Literary Review – December 2, 2024: The latest issue features ‘Mandeville’s Dangerous Idea’
Books: Literary Review Magazine – December 2024
Tag Archives: England
Books: Literary Review Magazine – November 2024
Literary Review – November 2, 2024: The latest issue features ‘The Making of Handel’s Messiah’; Another Side of Plath; Legends of El Cid; Germany Stalls and Smiley Returns…
Oratorio of Oratorios – Freya Johnston
Every Valley: The Story of Handel’s Messiah By Charles King
Awake, Arise, or Be Forever Fallen
What in Me is Dark: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost By Orlando Reade
Nazis, Porn & Punting
Tom Sharpe: A Personal Memoir By Piers Brendon
Architecture: RIBA House Of The Year 2024 Shortlist
RIBA Architecture (November 1, 2024): The Hall by TaylorHare Architects is shortlisted for RIBA’s House of the Year 2024.
Situated in the Kent Downs, this Grade II listed 16th century residence has been extensively and sympathetically refurbished into a sustainable home. Interiors have been both restored and modernised, with finely crafted detailing and considered new interventions that work in harmony so that the historical compliments the contemporary.
The house is an exemplar of green living, while simultaneously restoring the surrounding listed outbuildings and adding a pool, pool house, tennis court, stable block, and a new lake. The end result is a demonstration of how to extend the life of a historic building, while creating elegant living spaces for the future. Presented by the Royal Institute of British Architects, the House of the Year is a prestigious annual award for the best example of a one-off house designed by an architect in the UK, celebrating excellence and innovation in home design.
Travel Tours: One Day In Cambridge, England
DW Travel (October 13, 2024): Come with us to Cambridge! DW reporter Clare will show you all the must-sees in the famous English university town. From punting on the Cam river alongside the tradition-rich colleges to the Fitzwilliam Museum.
Video timeline: 00:00 Intro 00:30 Breakfast at Fitzbillies bakery 01:27 Stroll around the town, Corpus Christi College 01:50 Corpus Clock 02:09 Punting on the river Cam 03:40 Ryder & Amies souvenir shop 04:20 British lunch with supermarket sandwiches 04:52 Fitzwillam Museum 05:40 Grantechester, Orchard Tea Room🍵 06:27 Ending the day in a pub
What’s more, Clare will show you how she takes a typical English midday break. So, would you like to come on an outing to Cambridge?
Books: Literary Review Magazine – October 2024
Literary Review – October 2, 2024: The latest issue features Richard Vinen on Churchill; @wendymoore99 on Marie Curie; Ritchie Robertson on Augustus the Strong; @robinsimonbaj on British art and @tomlamont on James Salter
Croquet & Conspiracy- “Churchill’s Citadel: Chartwell and the Gatherings Before the Storm” By Katherine Carter
‘It’s not a bad life for the leaders of the British bourgeoisie! There’s plenty for them to protect in their capitalist system!’ So wrote Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador in London, after his first visit to Winston Churchill’s country house at Chartwell in Kent. He described the house thus: ‘A wonderful place! Eighty-four acres of land … all clothed in a truly English dark-blue haze.’
All for the Thrill of the Chase – “Augustus the Strong: A Study in Artistic Greatness and Political Fiasco” By Tim Blanning
Frederick Augustus (1670–1733), elector of Saxony and king of Poland, owed his sobriquet ‘the Strong’ to such feats as crushing a tin plate in his hand (mentioned by Rilke in the ‘Fifth Duino Elegy’) and to his vigorous sex life. Contemporaries credited him with fathering 354 illegitimate children; Tim Blanning soberly reduces the number to eight. This biography is concerned not with court gossip, however, but with Augustus’s political career and cultural achievements. Blanning celebrates Augustus as the virtual creator of the once-magnificent city of Dresden, where the kings of Saxony resided, and hence, surprisingly, as ‘a great artist, arguably the greatest of his age’.
Lifestyles: Living On A Narrowboat In England
Has radically changing their surroundings made them truly happier, and what can we learn from them? You’ll find out in our new series ‘Living Differently.’
