Judith Kerr's Creatures: A Celebration of the Life and Work of Judith Kerr
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
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|genre=Art
|summary=In children's literature there are some authors whom you know are not just reliable, but always impressive. One of those names is [[:Category:Judith Kerr|Judith Kerr]]. For decades she's been delighting our children (and grandchildren) but it still came as something of a surprise to discover that she would be ninety in June 2013.  To celebrate this, Harper Collins have published ''Creatures'' in which Judith tells not just her own story but that of the ''creatures'' - the characters in her books and her family - who have contributed to her inspirational life.  It is, though, far more than just an autobiography with a marvellous collection of paintings, drawings and memorabilia.
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|summary=Sometimes you find a delight of a book. On an afternoon when it was unseasonably cold and decidedly wet I discovered ''Origami, Poems and Pictures'' and I was transported to Japan. As the title suggests we're looking at three celebrated arts and crafts: the ancient art of paper folding, haiku poetry and painting. I'll confess that it was the origami which caught my attention, but I was surprised by the extent to which the rest of the book caught my imagination. We begin with something very simple: a boat and in case you're worried, all the entries have a degree of difficulty (from 'simple' through to 'tricky') and this one is at the lowest level.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007513216</amazonuk>
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}}'
}}
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Foreman_Travel
|author=Rick Gekoski
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|title=Travels With My Sketchbook
|title=Lost, Stolen or Shredded: Stories of missing works of art and literature
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|author=Michael Foreman
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Art
 
|genre=Art
|summary=Over the centuries, many works of art have disappeared and then come back, or been returned almost as if they had never been awayOthers, less fortunate, were simply destroyed.  A very few never really existed at all.  That is the basis of this unusual and very intriguing read from rare book dealer, writer and broadcaster Rick Gekoski.
+
|summary=I guess the best children's literature can do away with complete veracity, as long as it has something about it that is recognisable – a little of the spirit, heart and character of the real thing, whatever it may be.  And if that's the case then it definitely applies to children's literature illustrations, such as those provided close on two hundred times by [[:Category:Michael Foreman|Michael Foreman]]This prolific artist leapt at a scholarship in the US when he'd completed his official, formal studies, and it would appear – huge credits list regardless – that he's never stopped moving since, as this book takes us to all corners of the world, and back home again.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684919</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Rosy Sherry
+
|isbn=Biesty Trains
|title=Boobadoodle
+
|title=Stephen Biesty's Trains
|rating=5
+
|author=Ian Graham and Stephen Biesty
|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>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Christopher Simon Sykes
 
|title=Hockney: The Biography, Volume 1, 1937-1975
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Art
 
|genre=Art
|summary=As one of the major names of British twentieth century art, David Hockney has always been a larger than life figure.  Published to coincide with his 75th birthday, this is the first volume of a biography which tells his story up to 1975.
+
|summary=Trains look imposing, but true fans (little boys, usually from about three years old and upwards) want to know what lies beneath the skin which you can see. They want to know how it works. Getting to grips with one in real life is quite a big ask, but the next best thing is ''Stephen Biesty's Trains'' which features trains from all over the world and spanning the early steam train (complete with cowcatcher) right through to the trains of the future which can reach a speed of 430 kph and don't even run on rails. Once the train reaches a speed of 150 kph the wheels are raised and the train is held up by magnetic forces alone.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846057086</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Carola Hicks
 
|title=Girl in a Green Gown: The History and Mystery of the Arnolfini Portrait
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=The Arnolfini marriage portrait, as it is generally if perhaps inaccurately known, painted by Flemish artist Jan van Eyck, signed and dated 1434, has long been one of the most popular and enigmatic paintings of its time. Of modest size, a little less than three feet high, it is one of the oldest surviving panel pictures to be painted in oils rather than tempera.  It is also regarded as the first work of art which simultaneously celebrates both middle-class comfort and monogamous marriage.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099526891</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 +
Move on to [[Newest Autobiography Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 12:49, 2 June 2023

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Review of

Blue Skies and Boat Trips: The Norfolk of Brian Lewis by Alan Marshall

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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 found myself looking more closely at a couple of pictures on the walls - and was completely taken by the work of Brian Lewis. I searched online and could only find ‘used’ versions of this book and the print I wanted was ‘not available’. Oh, dear - then a few doors down from the apartment, I found a gift shop with a stack of brand new books - and a framed print of the picture I wanted. Full Review

