ChrisMayLA6

ChrisMayLA6, 6 months ago to bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 118.

Sheila Barker's Artemisia Gentileschi (2022) (part of a new series on #renaissance #women #artists) is a well presented synthesis of current #arthistory scholarship, without getting bogged down in the detail of disagreements about attribution(s). While there are more comprehensive books on Gentileschii, as a nuanced introduction to a major artist's career & achievement (leavened with biographical detail) this will be hard to beat.

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ChrisMayLA6, 6 months ago to bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 117.

Catherine Chidgey's Remote Sympathy (2021) implicitly takes Hanah Arendt's idea of the banality of evil & constructs a story of Germans' self-delusion & complicity in the horrors of Buchanwald Labour Camp during WW2. Told from four perspectives (a jewish prisoner, an SS Officer & his wife & the townspeople), its a compelling story that does not flinch away from difficult questions & explores the lies that people will tell themselves!

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ChrisMayLA6, 6 months ago to bookstodon

Oh, I so love it when one of my (often exercised prejudices) is offered some validation by research... this time its the boost in comprehension a reader gets from reading on paper rather than via a screen.

For years this is what I told my students (based on my own experience), to be often told it was an age thing... well looks like I was right. Hurrah!

[No doubt this will re-open the e-book vs. paper book debates in my timeline, but so be it]

@bookstodon
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/dec/15/reading-print-improves-comprehension-far-more-than-looking-at-digital-text-say-researchers

ChrisMayLA6, 6 months ago to bookstodon

For booklovers in a relationship this week's Guardian 'You Be the Judge' will be painfully familiar...

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#readersofMastodon

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/dec/15/you-be-the-judge-should-my-boyfriend-start-clearing-out-his-piles-of-books-

ChrisMayLA6, 6 months ago to bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 116.

Amy Levy's lat C19th photo-#feminist (?) novel, The Romance of a Shop (1888/2021) offers a story of the struggle of #women to stay independent in Victorian #London. While perhaps this has a touch of Zola in its telling, the four sisters' #photography business, an interesting plot element, sadly gets subsumed into the more general social tale of courtship in the middle-classes. Its a breezy, short read but ultimatley disappoints a little
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ChrisMayLA6, 6 months ago to bookstodon

I enjoyed Jackie Wullschlager's new biography of #Monet so much I wrote this (glowing) review of it for @NWBylines, which extends the micro-review that appeared here a couple of weeks ago.

If you are thinking of a #christmaspresent for someone you know who loves #arthistory, #impressionism, #painting or just biographies more generally, I really cannot recommend this high enough.

Its a great piece of work - fascinating and accessible!

@bookstodon #art

https://northwestbylines.co.uk/lifestyle/books/claude-monets-debt-to-three-women/

ChrisMayLA6, 6 months ago to bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 115.

Comparing Dore Ashton's Rosa Bonheur: A Life and a Legend (1981) with Jackie Wullschlager' recent biography of Monet (TWIBMR 110), while Ashton's book is efficient #arthistory, she seems unable to convey the vitality of the art to the reader (which may incite something about Bonheur's works, perhaps). But, nonetheless this is an interesting discussion of an (accidental) feminist working in the C19th (French) salon tradition.

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ChrisMayLA6, 6 months ago to bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 114.

For a book group I've just re-read (for the 4th time?) Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep (1939/1970) (and watched the 1946 film version, one of my favourites). You can see how influential Chandler has been, but this time watching movie & reading the book at the same time, I was struck by the differences in the plotting, with the film somehow a little more satisfying than the book, but the book remains a classic of 'hard-boiled' fiction!

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ChrisMayLA6, 6 months ago to bookstodon

This week I've mainly been reading, no. 113.

I've been working my way through James Blish's 4part 'space opera' Cities in Flight (1970/1999) & while clearly dated in some aspects (not least its male-centricity) & not wearing its science lightly, at its centre are two interesting elements; the wandering anti-gravity power 'okie' city in space & the going end of all time. Its also been clearly influential on later large scale #scifi but for me too dependent on its characters' lives
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ChrisMayLA6, 6 months ago to random

I see #ElonMusk is saying that if X (formally Twitter) goes to the wall, it will be the 'advertisers [that] bankrupted the company'... once again he seems unable to see that is a symptom not the cause of X's problems; which of course lies with him.

