Weatherland: Writers & Artists Under English Skies - Rilegato

Harris, Alexandra

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0500518114 ISBN 13: 9780500518113

Casa editrice: Thames & Hudson, 2015

Riassunto

In a sweeping panorama, Weatherland allows us to witness England’s cultural climates across the centuries. Before the Norman Conquest, Anglo-Saxons living in a wintry world wrote about the coldness of exile or the shelters they had to defend against enemies outside. The Middle Ages brought the warmth of spring; the new lyrics were sung in praise of blossoms and cuckoos. Descriptions of a rainy night are rare before 1700, but by the end of the eighteenth century the Romantics had adopted the squall as a fit subject for their most probing thoughts.The weather is vast and yet we experience it intimately, and Alexandra Harris builds her remarkable story from small evocative details. There is the drawing of a twelfth-century man in February, warming bare toes by the fire. There is the tiny glass left behind from the Frost Fair of 1684, and the Sunspan house in Angmering that embodies the bright ambitions of the 1930s. Harris catches the distinct voices of compelling individuals. “Bloody cold,” says Jonathan Swift in the “slobbery” January of 1713. Percy Shelley wants to become a cloud and John Ruskin wants to bottle one. Weatherland is a celebration of English air and a life story of those who have lived in it.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

Hugely ambitious, exhilaratingly written and handsomely produced. --Peter Parker, TLS - Books of the Year

The British people love talking about the weather. This book should be their bible. Harris' paean to the power and elusiveness of the climate is as sparkling and refreshing as an April shower ... Every page is a delight and beautifully illustrated throughout. --Times Higher Education

Gathers all the written English centuries and sets them dancing to the seasons on the head of its pin. --Ali Smith, TLS - Books of the Year

A fascinating portrait of that most British of preoccupations. --Independent Books of the Year

Harris's brilliantly eclectic Weatherland has made the colours of autumnal Britain even richer than usual. --Observer - Books of the Year

Wonderful ... delivers a deluge of detail that will change the way you think about weather forever. --The Sunday Times - Books of the Year

Splendid ... its glory is in the detail, in its recording of facts and lives, atmospheres and words, quirks of feeling and behaviour. --A. S. Byatt, The Guardian

Enchanting ... Beautifully illustrated and consistently fascinating, this is a book for all seasons, and one to return to year after year. --The Lady

Brilliant ... Although Weatherland is a challenging read, it is also absorbing and fascinating, while promising to broaden your horizons. --Sunday Express

Harris is an inspiring guide: genial and gossipy, scholarly and wry. Her Weatherland should be as essential a part of any walker's kit as a balaclava, sun hat and pac-a-mac. --Daily Mail

What holds the material together is Harris's fluent and unfaltering prose; she could be read for style alone. --Spectator

Wonderfully illustrated ... Harris treats her Jovean subject discursively, intelligently and with flair. Weatherland is an uplifting book, like a first spring breeze. --Observer

A brilliant, beautiful and sensual book (and it is a lovely object, with its rich paper and fine illustrations). --The Sunday Times

Harris offers literary scholarship at its life-enhancing best. --Independent

Harris ... is an excellent compiler of anecdote and evidence, and her range ... is impressive. --Financial Times

I cannot love Weatherland enough. Exquisitely illustrated, it has the wit and wonder of an exceptional literary work. --New Statesman

Harris brilliantly shows how the weather has seeped into our art like damp, winter fog. --RA Magazine

Rich, erudite and impressive. --Daily Telegraph

A gorgeous piece of writing. --Nature

Weatherland is so beautifully written that it transcends even its wealth of information. She is a poet scholar. --New Statesman

The examples Harris supplies in this well-researched and lucid book are pleasingly idiosyncratic ... A beautiful and wild place, governed only by the fleeting truths of individual experience. --Prospect

L'autore:

Alexandra Harris is a cultural historian and writer. She is the recipient of the Guardian First Book Award and a Somerset Maugham Award for Romantic Moderns. She is a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Liverpool and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She lives in Oxford and Liverpool.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Thames & Hudson
• Data di pubblicazione: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0500518114
• ISBN 13: 9780500518113
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero edizione: 1
• Numero di pagine: 432