Bibliotheca - Book News

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admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 02:54:02 +0000

Welcome to Bibliotheca the Book News Blog.

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Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace takes us to another time and place

Alan — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:56:48 +0000

The new book by Kate Summerscale is Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace and the book tells the story of a diary that is written by Isabella Robinson, detailing her feelings for a man who she has fallen in love with outside of her marriage. In retrospect, it is a great mistake for her to write down these feelings because when her diary is discovered it ruins her. It starts to cause a major scandal and her husband, who is a famous industrialist, is furious.

The book is set in a time where standards for men and women were different, and in the book it is clear that her husband has had several affairs and even has illegitimate children. Of course, in times gone by this was almost acceptable, while for a woman to have an affair with not allowed.

The man she falls in love with in the book is a doctor called Edward Lane who owns a hydrotherapy establishment. Part of the book details the unusual treatments that he gives to his patients which are often taken in some sort of bath. In the book the woman spends a lot of time at the spa and it is unsure whether they actually do have an affair. There is nothing in the various letters that prove they have an affair but the erotic longing is quite clear.

In the diary it is clear that Mrs Robinson is the star of her own romantic novel. She details how her marriage is miserable but she feels trapped into it because of society. She also tells how she has great affection for Edward and how she loves the way he reads poetry.

The book manages to put across the romance that they have without at any point being explicit and this has quite a lot of mystery to the novel. The book is set in the mid-19th-century and her husband is one of the first men who takes advantage of the ability to divorce his wife. This was one of the first times the divorce was possible for a middle-class couple in this diary provides a fascinating insight into it.

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New Malcolm X book fails to hit the mark

Alan — Mon, 14 May 2012 16:52:16 +0000

Prof Manning Marable has recently published a new biography of Malcolm X called, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. This book has been written after Marable has conducted over 10 years of research for it.

The idea of the book is that it is going to look at the man that was behind the legend of Malcolm X. It is thought that the book will offer people an opportunity to understand the morality of Malcolm X and his various character traits. The man has served as an inspiration to people for generations and this book is made particularly interesting by the fact that it is the last ever published by Marable, who passed away just days before it hit the shelves.

Unfortunately, the book is not perfect and there are some definite issues that the author does not address. For example, he does seem to over extrapolate a great deal. For example he cites a letter that Malcolm X wrote talking about a rough point in his marriage. From this Marable decides that Malcolm X did not have a happy marriage and probably had several affairs.

This will seem like wild speculation to anyone who reads the book as evidence of nothing more than Marable’s wild imagination. Unfortunately, this makes the book read like a tabloid newspaper instead of being an important academic text. Incredibly, this book has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, anyone with any sense at all will see that this is just absurd.

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Sex and the Office is a book that totally belies its title

Alan — Sun, 13 May 2012 16:19:13 +0000

Sex and the Office is a new book and in many ways it is very original. Most people might be led to the misconception by the title that it is about people having sexual relations with their work colleagues, but it is actually about the history of gender roles in the workplace.

This is a book that looks at the history of white-collar females working in offices in the United States. It looks all the way back to the later part of the 19th century when women started working in the office for the first time.

The book takes a look at a lot of archived research and also anecdotes from the time. It shows how the relationship between women and men in the workplace has evolved over time and how women have now become able to advance their careers much further than when they started working in offices.

The amount of contemporary sources that the author, Julie Berebitsky, uses is exceptional and these include articles from newspapers, films, fiction from the time, postcards and even agony aunt columns from magazines.

She has also spoken to a great deal of people in researching the book and this is quite obvious from the acknowledgements section which is extensive. The amount of research in the book and the quality of writing goes to show that she has clearly spent a lot of time putting this book together and it is an incredibly thorough work.

It is quite a dense book, and it is not really something that you can take particularly lightly. However, it does manage to draw the reader in and the anecdotes are particularly enthralling. Readers will find themselves wondering about the issues addressed in the book and thinking back to what it would have been like to work in a different time.

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Third scientist should be also be credited with the discovery of DNA

Alan — Sat, 12 May 2012 16:21:06 +0000

The discovery of DNA is widely something that is credited to two scientists, Watson and Crick. However, there was another scientist working very closely with these two who many would argue is equally responsible for the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA.

Rosalind Franklin, was very close to making the announcement about DNA herself before the other two scientists did and she also provided them with diffraction data gathered from an x-ray technique that was essential in them discovering DNA.

The process of discovering DNA required scientists from many disciplines including chemistry, biology and physics. There were many other scientists involved in the study, perhaps more indirectly than Watson and Crick, but one woman who is really in the centre of the story of the discovery of DNA is Ms Franklin. The story is something that has been told many times over the years as she often never gets the credit she deserves for the important scientific discovery.

Several books have previously been written on the topic including Rosalind Franklin and DNA, which was written in 1975 and a biography of the scientist which was written in 2002. Despite all of her work towards the discovery of DNA it is something that is not even properly acknowledged in the present day.

The discovery of DNA was something that was a great challenge and at many points the scientists working on attempting to discover it were told to leave it because their seniors thought the discovery could not yet be made.

Eventually three people involved with the discovery were awarded the Nobel Prize, but Franklin was never recognised in this way for her contribution. Without the work of Franklin, it is unlikely that Watson and Crick would have been able to make the discovery and this new book tells the story once again.

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New book describes the life and work of Basil Spence

Alan — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:30:12 +0000

After the Second World War the welfare state was reconstructed in the UK and one of the most notable architects during this time was Basil Spence. One of his most famous constructions was the Coventry Cathedral, which was opened 50 years ago and is a building that is very romantic as well as being theatrical.

