I’m rather ashamed that I didn’t know about it before and only came to it after reading a recommendation by Robert Macfarlane. I began by reading it in bed but had to stop almost immediately as it was never going to help send me to sleep.
Her use of language when evoking the Cairngorms is utterly extraordinary, and any attempt to sum it up would be, to use one of her phrases, a pallid simulacrum.
Crafted by a remarkable novelist and poet, it may well be, as it’s often described, “the finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain.”
'The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain' Guardian
Introduction by Robert Macfarlane. Afterword by Jeanette Winterson
In this masterpiece of nature writing, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape.
Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the 'essential nature' of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and…
I read this for professional reasons, which is not to say that I didn’t get great pleasure from it. Frame is a fine writer, and this isn’t always true of those who are also great scholars. This is a collection of essays, some new but mostly older works, lightly edited in a couple of cases.
Much of Frame’s work deals with that nebulous concept of identity in its various forms. He has explored much of the medieval history of Ireland after the English (or Anglo-Norman) invasion began in 1169. He has done so from perspectives both close and detailed and more broadly comparative. He was one of the most important figures in encouraging us to consider Ireland alongside and as part of a wider collective that includes Wales, Scotland, England, and parts of France.
For a time, I was rather annoyed because it seemed like every good idea I had was already suggested by Robin Frame. Now, I tend to think it suggests I might, in fact, be onto something worthwhile.
For two centuries after 1199, Ireland was ruled by Plantagenet kings, lineal descendants of Henry II. The island became closely tied to the English crown not just by English law and direct administration, but through other networks, above all the allegiance of a settler establishment led by aristocratic, ecclesiastical, and civic elites that benefited from being within the orbit of royal patronage and service. This book contains fifteen interlinked studies, several of which appear here for the first time. The opening chapters trace Ireland’s changing place within a wider Plantagenet realm that itself altered geographically and institutionally during the period.…
I reread this because I hadn’t loved it as a child. Happy with Tolkien and Lewis, Susan Cooper, and Rosemary Sutcliffe, I didn’t warm to Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea series in the same way and especially not to this second volume in (what was then) a trilogy.
Frankly, I can see why. The prose is spare, sharp, and unsparing. The pacing is delicate, and the action really rather limited. This time around, I found it wonderful: moving and extraordinarily well-crafted. What she’s able to conjure with so few words is utterly exceptional.
There is an almost exquisite sense of confinement and fear shaped alongside the awareness of something palpably dark. But it is lifted, although never completely driven away, by the humanity of the lead characters.
The second book of Earthsea in a beautiful hardback edition. Complete the collection with A Wizard of Earthsea, The Furthest Shore and Tehanu
With illustrations from Charles Vess
'[This] trilogy made me look at the world in a new way, imbued everything with a magic that was so much deeper than the magic I'd encountered before then. This was a magic of words, a magic of true speaking' Neil Gaiman
'Drink this magic up. Drown in it. Dream it' David Mitchell
In this second novel in the Earthsea series, Tenar is chosen as high priestess to the ancient and nameless…
The eruption of the Hundred Years War, the arrival of the Black Death, England’s first religious heresy, and major innovations in the role of parliament all took place during the Black Prince’s lifetime.
As king-in-waiting and one of the most significant noblemen in the realm, he was a major influence over local and international politics, and his example helped reshape concepts of lordship throughout the Plantagenet estates.
This thoroughly revised edition includes new sources and builds on the wealth of scholarship that has been published in recent years about the fourteenth century. It includes considerations of chivalry, the so-called ‘military revolution,’ aristocratic households, and the changing character of religious belief during this ‘Apocalyptic’ century.