I guess we'll be seeing another flow of folk into the #fediverse if the advertisers 'strike' continues (s many think it will).

Its an extraordinary example of billionaire hubris!

ChrisMayLA6, 6 months ago to bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 112.

Paul Lynch's #BookerPrize winning Prophet Song (2023) warns us about the precariousness of liberal society. The mother's relentless interior monologue explores how we might react as a society breaks down from authoritarian rule to civil war & eventual #migration of victims. While one might argue that this is a developing country story reset in #Ireland merely to enhance Anglo-saxon empathy, this resetting is what emphasises its warning
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ChrisMayLA6, 7 months ago to random

If this was a #scifi novel, you know what would happen next... we'd establish contact with an alien civilisation, who would either share some extraordinary #technology with us, or enslave us.

However, the real explanation for the landfall of this high-energy particle source may turn out to be more mundane?

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/nov/24/amaterasu-extremely-high-energy-particle-detected-falling-to-earth

ChrisMayLA6, 7 months ago to bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 111.

Caleb Azumah Nelson' novella Open Water (2021) has an odd tone; its written in the second-person singular & as such often sounds accusatory of the protagonist (which perhaps it is). Its anglo-Ghanian subject navigates a deep love which (plot spoiler) falls apart after he experiences the murder of a friend. It contains some elegiac passages around #BlackBritish culture & while being a quick read (at 140 pp) is also deeply affecting

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appassionato, 7 months ago to bookstodon

The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism

A groundbreaking history demonstrating that America's economic supremacy was built on the backs of enslaved people.

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#books
#nonfiction
#AmericanHistory
#slavery
#capitalism

ChrisMayLA6, 7 months ago to bookstodon

This remains one of may favourite Tom Gauld cartoons (I have the original on the wall above my desk).... enjoy

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#writersofMastodon

ChrisMayLA6, 7 months ago to bookstodon

The week I've been mostly reading, no. 110.

Jackie Wullschlager wonderful Monet: The Restless Vision (2023) is the best #arthistory book I've read for a long time. Her account of Monet, his relations with 3 key women (two wives & a step daughter) & how they shaped his work, balances biography with a compelling/insughtful account of the development of his work. Like all good #art books this just makes you want to see his #painting in the flesh. I cannot recommend it highly enough

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ChrisMayLA6, 7 months ago to bookstodon

Meanwhile in #Paris..... having been subjected to a #bedbug infestation & a #sewage problem in the #Seine, now the #Olympics organisers are picking a fight with Paris' riverside #book stalls that they want to absent themselves from the banks while the opening ceremony as their stock boxes are apparently a security risk...

How this will play out for the Paris mayor & Olympics management remains to be seen

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ChrisMayLA6, 7 months ago to bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 109.

Like the 5 previous volumes in Michel Pastoureau's series of books on colour, White: The History of a Colour (2022) is a mixed bag. Its full of great insights & wonderful illustrations, but (unavoidably) repeats some aspects of the previous books & never really completely coheres into a focussed argument about white as a colour. That said, there is so much of interest, that you can forgive this (inevitable?) short-coming.

@bookstodon
#arthistory

benthos, 7 months ago to vinylrecords

The Piano Choir - "Handscapes 2" (1975)

Bonkers thrift store find from yesterday.

#NowPlaying #StrataEast #HaroldMabern #RonBurton #StanleyCrowell #NatJones #HughLawson #WebsterLewis #SoneliusSmith #jazz #vinyl #vinylrecords @vinylrecords

https://piped.video/watch?v=Q4Iks2WFdH0&t=5

ChrisMayLA6, 7 months ago to bookstodon

I was pretty happy when I recently acquired an Eames chair & stool (reproduction/not an original - way too expensive), I was pretty pleased with the major improvement in my #reading #infrastructure.

But now, I feel I missed a chance for a proper upgrade.... [sighs]

h/t Tom Gauld

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#readersofMastodon

ChrisMayLA6, 7 months ago to random

Hurrah... good sense breaks out in the #NorthWest as the 'Waitrose of the North', Booths begins to get rid of self-service check-outs.

Given the price premium at Booths, we (the customers) want the social interaction with staff at the checkouts, not be told to 'scan & bag'!

More importantly, not only do checkouts provide regular local employment, they are also for many semi-isolated shoppers a key bit of rare social interaction... so a welcome reverse!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-67373472

ChrisMayLA6, 7 months ago to bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 108.

