Books of life
Image: Wikimedia Commons RICHARD DOVE relives a wonderful Last Night For some it is all about vexillology. For some the study of the flags being waved defined the evening. For the Daily Mail, the plentiful EU flags were a clear and obvious betrayal of Brexit. But they chose not to notice the quite resplendent union…
MARTIN GODLEMAN witnesses Sir Simon Rattle's LSO swansong Sir Simon Rattle. Image: Monika Rittershaus. Wikimedia Commons I should have had a more pronounced focus on advanced ticket sales of Prom 56 when I casually noticed that Simon Rattle would not only be present at the eight week festival of music, but there to conduct Mahler’s…
Image: Stuart Millson STUART MILLSON (celebrating his 43rd season) reports from the 2023 Proms ‘Where are the Proms of my youth?’ asked Barrie Hall’s now almost forgotten book, The Proms and the Men Who Made Them – a title that would be unlikely to pass the sensitivity readers of today’s London publishers. When I first attended the Proms, one joined a queue (along…
DEREK TURNER is editor of The Brazen Head. He is also a novelist, reviewer, travelogist, and the author of the chorography Edge of England: Landfall in Lincolnshire (Hurst, 2022). www.derek-turner.com. Twitter: @derekturner1964. Instagram: edge.of.england “Stilled legendary depth:It was as deep as England” ‘Pike’, Ted Hughes The plumber’s van’s been standing since the small hours At…
Photo: Drew de F Fawkes. Wikimedia Commons RICHARD DOVE cavorts to Chic at Rochester Castle In this year’s Grammy Awards, Nile Rodgers received the rare and prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. He told us last night (6 July) that whilst very honoured, it implies a career end and he announced: “He ain’t done yet.” On cue,…
The story so far. In the 5th century Vortigern’s attempt to hold the imperial province of Britannia together has been defeated, not by external enemies but by British rebels led by Vortimer, his eldest son. Vortimer is a devout Christian and has invited the Pope to send an embassy to restore the Church, and combat…
Photo: Wikimedia Commons Love in a Time of Hate: Art and Passion in the Shadow of War, 1929-39 Florian Illies, Simon Pare (trans.), Profile Books, June 2023, 336 pages, £20 KEN BELL says Weimar-era Bohemians failed to respond to the Nazi threat On one level, Florian Illies’ Love in a Time of Hate: Art and…
JEREMY HOOKER is a poet, critic and editor. His work for BBC Radio 3 includes ‘A Map of David Jones’. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, and an emeritus professor of the University of South Wales. His Selected Poems was published by Shearsman in…
LARRY BECKETT’s poetry ranges from songs, Song to the Siren, to blank sonnets, Songs and Sonnets, to the epic American Cycle, including Paul Bunyan, Wyatt Earp, Amelia Earhart, and seven other book-length poems. Beat Poetry is a study of the poets and poetry of the fifties San Francisco renaissance. The Book of Merlin will be…
IAN C. SMITH’s work has been published in Across the Margin, BBC Radio 4 Sounds,The Dalhousie Review, Gargoyle, Griffith Review, Southword, Stand, & The Stony Thursday Book. His seventh book is wonder sadness madness joy, Ginninderra (Port Adelaide). He writes in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, and on Flinders Island. Prologue ‘And yet to…