First Class: A History of Britain in 36 Postage Stamps by Chris West

This book is clearly going to mostly appeal to Philatelitic geeks, however they might be a little disappointed as it is not, and never claims to be, a history of the stamps.  It includes only brief commentaries about the 36 which are the starting point of the chapters.

These chapters give us little snap shots of social history, and the format of beginning with a object, in this case a stamp, as a good way to tell an engaging story.   There are no great revelations, it is for the most part a common place history, but it is well told.  I have dipped in to it reading a chapter or two at a time over the best part of a year.

As we come to the latter chapters there is perhaps a shift across that blurry line between the historian’s and the journalist’s art – as 2012 might be seen as a little too early to have written a “history” of 2012 – however it is of no great consequence.

The account is conservative, albeit with the smallest of ‘c’s, in the sense that it tends toward an emphasis on the continuity across the 170 years with which it deals, while other histories might want to focus instead on ways in which contemporary Britain differs from that of the early Victorian era when the Penny Black was first issued. 

Life on the Golden Horn by Mary Wortley Montagu

One of the Penguin Great Journeys series this is a collection letters written by Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, during their journey across Europe and, what turned out to be, their fairly short time in Constantinople. 

From my school boy history the Ottoman Empire appeared as the “sick man of Europe” in the late 19^th and early 20^th Century, but here in the early 18^th Century it is still in full health. 

That it takes Mary Wortley Montagu the best part of a year to cross Europe gives you a sense of the epic nature of the journey while the bright and lively style of her letters perhaps acts to conceal the same.   These are really engaging letters full of personality.

Her attitude to the Turkish culture is highly enlightened, and in most of the letters from Constantinople and other places within the Ottoman Empire she is deeply critical of most other western writers who have reported on life and culture there before her.  In particular her account of the lives of women act to over turn all that has been said before – the former writers being male would have had no access to the private spaces of Turkish women and so their reports were hear say or simple fabrication.  The contrast could not be clearer than that between the public veiling and the “private” nakedness of women in there bath houses.

The status of women within Islamic cultures remains contested, and this gives these 300 year old letters a real contemporary feel.  The wearing of the veil is often a flash point, as much, if not more so, in modern Turkey as in the “West”. 

Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands by Richard Woolley

Having read and enjoyed Richard Woolley’s book Back in 1984 I decided to also get hold of this one.  I am not sure the order in which these will have been written as he appears to have had his 3 novels all published in March 2010. 

In common with Back in 1984 there is a mix of “standard” novel and diary entries to delivery the narrative.  However here while the diary entries provide a parallel time line to the novel they are woven together as we encounter the diary as the main character of the novel reads or listens to it. 

Sex and sexuality play a part in Back in 1984 but they are much more central in this work, including incest and bondage, which might render this not to some people’s taste.    

It is interesting that in the opening prologue the novel is set up as a period or historical piece even though it is set only 20 years ago (in the mid 1990s).  This prologue draws your attention to various events that have happened since and therefore separate us from the world in which it is set.  Most important perhaps is the internet – as so much of angst of the characters about sex and fantasy exists in the way it does because the are living in a pre-internet age – that is not to say that the internet would be the answer to the angst, just that it would fundamentally reformulate it.

I don’t feel that I had the same kind of personal connection with any of the characters in this story as I found in Back in 1984 and so it is in some ways hard compare the two as pieces of writing.  That I found this a less engaging story does not equate to it being an inferior piece of writing.  It had a similar claustrophobic sense to it, and to have conjured that within the open setting of the Dutch landscape displays a definite skill. There is a strong whodunit pull through the novel and the final unravelling of the events tells you “what” happened but still leaves you wondering “why” and I think that is a good place to have been left. 

I am planning to go on and read Richard Woolley’s other novel and I am interested to see how the that throws further light onto the themes which have clearly run across the first two that I have read. 

Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver

This is the first book in a series the “Chronicles of Ancient Darkness” which I got from the Library after seeing a review of a related school’s pack in British Archaeology.  The way in which we categorise fiction is often unhelpful – this book is to be found in the “11up” sections of Southampton’s Libraries – but like all the best “Children’s” books it is equally captivating and enjoyable for the adult reader. 

