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Dec. 14th, 2013
Melvyn Bragg "12 Books That Changed The World" (Sceptre)
This book was a fascinating read but I was puzzled at some of Bragg's choices for the top 12 books ever.
Can we really say that "The Rule Book of Association Football" changed the world? Yes, it gave football rules and that was good, but "changed the world"? I hardly think so, especially when you stack it up against a real world changer such as Isaac Newton's "Principia Mathematica" or the Magna Carta.
Plus Bragg stretches the term "book" a little by including in the list a 3 page patent application for a machine! Or he includes a 4 hour political speech that helped to end slavery (Bragg justifies this one by saying that the speech was printed afterwards). So his choice of the top 12 is bound to cause some debate and perhaps some controversy.
However, I did like some of his other choices, especially the Magna Carta, the King James Bible and Shakespeare's First Folio. The book has some beautiful illustrations and photographs and it makes for fascinating reading.
Now I need to look for the accompanying television series...
In short, you will enjoy this book but you will probably not agree with Bragg's choice of books. Still worth a look nonetheless.
This book was a fascinating read but I was puzzled at some of Bragg's choices for the top 12 books ever.
Can we really say that "The Rule Book of Association Football" changed the world? Yes, it gave football rules and that was good, but "changed the world"? I hardly think so, especially when you stack it up against a real world changer such as Isaac Newton's "Principia Mathematica" or the Magna Carta.
Plus Bragg stretches the term "book" a little by including in the list a 3 page patent application for a machine! Or he includes a 4 hour political speech that helped to end slavery (Bragg justifies this one by saying that the speech was printed afterwards). So his choice of the top 12 is bound to cause some debate and perhaps some controversy.
However, I did like some of his other choices, especially the Magna Carta, the King James Bible and Shakespeare's First Folio. The book has some beautiful illustrations and photographs and it makes for fascinating reading.
Now I need to look for the accompanying television series...
In short, you will enjoy this book but you will probably not agree with Bragg's choice of books. Still worth a look nonetheless.
Eric Gill "An Essay On Typography" (Penguin Classics)
Gill writes about so much more than typography. It's not very long,just 144 pages long, but packs quite a bit of punch. He was a devout and original Christian, and his humane spirituality is bursting throughout his work. This is a treatise on what it means to be human in an industrial world, and I wonder if it might not be even more apt today than it was when it was originally published.
Favorite quote (from memory, so may not be 100% accurate in the wording):
"The abnormality of our time, that which makes it contrary to nature, is its deliberate and stated determination to make the working life of men and the product of their working hours mechanically perfect, and to relegate the humanities—all that is of its nature humane—to their spare time, to the time when they are not at work"
Gill writes about so much more than typography. It's not very long,just 144 pages long, but packs quite a bit of punch. He was a devout and original Christian, and his humane spirituality is bursting throughout his work. This is a treatise on what it means to be human in an industrial world, and I wonder if it might not be even more apt today than it was when it was originally published.
Favorite quote (from memory, so may not be 100% accurate in the wording):
"The abnormality of our time, that which makes it contrary to nature, is its deliberate and stated determination to make the working life of men and the product of their working hours mechanically perfect, and to relegate the humanities—all that is of its nature humane—to their spare time, to the time when they are not at work"
Finds in Faversham
Dec. 14th, 2013 04:28 pmA short trip over to faversham to sell some books. Got five quid for them, and then found a couple of CDs in a charity shop for a quid each.
Another one by Jamiroquai "Dynamite" (Sony)
plus this one on the excellent Winter & Winter lable by Uri Caine, a jazzed up version of Vivaldi -
Uri Caine & Theo Bleckmann - Vivaldi Four Seasons (Winter & Winter)
This latter CD was a true find as like Rune Grammafon you rarely see this record company's wares in charity shops let alone most secondhand record dealers. Went straight onto Discogs for twelve quid !
Another one by Jamiroquai "Dynamite" (Sony)
plus this one on the excellent Winter & Winter lable by Uri Caine, a jazzed up version of Vivaldi -
Uri Caine & Theo Bleckmann - Vivaldi Four Seasons (Winter & Winter)
This latter CD was a true find as like Rune Grammafon you rarely see this record company's wares in charity shops let alone most secondhand record dealers. Went straight onto Discogs for twelve quid !
Forma Antiqva and the Four Seasons
Dec. 14th, 2013 06:54 pm
This is Forma Antiqva , the Spanish classical group that play the Vivaldi 4 Seasons on the Uri Caine Cd i got today. They specialise in baroque music on antique or original instruments of the period.
Aarón Zapico and his baroque ensemble, Forma Antiqva, interpret Vivaldi’s concertos with an entirely new approach, on period instruments. Aitor Hevia (violin) slips into various leading parts, mimics birds, a farmer’s boy, from who the storm wants to steal the annual harvest, becomes the game being hunted to death and blusters like freezing wind over the frozen land. Vivaldi, who was born during an earthquake, creates four episodes, each in three parts, corresponding with his poems. Theo Bleckmann and Uri Caine compose these sonnets and present here as a première recording ‘The Four Seasons Sonnets’: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Bleckmann and Caine act as the narrators for Vivaldi’s AudioFilm. The Dutch painter and concept artist Marcel van Eeden is inspired by Zapico’s ‘Four Seasons’ and creates for this musical cycle eight new drawings.
(From the ArkivMusic website)
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