I was in the mood for something slim. Something with pictures. A book with each page dedicated to a new topic. This really hit the spot. The format is limiting, of course, but sometimes boundaries are helpful, aren’t they? This book is the partner to a tv show of the same name. Giving the same amount of space to each topic doesn’t work in all cases, but I learned a lot, I enjoyed it and I ended the book with information and inspiration to take me elsewhere.
I started to read this book in connection with a completely different project. I thought I’d flick through it, but one chapter in and I was hooked. Like all theatres, the Old Vic has a patchy, threadbare history, peppered with colourful characters and pocked with actual and financial disasters. Household names and unknown heroes tread the boards and countless generations of visitors throng the corridors and crush onto the backless seats. The writer gets a bit dewy-eyed about Kevin Spacey (he’s just handed over artistic direction at the end of the book) so we must suppose some of what followed just wasn’t public in time. Certainly, Hollywood money and influence brought the old venue a long way from the Purity Hall days, though it was nothing new. Charles Laughton, Laurence Olivier, Nelly Melba and Winston Churchill all brought their spotlights to bear on the building at times. Although it was the birthplace of the National Theatre, the Old Vic remains a personal endeavour, driven forward mostly by women: Emma Cons, Lillian Baylis and Sally Greene are standout figures in theatre history not just in this highly readable and enjoyable story of The Old Vic.
Another slim book, but packed with all the treasures of the world. Well, all the treasures in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The writer takes a job as a museum guard, following a bereavement. This beautiful memoir reminds us about beauty, value, friendship, and the life-affirming power of art. The writer has plenty of time – he frequently works 12-hour shifts – and sometimes he’s alone with a work of great antiquity, or fame. He uses his time wisely, and shares his wisdom. Anyone who has had a job where there’s a front and back of house, will recognise the fierce loyalties in the team, and the moments of connection when front and back meet for a moment. I was driven to the Met’s website, trawling my brain for distant memories of visits in the past, and I will use some of what I gained from this book in my next encounter with a painting.
This history of the mythology of Britain was a revelation. Some of the figures are already household names: Lear, Merlin, Cordelia, Bladud, but we’re soon in the realm of giants, murderous queens, dragons and sorcery. There are hills named for the dragons beneath them, cities named for the heroes who conquered them, and a rich vein of fable and fact. The original writers of these stories were real people. They worked to capture the froth of fable and reality, building a history to explain an ancient land with no fixed identity. The writing is beautiful; images swirl around and misty history comes into sharp focus in tales of suffering and endurance. The book serves as a timely reminder that we construct reality ourselves and then try to impose it on the sketchy facts.
Catrina Davies’ first book – Homesick – was a haunting memoir of rural poverty and the search for shelter. This book is a memoir of types, though not hers. We only find out through the book how she comes to tell the tale, but the story she’s telling is that of a man who was born and grew up on Exmoor, from the 1950s until his later life in Wales. He wanders the woods and lanes of the moor, learning about the trees, the deer, the birds. He leaves school early but later in life learns new skills easily. He’s thrown out of home, travels abroad for work. He experiences poverty, but eventually buys his own cottage and he works for establishment employers, and state-funded agencies. The writer draws a parallel between his life in nature and the loss of nature from the world. This isn’t a coincidence. Scientists now think that it was in the 1950’s that human intervention in the planet’s systems started to create irreversible damage. As he takes shelter in trees and poaches for his family, the clock is ticking down for his beloved habitat. He’s an enigma, despite his brutal honesty in the tapes he leaves for Catrina. He’s raw like the moors, and like him the book is kind but not dishonest about his failings. You won’t meet him, but you’ll mourn him.
Suzy D Harris 