Basil Spence was born to Scottish parents in India, and after moving back to Scotland he studied architecture at Edinburgh University. This was at a time when modernism was first becoming an accepted style and it was something that he embraced, particularly in regard to Coventry Cathedral. For part of his career he designed many buildings that utilised flat roofs, but there were other times that he used very steep slate roofs.

He worked in London as well as in New Delhi, where he was responsible for designing a great deal of buildings. After this, he returned to the UK and worked on several of the buildings that are constructive at the University of Sussex. Shortly after the war, he abandoned the use of historical styles and switched almost entirely to more modern designs.

A new book has been written that describes his work and tells the story of his very distinguished career. At the height of his career he was operating three separate offices across the UK and his business plans are discussed in detail in this book.

He was often working with younger people he brought into the business as colleagues and many of these, after working under Spence, went on to have very successful careers of their own. Not only was Spence a skilled architect, but he was also a good businessmen and was able to deal with people and his customers very well. It was often the case that he was turning coincidences to his business advantage.

Spence is certainly one of the most notable architects of the past four decades and he was not only known for his skill, but also his keen sense of humour. His work has inspired many architects who have been working since his death and these people have been responsible for designing many of the building seen in the country.

His styles of building were often known to be much more inspiring than some of the other work being created at the time and many of his buildings have a great emotional depth

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New book teaches children all about African wildlife

Alan — Tue, 01 May 2012 13:27:11 +0000

Safari, so good! All about African Wildlife is a book that takes children on a journey to discover more about the amazing animals that the title covers,essentially providing a safari experience from home. Many parents think that it is a book that is more appropriate for children after they have got a little bit older but in many ways it is still suitable for young children.

The book is very factual but remains colourful and interesting for children. There are some descriptions in the book about animals eating each other, and a picture of a giraffe giving birth that might make parents think it is more appropriate for older children, however all of these situations are described in a very friendly way and are not at all graphic.

Younger children might find that the verse in the book is a bit lengthy and they will want to skip over the description to hurry to the next page. This is something that can easily be avoided if parents choose to read the book to their children, rather than have the children read it themselves. It is also a book children can go back to when they are older and they will understand more about it.

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David Hockney’s book re-released by Clovis Whitfield

Alan — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:46:08 +0000

It was over 10 years ago that David Hockney published a book that looked at how artists were using optical devices for many years in order to aid their painting. Some of the most famous devices talked about in the book were the parabolic mirror and the camera obscura. Both of these devices were used to project a scene of reality onto a flat surface which the artist could then copy.

The book was something that was met with lukewarm interest from historians who have generally in the past avoided discussion about this technique. This makes the new release of the book by Clovis Whitfield a significant event. The book is focusing on Caravaggio who was a celebrated painter in Rome during the end of the 16th century. He was known for creating incredibly realistic pictures which were unprecedented at the time.

There are no drawings by Caravaggio currently known about and his paintings have a depth of field which is strangely limited. This suggests that he used techniques such as those talked about in Hockney’s book in order to create his paintings. It is also known that he only worked in studios and used controlled sources of light in order to make his paintings.

In the book Mr Whitfield looks at some of his earliest paintings and shows how he used images from a camera obscura in order to create his paintings. Mr Whitfield doesn’t use the book to criticise the skills of the artist, instead he uses it to point out how ingenious his methods were.

The fact that he could create such powerful images at a time when this was impossible is a remarkable achievement. Instead of criticising him for using technology, Mr Whitfield extols the virtues of it. Perhaps this book will finally break other art historian silence on the subject.

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Books galore at the Carnaby Book Exchange

Alan — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:54:24 +0000

There are currently more than 130m books throughout the world, and the average person reads one book every week. With this in mind, the Carnaby Book Exchange allows visitors to pick up a book, settle back into a comfy armchair and explore the worlds of travel, fashion, music, history and design, among many others.

You can leave a book you have read and take a different one home with you, free of charge.The project is being curated by the MA Fashion Curation students from the London College of Fashion. The project is located in Kingly Court, which is just off Carnaby Street, and it encourages visitors to also share their opinions of the book they are leaving behind, so the whole concept is not only one of sharing books, but also memories.

Kingly Court is a stunning open air courtyard, found just off Caranby Street and home to many independent fashion and lifestyle boutques, alongside a diverse range of restaurants and cafes.

G5, Ground floor, Kingly Court, Carnaby, W1

Launches from Tuesday 10 April 2012.

Opening Hours: Monday – Saturday 8.30am – 6pm and Sunday 12pm – 6pm

FREE ENTRY

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New Stuart McBride novel falls flat

Alan — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 17:35:34 +0000

Shatter the Bones was a number one bestseller written by Stuart MacBride and it was part of the thriller series which features a detective called Logan McRae. In total, the complete series of books has already sold over 1 million copies and the author has just created a novel that stands alone from the normal series. This book is called Birthdays for the Dead, and despite not featuring the hero detective, it is likely to be just as successful as the previous crime thrillers from MacBride.

The story instead follows a different detective, Ash Henderson, and he has to solve a crime that is very personal to him. Every year he is sent a photograph by a criminal taunting him who has stolen his daughter, the whole situation is complicated even further by the fact that most people think that she ran away.

Interestingly, the book doesn’t start by making the main character very likeable. The character development doesn’t take place very quickly and there is not a whole lot of dialogue. Unfortunately, some of the characters are simply too flat and it seems more as if stock characters have been used in the novel so the author doesn’t have to work to develop the characters much.

From his past novels it is well known that MacBride is a fan of exploring the unglamorous side of police work. In many ways it is the opposite of what people see on television in the programme CSI.

While this style of writing was once an interesting take on police work and provided a breath of fresh air into crime thrillers, which tend to be dramatically over glamourised, it is now something that is a little bit boring and readers will struggle to get involved with the story and like the characters in the book.

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