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Review of

Red is My Heart by Antoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)

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Antoine Laurain books have always been black and white and read in my house. And so was this one, although I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, and is, black and white and red. Yes, he has an artistic collaborator on this piece, and I think it's possible to say not one page lacks the influence of some striking visual ideas. Full Review

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Review of

O Joy for me! by Keir Davidson

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Oh Joy for me! gives Coleridge credit for being the first person to walk the mountains alone, not because he had to for work, as a miner, quarryman, shepherd or pack-horse driver, but because he wanted to for pleasure and adventure. His rapturous encounters with their natural beauty, and its literary consequences, changed our view of the world. Full Review

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Review of

G Engleheart Pinxit 1805: A year in the life of George Engleheart by John Webley

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George Engleheart was one of the leading portrait miniaturists of Georgian London, with a career lasting from the 1770s to the Regency era. He was also one of the most prolific, painting nearly 5,000 miniatures altogether (over twenty of them being of King George III). Throughout most of that time he carefully recorded the names of each of his clients, and subsequently transcribed them into what is referred to as his fee book. Full Review

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Review of

Renoir's Dancer: The Secret Life of Suzanne Valadon by Catherine Hewitt

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Deep 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, but a full generation of both creative and societal change. And if you were to expect that someone, they would like as not be male. But almost stumbling into the hedonistic culture of Montmartre came Marie-Clementine Valadon. She started in the circus that first caught her teenaged eye, although her gymnastic career was short-lived. But what she did have from that was the poise to be an appealing model for some seriously important painters and a natural beauty and figure to appeal to both them and their audiences. And what she also had, much to the surprise of many and the distaste of some, was artistic talent of her own… Full Review

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Review of

Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa by Haruki Murakami and Seiji Ozawa

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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 a music soundtrack in a brilliant display of atmospheric setting. With this, all that love is here. And like all who have a good taste in music, Murakami's is eclectic and very well considered. I found myself looking up musicians after reading this because I found many of his opinions quite convincing. Full Review

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Review of

The Recent Past by James Ravilious

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James, son of the war artist Eric Ravilious, inherited his father's artistic talents. Although he was a gifted painter, his main career was to be as a photographer. Full Review

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Review of

American Gothic: The Life of Grant Wood by Susan Wood and Ross MacDonald

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Who won a national prize for a crayon drawing of three oak leaves before he was properly in his teens? Who sought acclaim as an artist and came to Europe to study from the greats, only to reject all they had to offer? Who instinctively knew a picture of his dentist (yes, his dentist) would be more appealing and say more to people than floating water lilies and frilly ballet dancers? The answer in all cases was Grant Wood, practically the most well-known painter in America at one time, and still the best, alongside Edward Hopper, at presenting his world minus any Modernist trappings. Full Review

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Review of

Patchwork and Quilting: A Maker's Guide by Victoria and Albert Museum

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Patchwork is a magical craft: you 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 two crafts and you have something more than magical, occasionally fashionable but always deeply satisfying. But where to start, when there are so many different styles of both crafts? One answer is to read Patchwork and Quilting: A Maker's Guide which looks - as the cover says - at styles from Italian trapunto to Korean jogakbo and then delivers fifteen projects inspired by the V&A collections. Full Review

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Review of

Landscape Gardens by Sarah Rutherford

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My first experience of a big garden was Versailles as a teenager and whilst I was impressed, I didn't really like it. I felt stifled and strangely underwhelmed by the flatness of it all. As luck would have it I then saw Hampton Court and it was official: I was off big gardens. It would be many years before I revised my opinion. On a trip to Harewood House, it was too hot a day to be corralled into the house, so I wandered the gardens and found they were delightful. I felt uplifted. Then a cricket match at Stowe gave me the opportunity to walk the grounds for over an hour. I was completely won over and a devotee of Lancelot 'Capability' Brown. Sarah Rutherford's Landscape Gardens was an opportunity to put him in context. Full Review

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Review of

Peter Pan and Wendy by J M Barrie and Robert Ingpen

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It's a childhood staple - the story of Wendy, John and Michael Darling and their beloved nurse, Nana the Newfoundland dog who took them to school each day. It's George Darling, their father, who makes the mistake when he locks Nana in the yard and the children are whisked away to Neverland by Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. There's a wonderful mix of characters, from Peter Pan, the boy who never wants to grow up, Tinkerbell, the rather unpleasant fairy, Captain Hook, Tiger Lily, the lost boys and - of course - Wendy, but then it wouldn't have been a classic since the original stage production in 1904 and the novel of 1911 if it were otherwise. Full Review