Set in the “Stone-Age” the fact that the resource pack and, in fact in an earlier edition Wolf Brother itself, was reviewed in British Archaeology is a nod to the strong attempt made by Paver for historical (or should I say prehistorical!) accuracy.  There is a lot of detail about the tools used, the hunting techniques, and so on, which have their basis in the archaeological record and/or anthropological studies.  This might sound a bit worrying, the risk that you would become bogged down in all this and lose sight of the story is real – however it is avoided.  These details serve to draw you deeper into the narrative and make it come alive. 

As well as the detail of tools etc there is a layer of myth and legend for which there can, of course, be no strict claim to historical accuracy.  There however a general plausibility to the belief system.  In creating a belief system there is, again, a danger of getting bogged which Paver avoids.  You have enough to engage you without Tolkienesque baggage of endless songs…

It has to be said that there is nothing particularly innovative in this story, if follows the well tried and tested quest format.  But it is, in my view, a particularly well written example. 

I found this a book I couldn’t put down and the first thing I did on finishing it was order up the next of the Chronicles from the Library, (frustrated that I will have to wait till after the New Year Bank Holiday for the Library to reopen!).

Day by Day: The Rhythm of the Bible in the Book of Common Prayer by Benjamin Sargent

I  read this booklet because I knew Ben back in student days at King’s College London, however its focus of the BCP was also of interest.

Much of what is written about the BCP these days is highly partisan, often written by zealous members of the Prayer Book Society.  For all the passion that such writings might contain, in general such is the blinkered view of reality that few actual have much capacity to persuade the reader of the Prayer Book’s merits. 

One of the great strengths therefore of this booklet is the way in which it does not deny the limitations of the Prayer Book in certain aspects – it is also not afraid to give Common Worship credit in those (very small) regards where it does provide a more pastorally flexible approach.  Within the context of this honesty and realism you are moved to take the arguments for the Prayer Book much more seriously. 

One of the buzz word phrases of the age is “Bible Believing Christian” (it crops up all over the place, including the occasionally advert in the Church Times, as a touch stone for Evangelical ministry).  Many of those who would assert to be “Bible Believing” would have little time for formal liturgy, preferring some form of spontaneous encounter with Scripture.  I think this group will be the primary audience for this booklet because its fundamental argument is; if you want your worship to be filled with, and shaped by, Scripture you really need look no further that the BCP.  Very few liturgical expressions, formal or “spontaneous”, can claim to provide a greater depth but also breadth of Scriptural material.

Back in 1984 by Richard Woolley

A warning that the following might contain spoilers…

This is a book of 2 parts; the first takes a standard format for a novel, with omnipotent narrator etc (although chapters jump around chronologically), the second the format of the journal of one of the characters.  This creates a transition between the openness of the first part and the more claustrophobic inner world of Joe in the second.

I found this a captivating read, in large part because there was a degree of personal familiarity with Joe’s neurotic character.  There was however still a sense of loss that some of the stories begun in the first part were left unfinished as those characters were not of particular interest to Joe and his journal. 

While I enjoyed the experience of reading it, there was a feeling of frustration with the narrative once I had finished it.  I feel that Woolley either needed to provide a fuller dramatic conclusion or have simply left us in full flow and not given us the final chapter, which I feel is rather weak. 

One of the things that I did like is the way that Woolley creates this sense that “life” is made up mainly of things which almost happen (for better or worse).  In a lot of fiction you get the feeling the writer has thrown the kitchen sink at their characters and everything that could happen does.  (This is especially true in many long running US TV dramas…).  I think you get to a certain age in life when your character is best defined by the way in which you handle the near misses!

Woolley’s handling of sex is another aspect of the book that I found successfully.  Between Joe and Mary the descriptions of sex are pretty graphic, but graphic in a matter of fact way, neither rose-tinted nor smutty.  Joe’s relationships with his male friends, and their potential as a context for sex, is also well informed.  In Joe’s mind at least they are a source of plenty of the “almosts”!  But that feels very authentic, once you are open to the idea the men do have sex with each other, male friendships and the intimacy they contain can become filled with complexity.

I am now looking forward to reading Woolley’s 2 other novels.

The Breathing by Mary-Ann Constantine

This is a powerful collection of short stories, tightly written, which leave you wondering about the past, the future, the wider story that has not been told.

In most of the stories there is some element of fantasy or surrealism which is handled well.  A hint perhaps of some untold mythology that is intriguing, but could so easily, in less skilful hands, have become laboured or over-bearing.

Within this context of myth and magic what is captured and brought out is a very strong sense of “ordinary” humanness, the characters within the stories are entirely believable – indeed you have the sense that these are not only people you could bump into in the street, but in fact people you already know.