Posts Tagged ‘Halifax’
The 2014 Atlantic Book Awards Festival is starting soon!
The festival runs May 14 to 21 throughout Atlantic Canada culminating with the gala May 21st at the Delta Convention Centre in Charlottetown!
Be sure to check out all of the nominees (available in store)!
For a full list of all events please check the link below:
http://atlanticbookawards.ca/festival-awards-events/2014-events/
Festival brochures available in store.
I was first introduced to William Dalrymple’s writing a few years ago when he visited King’s College to speak. I missed the talk, but went on to read In Xanadu: A Quest and was completely taken up into the story he tells. It is an exciting, engaging, and interesting way of telling history. In two words, Gonzo History.
Dalrymple is a Scottish born Cambridge educated historian who has numerous publications under his belt, all meticulously researched and beautifully presented for the general reader. For many of his books, including my favourites In Xanadu and From the Holy Mountain, he takes a hands-on approach to the research and puts himself in the locations he researches.
In Xanadu is Dalrymple’s first book (1989) and was written following a journey he took along the Silk Road.One of Marco
Polo’s adventures took him from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem all the way to Shangdu in Inner Mongolia where King Kublai Khan spent his summers. Kublai Khan had requested that Christian scholars travel to his Khanate to spread the knowledge of Christianity. He also requested a quantity of oil from the lamps which burned inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre be taken to him. Dalrymple and his travelling companion begin their journey at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and trace Marco Polo’s route through the Middle East and Asia all the way to Shangdu (Xanadu). Without using more modern means of travel like airplanes they are bound to foot, hitchhiking, and buses. The book chronicles their journey, including all of the odd encounters they have along the way, interspersed with accounts of the original journey taken by Marco Polo in the 13th century.
John Moschos was a 6th century Byzantine monk who undertook a great journey around Eastern Byzantium visiting Eastern Christian groups and ascetics along the way, all the while collecting sayings and writing down his encounters and stories which they told to him. It culminated in his writing The Spiritual Meadow, still an important and often read book today full of that ancient ascetic wisdom.
Just as he traced and followed Marco Polo’s route, Dalrymple takes up a similar route to Moschos, travelling through Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and ending–as Moschos did–in Egypt. In this excerpt, Dalrymple is staying briefly at the Monastery of Iviron at Mount Athos, Greece hoping to have a look at a particular manuscript they hold there. An older monk, Christophoros (who feeds the monastery’s cats, named after Orthodox Saints) takes him in to their archives and library one evening:
Three locks had now opened without problem; and eventually with a loud creak, the fourth gave way too. The old library doors swung open, and with the lamps held aloft, we stepped inside.
Within, it was pitch dark; a strong odour of old buckram and rotting vellum filled the air. Manuscripts lay open in low cabinets, the gold leaf of illuminated letters and gilt haloes from illustrations of saints’ Lives shining out in the light of the lantern. In the gloom on the far wall I could just see a framed Ottoman firman, the curving gilt of the Sultan’s monogram clearly visible above the lines of calligraphy. Next to it, like a discarded suit jacket, hung a magnificent but rather crumpled silk coat. Confronted dragons and phoenixes were emblazoned down the side of either lapel.
‘What is that?’ I whispered
‘It’s John Tzimiskes’s coat.’
‘The emperor John Tzimiskes? But he lived in the tenth century.’
Christophoros shrugged his shoulders.
‘You can’t just leave something like that hanging up there,’ I said.
‘Well,’ said Christophoros irritably, ‘where else would you put it?’
This is a short example of the style in which Dalrymple writes. Not dry, nor pompous, nor overly meticulous but written as if it were the diary of an adventurer of a bygone age. For this reason Dalrymple’s writings appeal not only to those interested in history, as it does give the historical account of a scholar, but it appeals as well to lovers of travel and adventure writing precisely because he writes from a first-person, hands-on perspective.
We currently have in stock The Age of Kali ($19.00), From the Holy Mountain ($19.95), In Xanadu ($18.95), and Dalrymple’s newest Return of a King ($22.00).
Tired of waiting for that last Downton episode of the year to air just to get your English-fix? Me too!
Glad I found these. While they are not a new series of books, I had no idea that they even existed until a few weeks ago. What Penguin has done is drawn together song, story, poetry and history of England into pocket sized chunks.
Love English country churches? Then Simon Jenkins’ Country Churches is what you want. Jenkins, an experienced traveller and church-visitor, has collected notes and observations on a multitude of country churches giving close attention to notable carvings, mosaics, stained glass and other architectural details.
English Folk Songs is a collection done in part by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) and A.L. Loyd (1908-1982) who together collected and preserved folk songs from England’s past. This work contains a number of folk songs, complete with notation.
More into the gossip and scandal that you aren’t getting from Downton right now? James Lees-Milne’s Some Country Houses and their Owners will deliver. Lees-Milne’s work in the 30′s and 40′s was travelling about England to Country Hosues and Estates trying to persuade their owners to give their properties to the National Trust to be preserved. His observations of those estate and country house owners was collected and published in the 1970′s–humour and gossip abound.
The best part? Each of the books in the collection are $9.99
This year we are pleaseD to announce that we will be one of two official booksellers for Word on the Street Halifax. It is our great honour to be involved with this fantastic event that honours authors, readers and booksellers. Please join us Sunday, September 23rd from 11-5 on the Halifax Waterfront behind the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.
For more information about Word on the Street, please visit their website at: www.thewordonthestreet.ca
Also, you can visit their Facebook page for specific details about the Halifax event at: The Word on the Street: Halifax – Facebook
An examination of poverty and homelessness in Halifax at the turn of the twentieth century, this book challenges the notion that the poor are deviants who are responsible for their own misfortune. Historians have too often accepted this characterization of poverty without question and, in so doing, have allowed for its perpetuation into current discourse. Through an exploration of public records and the stories of real people, David Hood breathes life into Halifax’s sordid past — and reveals the humanity and complexity of the poor. They were not ‘deviants’ in trouble with the law or ‘cheats’ living on government handouts, but were rather people trying to make ends meet under difficult circumstances. This book provokes readers to rethink accepted notions of poverty and homelessness and, in so doing opens the possibility for recognition and empathy.