CHAPTERS: 00:00 Intro 00:55 Inside Paul and Anthony’s narrowboat 02:36 How much does it cost them? 04:21 Tips for a lifestyle change
#DWEuromaxx #LivingDifferently #Narrowboat
Books: Literary Review Magazine – September 2024
Literary Review – September 3, 2024: The latest issue features @claire_harman on female detectives; @WomackPhilip on childhood reading; Georgina Adam on art market scandal; @dannykellywords on ageing rockstars and @mathewparris3 on the Queen
Handbags & Handcuffs: “The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective” By Sara Lodge
‘If there is an occupation for which women are utterly unfitted, it is that of the detective,’ claimed the Manchester Weekly Times in 1888 – already behind the times, it seems, as women had been acting the part for years, albeit invisibly. They had started to feature in detective fiction too. It was studying the burgeoning market in ‘lady detective’ stories post-1860 that led Sara Lodge to wonder who the fantasy sleuths were modelled on, and why the Victorians found them so disturbing and alluring.
Forging Ahead: “Rogues and Scholars: Boom and Bust in the London Art Market, 1945–2000” By James Stourton
It is hard to think of a person more qualified to write this book. In addition to being an art historian, a prolific writer, a lecturer and a broadcaster, James Stourton is also a former chairman of Sotheby’s UK. He joined the auction house in 1979 and left in 2012 to become a senior fellow at the Institute of Historical Research.
Reviews: What Life Is Like At Cambridge University
CHAPTERS 00:00 Intro 00:24 Facts & figures 00:43 Application process 01:24 Fees & finances 03:15 Housing & accommodation 04:47 Student life 06:09 Tips & challenges
Euromaxx reporter Clare Trelawny-Gower takes you to her alma mater to give you the lowdown on how YOU could study at Cambridge. #DWStudyinginEurope #DWEuromaxx #Cambridge
Books: Literary Review Magazine – August 2024
Literary Review – August 3, 2024: The latest issue features ‘Rise and Fall of the Cromwells’; Thom Gunn’s demons; Prams and paintbrushes; Children of Atatürk; Friedrich in nature…
Killer with a Cause – Oliver Cromwell: Commander in Chief By Ronald Hutton
Parliaments Not Taken – The Fall: The Last Days of the English Republic By Henry Reece
Crash & Earn – Default: The Landmark Court Battle over Argentina’s $100 Billion Debt Restructuring By Gregory MakoffLR
Books: Literary Review Magazine – July 2024
Literary Review – July 2, 2024: The latest issue features ‘A Tale of Two Fabulists’, North America Ablaze, Pascal Decoded, League of Dictators and Roffey’s Rage…
The Blood-Spattered Banner
American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850–1873 By Alan Taylor
A mountain of historical studies testifies to enduring interest in the American Civil War, a conflict still politically relevant in a nation riven over how to remember it. Those doubting that there is anything fresh to say about the bloodiest event in the republic’s history should read Pulitzer Prize winner Alan Taylor’s brilliant, panoramic account of the conflict.
Ambassadors Behaving Badly
Travellers in the Golden Realm: How Mughal India Connected England to the World By Lubaaba Al-Azami
One contender for the title of centre of the civilised world in the early 17th century is the Mughal Empire. Lubaaba Al-Azami describes it as ‘a global capital and commercial hub’. The Mughal Empire reached its zenith between the reigns of Babur, the first emperor, who established the ‘golden realm’ in 1526, and his great-great-great-grandson the sixth emperor, Aurangzeb, who died in 1707. This was a time when the artists of the fabulously wealthy Mughal dynasty were building the Taj Mahal and writing and illuminating the Padshahnama.
Threepenny Republic
Vertigo: The Rise and Fall of Weimar Germany 1918–1933 By Harald Jähner (Translated from German by Shaun Whiteside)
Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power By Timothy W Ryback
The Weimar Republic (so called as the parliament which drafted its constitution in 1919 sat in Weimar owing to unrest in Berlin) lasted for fourteen years and four months, two years longer than the Third Reich that succeeded it. Its history is beset with ironies. Its first president, Friedrich Ebert, a social democrat (and a former innkeeper), turned out to be the embodiment of petit-bourgeois conservatism. Having ditched the monarchy, he made a bargain with the army: they would defend the nascent republic in return for maintaining the old officer corps. This enabled the regime to survive five chaotic years marked by numerous violent attempts to overthrow it from both the Left and the Right.
Boomers Daily 