Ave Barrera's The Forgery (2013/2022) is a Mexican #art caper story about an #artist forced to complete a forgery as part of an inheritance fraud. But by the end its unclear (perhaps purposefully) whether the narrator has experienced imprisonment & exploitation by a violent & rich mastermind, or whether its all a fever dream brought on by a hand injury (turning to sepsis). While quite enjoyable its also finally unsatisfying as a novel.

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ChrisMayLA6, 7 months ago to bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 107.

Local Cumbrian author Katie Hale's post-apocalyptic tale My Name is Monster (2019) offers two narratives; the first half is told by a women who returns to the UK knowing its been devastated by war & illness; the second half by the feral child she finds on her travels. Settled into a farmhouse this is a story of fortitude & self-reliance & while not that much actually happens it is a compelling & insightful read about loneliness & hope.

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ChrisMayLA6, 7 months ago to bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, no.106.

If you're interested in the relation between #painting & #photography, Barbara Savedoff's short(ash) Transforming Images: How Photography Complicates the Picture (2000) is worth reading. She explores the relations between #art & the photo, including some fascinating stuff on photographic reproductions' impact on #arthistory, although the warnings about #digital photography now seem commonplace. But still its full of great insights!

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ChrisMayLA6, 7 months ago to bookstodon

This week I've mainly been reading, no. 105.

Its no surprise John Barrell's The dark side of landscape (1980) is regarded as a #arthistory classic. In this discussion of Gainsborouh, Morland & Constable's depiction of the rural poor, Barrell produces a fascinating class analysis of #landscape painting in C18th/C19th. He also suggests Morland's relatively low reputation is partly the result of the sentimentalisation of is work by contemporary engravers, another interesting issue

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ChrisMayLA6, 7 months ago to bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 104.

Claudia Pineiro' novella Elena Knows (2007/2021) concerns a mother (crippled by Parkinsons) coming to terms with her daughter's suicide over a day of self-reflection & travelling to see a woman whose life intersected briefly with mother & daughter some 20 years before. Set in Buenos Aires, while in some ways rather low key, Pineiro conjours up an elegiac story of dawning realisation & the struggle against your own uncooperative body.

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ChrisMayLA6, 7 months ago to bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 103.

I missed (having never read it) the allusions to David Cooperfield in Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead (2022), but it still a very well written if (apart from the more upbeat ending) profoundly depressing tale of #opioids addiction, its supply & the social destruction it has wrought in Virginia (& elsewhere). In the end while appreciating the writing I found the relentlessness hard to take (but perhaps that was the point?).

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ChrisMayLA6, 8 months ago to bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 102.
Emma Newman's second Planetfall novel After Atlas (2016) explores the Earth bound #dystopia left behind by the Atlas mission (from the first book). Only near the end do you come to realise quite how related the 2 books are. Playing with a number of standard #scifi tropes, this also includes a police procedural element. Its a breezy, if at times downbeat read & does a good job of expanding her dystopian 'world building' for the series.
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ChrisMayLA6, 8 months ago to bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 101

The problem with Martin Gayford's new book, Venice: City of Pictures (2023), is that its neither one thing nor another. It picks up many themes/issues from #arthistory but shies away from really developing these in detail, But,, equally there is too much #art & not enough more general discussion of #Venice the city for a recent visitor. Gayford seems unable to make up his mind what book he wanted to write & this falls between the stools

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catchingshadows, 8 months ago to bookstodon

Book Review: Translation State by Ann Leckie In which we learn more about the Translators. #books #bookreview @bookstodon @sciencefiction

https://catchingshadows672971735.wordpress.com/2023/10/16/book-review-translation-state-by-anne-leckie/

ChrisMayLA6, 8 months ago to bookstodon

This week(end) I've been mostly reading, no. 100.

Adelina Modesti's handsomely presented biography of Bolognese artist Elisabetta Sirani (2023), continues the reappraisal of #arthistory from a feminist angle. Focussing on the works of #art & the social environment of C17th #Bologna (which offered considerable support to #female #artists), Modesti's interesting (if occasionally a little dry) book will be of great interest to anyone seeking read an art history populated by women!
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ChrisMayLA6, 8 months ago to bookstodon

The #readers among you will appreciate this... I've just treated myself to a nice (albeit repro) Charles & Ray Eames chair.... sometimes you need to invest in your reading infrastructure.

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#design