1519: A Journey to the End of Time by John Harrison

Buy it from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers 

This book is a mix of three, a history, a travelogue, and a last will and testament.

During the period he is researching and writing John Harrison is very ill and receives ever bleaker diagnosis – that leave you mostly assuming it was a posthumous publication.

He travels in Mexico, and this beyond the tourist trail this is a not easy – and his tales of the places and people are engaging.

He explores the events and mindset of the Spanish as they invaded Mexico and ended up massacring the people – with a mix of swords and small pox.

In the clash of cultures, Harrison’s narrative empowers the natives of Mexico and rejects the myths that the Spanish civilisation overran cultures that were backward and barbaric – on balance it was pox that provided the Spanish victory despite their violence and bloodshed.

The contested role of Malinche, as a women, translator, native of the Americas but not of Mexico is one of the strongest points of interest – and although Harrison gives her greater attention than many I think she remains more marginal that she really was.

While the three streams within the book are full of interest it was not always clear how they were intended to speak to one another and overall I found it some what disjointed and muddled.

I am not sure if I have somehow ended up with a review copy, because there are various references to illustrations that don’t exist and errors in the layout and typesetting – if this is the standard edition it reflects very poorly on the publisher Parthian.

Legacies of the First World War edited by W Cocroft and P Stamper

Buy it from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers 

The Historic England publication seeks to explore the full range of impacts of the First World War on our built environment and landscape.

Within the UK the war was a period dominated by construction rather than destruction, as new facilities were needed to meet the direct needs of the massively expanded armed forces or the array of supporting functions and industries.

When the war ended some were quickly dismantled, some re-purposed, and some retained in military use. Where they have lasted until today layers of Second World War and Cold War adaptation often masks their origin.

We tend to think of the First World War as something that happened in northern France, in contrast to the a way that collective memory of Blitz and Battle of Britain locates the “Home Front” of the Second World War more squarely. This book helps to rebalance that showing that in every corner of the UK the First World War was having a physical impact, and alongside the physical there were social, economic, cultural impacts too.

Penguin Monarchs – William I by Marc Morris

Buy it from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers 

This is the first of the Penguin Monarchs – a slim volume at less than 90 pages which I read in a single sitting one evening, but that accessibility is a key element of the appeal.

While we all know “1066 and all that” but even as someone that would claim good general historical knowledge I was surprised how much I learnt reading this.

William I is the 5^th volume in the series and one of the most profound transformations – England before and after 1066 without much exaggeration can be seen as different countries. It might be all but a thousand years ago and yet the legacy of that change still echoes for us.

Poem for the Day – Two

Buy it from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers 

This is by design a wide ranging anthology, not based on a theme or style or time period, but just the simple task of offering a poem to the reader each day of the year.

From it I will share just one poem, Sheenagh Pugh’s Sometimes, which I read on 20^th Dec 2018.

Sometimes things don’t go, after all,

from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel

faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail,

sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;

elect an honest man; decide they care

enough, that they can’t leave a stranger poor.

Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go

amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.

The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow

that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

Sabbath by Nicola Slee

Buy it from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers 

That the is a rhythm to life and that human beings need time to rest in order to thrive might be a negated idea but it is hardly a new idea, and if I am honest I don’t see Nicola Slee offering anything new to our understanding here.

The book takes as inspiration, and as the structure of its chapters, one of Wendell Berry’s Sabbath Poems, and to the extent that this book acts as a commentary on Wendell Berry’s work it has some interest – but perhaps this could have been equally well achieved with a shorter more focused article.

Each chapter includes some extracts from Slee’s journal, these are reproduced is a rather small faux handwriting font which for me rendered them virtually unreadable – perhaps due to my need for new glasses and touch of dyslexia – so I can’t really comment on whether these were enriching or not.

One thing that did set me thinking was whether the question of Sabbath gives a challenge to active church-going, because “Sabbath is a different kind of space altogether, when we are invited into not-doing, not-knowing, not-inteding, not-working, not-pursuing.”. The consequence of the combination of the empowerment of the laity and decline in numbers attending is that for an increasing proportion of church-goers Sunday is no longer a day of rest but instead dominated by “doing” Church. If we want to keep the kind of Sabbath Slee advocates we will probably need to steer clear of the average Church.