Books open and closed

    - The book open on my desk just now is The Baskerville Legacy: A Novel by John O'Connell; I'm half way through and loving this story of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the journalist Bertram Fletcher Robinson which is based on real events.

    - Never mind open, here's a book that hasn't even been written yet, though I suppose that makes it wide open in terms of possible content: The White Book: A Journey through Porcelain by Edmund de Waal (for all fans of The Hare... ) will trace the history of porcelain and man's obsession with it over the past thousand years. It's due out in 2015!

    - And only just closed: The Cold Eye of Heaven by Christine Dwyer Hickey, a mightily impressive piece of work taking a life backwards, not a comfortable book, but a very good one, and The Artist of Disappearance by Anita Desai, a triptych of novellas on themes of loss and regret, the redemptive power of art and the solace of the inner life, beautifully balanced and restrained, pure pleasure. 

    - Finally, a 'novel' type of bookmark, one for those who like to leave their books open - have a look here.

Comments

[anne]

I think it is much quicker than before.
Thank you

[Margaret Powling]

The porcelain book would be for me! I am more a porcelain person that a pottery person ... The Arcanum by Janet Gleeson is worth reading (again, about porcelain) and the history of English porcelain is fascinating ... my own hero is William Coockworthy (born in Kingsbridge, Devon) who was the first person to produce English hard paste porcelain although he seems to have been air-brushed out of the story of English porclelain. I must now find out more about this new book on porcelain; thank you for drawing my attention to it.