Tag Archives: Reviews

Top Non-Fiction Books: “Brooklyn – The Once And Future City” By Thomas J. Campanella (2019)

From a Princeton University Press online release:

Brooklyn - The Once and Future CityAmerica’s most storied urban underdog, Brooklyn has become an internationally recognized brand in recent decades—celebrated and scorned as one of the hippest destinations in the world. In Brooklyn: The Once and Future City, Thomas J. Campanella unearths long-lost threads of the urban past, telling the rich history of the rise, fall, and reinvention of one of the world’s most resurgent cities.

Spanning centuries and neighborhoods, Brooklyn-born Campanella recounts the creation of places familiar and long forgotten, both built and never realized, bringing to life the individuals whose dreams, visions, rackets, and schemes forged the city we know today. He takes us through Brooklyn’s history as homeland of the Leni Lenape and its transformation by Dutch colonists into a dense slaveholding region. We learn about English émigré Deborah Moody, whose town of Gravesend was the first founded by a woman in America. We see how wanderlusting Yale dropout Frederick Law Olmsted used Prospect Park to anchor an open space system that was to reach back to Manhattan. And we witness Brooklyn’s emergence as a playland of racetracks and amusement parks celebrated around the world.

To read more: https://press.princeton.edu/titles/13671.html

Into The Cotswolds: From The Roman Baths North To Painswick

A quiet night’s sleep was followed by a sumptuous breakfast downstairs at The Bird.

After checking out, we left bags in the car and walked into Bath via the Pulteney Bridge.

The Roman Baths site opened at 9 am today (Monday) and we took the self-guided tour with headset. It did not disappoint.

This is the finest example of a Roman Bath in the world and established Bath as a destination to visit from all over the Roman and Mediterranean world.

We then walked through the town and boarded a double deck bus to tour the rest of the city.

We left Bath and headed north into the Cotswolds. First stop was a quaint village called Castle Combe.

Lunch followed at The Salutation Inn, a pub just up the road.

The Finger Fish and BLT sandwiches on dark bread were amazing.

The final destination was Painswick where we were booked for the night at The Painswick, the 2016 Hotel of the Year in England as voted by The Telegraph in London. We arrived in a slight rain and found fires going downstairs and upstairs.

We finished with dinner in the hotel dining room. Order the Grouse with a Negroni.

Road Trip To Bath: London To Windsor Castle & Bath

Picked up a very nice BMW 520 Diesel at Victoria Station at 9:30 am. GPS is a must as there is always a learning curve driving on the left side of the road.

Drove to Windsor Castle and arrived at about 11. Very light crowds as it was threatening rain, but the tour did not disappoint. Beautiful collections of gold and silver work, paintings by Hans Holbein the Younger (who painted Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell in the 16th Century), and amazing tapestries.

We then continued west and drove to the village of Lacock in the county of Wiltshire.

After a quick pint of a Wadworth Swordfish Rum Infused Ale, we finished the drive at our Hotel, The Bird, in Bath.

We went into town and visited the Jane Austen Center, well worth it for the animated presentation, and costumes to be tried on.

We walked through Bath and were amazed at the shops, restaurants and social scene.

We finished up with Fish and Chips and two Gin and Tonics at The Saracens Head, the oldest pub in Bath.

Boomers In London: Day 3 – Kensington To Mayfair, Soho & Bloomsbury

After a great British breakfast, hopped on the Tube at Tower Hill and headed for the South Kensington station. Arrived at the Victoria & Albert Museum as it opened at 10.

The V&A has an amazing collection from all over the former British Empire, Europe and the United Kingdom.

We then walked into the Kensington Gardens, and visited the Diana, Princess of Wales Fountain. There was swim race taking place in The Serpentine.

We then visited the Serpentine Gallery before walking to the northeast corner of Hyde Park.

We walked along Oxford Street and headed south on South Molton to New Bond St. to visit the Saville Row tailors.

It was Open House London on Saturday so we toured Huntsman, Cad & The Dandy, Richard Anderson and Hidalgo Brothers

We then walked to Hatchard’s Bookstore and Fortnum & Mason.

A very fun small alcove awaited at Neal’s Yard in SoHo.

The last major stop was the British Museum in Bloomsbury.

Top Pubs In London: The Viaduct Tavern

After visiting a few pubs during the walk from Somerset House to St. Paul’s Cathedral, we fortunately came across The Viaduct Tavern. It is ground zero for fabulous Gin Drinks. We had two:

The Gin of the week, No. 209, served with grapefruit, thyme and Fever Tree Tonic. Amazing.

The second was a Monkey Tree 47 with nectarine garnish and Fever Tree. Outstanding.