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Review of

The Wind in The Willows by Kenneth Grahame and Robert Ingpen

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Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows was one of the defining books of my childhood and more than sixty years after I first read the book I've just recently passed it onto another young reader. Since the book was first published in 1908 there have been some notable illustrators: Paul Bransom provided illustrations for the 1913 edition, Ernest H Shepard (perhaps better known for his illustrations of Winnie the Pooh) in 1933, Arthur Rackham (possibly the leading illustrator from the golden age of book illustration) in 1940 and Robert Ingpen who illustrated the centenary edition of The Wind in the Willows. Full Review

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Review of

Britain's 100 Best Railway Stations by Simon Jenkins

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In the mid-twentieth century, the railway was something which harked back to the Victorian age with trains being supplanted by cars and planes, but steam was being replaced by oil, even then and in the twenty-first-century oil is giving way to electricity. It's cleaner, more environmentally friendly and the stations which we'd all rushed through as quickly as possible, keen to escape their grime, were restored and became places to be admired, possibly even lingered in. Simon Jenkins has chosen his hundred best railway stations. Full Review

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Review of

On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks by John Hurst

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It was pure serendipity: after a five-hour drive, we were, annoyingly, left 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 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 couple of greetings cards when I saw On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks and I couldn't resist buying it. Full Review

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Review of

Threads: The Delicate Life of John Craske by Julia Blackburn

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John Craske was a fisherman, from a family of fishermen, 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'. But John had a natural artistic talent, albeit that his work had to be done on the available surfaces in his home. Chair seats, window sills, the backs of doors all carried his wonderful pictures of the sea. Then he moved on to embroidery, producing wonderful pictures of the Norfolk coast - and, most famously, of the evacuation at Dunkirk. Full Review

link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/Bray Titania/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21

Review of

Titania and Oberon by Jo Manton, Phyllis Bray and David Buckman

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Equus, Waiting for Godot and A Mid-summer Night's Dream – three very distinctive plays, and my favourite three, out of which you won't often get me choosing just one. But were I to do so, it might actually be the last, for the simple reason that I would delight in playing any and all characters from it. Yes, I know Hermia and Helena look a bit implausible now – but I put it to you stranger things happen on stage… Some of the strangest things involve a player himself, a lowly actor who gets given an ass's head and is forced to be enamoured of a fairy queen. It's this section of the play that this book concentrates on, in quite stunning form. Full Review

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Review of

Origami, Poems and Pictures by The British Museum

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Sometimes you find a delight of a book. On an afternoon when it was unseasonably cold and decidedly wet I discovered Origami, Poems and Pictures and I was transported to Japan. As the title suggests we're looking at three celebrated arts and crafts: the ancient art of paper folding, haiku poetry and painting. I'll confess that it was the origami which caught my attention, but I was surprised by the extent to which the rest of the book caught my imagination. We begin with something very simple: a boat and in case you're worried, all the entries have a degree of difficulty (from 'simple' through to 'tricky') and this one is at the lowest level. Full Review

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Review of

Travels With My Sketchbook by Michael Foreman

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I guess the best children's literature can do away with complete veracity, as long as it has something about it that is recognisable – a little of the spirit, heart and character of the real thing, whatever it may be. And if that's the case then it definitely applies to children's literature illustrations, such as those provided close on two hundred times by Michael Foreman. This prolific artist leapt at a scholarship in the US when he'd completed his official, formal studies, and it would appear – huge credits list regardless – that he's never stopped moving since, as this book takes us to all corners of the world, and back home again. Full Review

link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/Biesty Trains/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21

Review of

Stephen Biesty's Trains by Ian Graham and Stephen Biesty

5star.jpg Art

Trains look imposing, but true fans (little boys, usually from about three years old and upwards) want to know what lies beneath the skin which you can see. They want to know how it works. Getting to grips with one in real life is quite a big ask, but the next best thing is Stephen Biesty's Trains which features trains from all over the world and spanning the early steam train (complete with cowcatcher) right through to the trains of the future which can reach a speed of 430 kph and don't even run on rails. Once the train reaches a speed of 150 kph the wheels are raised and the train is held up by magnetic forces alone. Full Review

Move on to Newest Autobiography Reviews