The ambience was lively, the decor charming and the staff very friendly.

Oh, and the ice was chipped off a block of ice.

Boomers In London: Day 2 – South Bank To Tate, Westminster Back To The City

Set out at 9 am across Tower Bridge and experienced South Bank.

Borough Market is a must visit and it delivered delicious stall after stall of every cheese, meat, vegetable and savory or sweet foods.

We then continued along the Thames for a quick view of Shakespeare’s Globe, followed by a tour of the Tate Modern.

We then hopped aboard the Tate Boat for a trip to the Tate Britain at Millbank. This is the home of the largest collection of J.M.W. Turner paintings in the world.

John Constable and Thomas Gainsborough are also in abundance.

Headed north to Buckingham Palace before walking through St. James Park to the National Gallery.

The National Gallery is amazing. A must visit for Renoir, Van Gough, Monet and Rembrandt.

We finished up with a visit to St. Paul’s Cathedral and a great final walk along the Thames to the hotel near The Tower.

Iconic Restaurants: Remembering “Windows On The World” At The World Trade Center

From an Eater.com online article:

The view from Windows on the World, in this photo taken in 1977, included Governors Island and the Statue of Liberty Getty ImagesThe light is different, higher contrast. Real-life chiaroscuro. And sound is muted, still, almost absent. Except when the wind is kicking up a tremendous, otherworldly, howl. And the city looks so small, innocent, like a child’s train set, the Statue of Liberty a tchotchke in a tourist shop. Sixty-mile views that reach the Hudson Highlands up north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, and, much closer, planes landing and taking off at three major airports.

There are few New York City restaurants more storied than Windows on the World. The restaurant made its debut on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower in 1976, offering sweeping views of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and New Jersey — the earth itself peppered with the buildings, the bridges, the Statue of Liberty; the sky with tourist helicopters. “Windows was a shining ambassador for New York, an escape from a city that was, in decades past, drug addled, dirty, and crime-ridden below,” Eater NY’s Ryan Sutton reminisced in 2014. “Even if you didn’t know much about fine dining, you knew such a dream-like place existed, and you knew that it came tumbling down on September 11, 2001.”

To read more: https://www.eater.com/2019/9/17/20862698/world-trade-center-restaurant-windows-on-the-world-history-design-book-excerpt

Museum Exhibitions: “Beyond Midnight – Paul Revere” At The New York Historical Society

From an New York Times online review:

Grant Wood (1892−1942), Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, 1931. Oil on Masonite. Metropolitan Museum of ArtRevere’s place in history was cemented by the Longfellow poem, published in 1861, more than 40 years after Revere’s death. Longfellow “was flexible about the historical details,” said Debra Schmidt Bach, who coordinated the exhibition for the New-York Historical Society. “I mean, it was a fictionalized poem,” she said. “It was not intended as a detailed examination of the ride.”

NY Historical Society.JPGThe exhibition was organized by the American Antiquarian Society, of which Ms. Hewes is the curator of graphic arts. Nan Wolverton, the show’s other curator, is the director of fellowships at the antiquarian society, and of its Center for Historic American Visual Culture. The display includes more than 140 objects from the antiquarian society’s extensive Revere holdings; the New-York Historical Society’s own collection; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Massachusetts Historical Society, among others.

To read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/11/arts/design/paul-revere-beyond-midnight.html

New Books On Aging: “Lifespan: Why We Age — and Why We Don’t Have To” By David A. Sinclair And Matthew D. LaPlante (2019)

From a Nature.com online review:

Lifespan-cover-imageLifespan, by geneticist David Sinclair and journalist Matthew LaPlante, provides a vision of a not-too-distant future in which living beyond 120 will be commonplace. For Sinclair and LaPlante, the answer lies in understanding and leveraging why we age…

Lifespan is entertaining and fast-paced — a whirlwind tour of the recent past and a near future that will see 90 become the new 70. In a succession of colourfully titled chapters (‘The demented pianist’, ‘A better pill to swallow’), Sinclair and LaPlante weave a masterful narrative of how we arrived at this crucial inflection point. Among the historical figures evoked are a sixteenth-century Venetian proponent of caloric restriction, Luigi Cornaro, and the twentieth-century ‘father of information theory’, Claude Shannon.

To read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02667-5?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20190912&utm_source=nature_etoc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20190912&sap-outbound-id=34E4EBDF3E516F09DA62FA13A7FD9F1CDB19356F&utm_source=hybris-campaign&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=000_AGN6567_0000014844_41586-Nature-20190912-EAlert&utm_content=EN_internal_32879_20190912&mkt-key=005056B0331B1EE88A92FE6D6D25F179