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Charles Rennie Mackintosh: Making the Glasgow Style by Catherine Hokin
"Every object which you pass from your hand must carry an outspoken mark of individuality, beauty and most exact execution."Charles Rennie Mackintosh Charles Rennie MackintoshGlasgow is having a bit of...
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Frances Hodgson Burnett's adult fiction, by Leslie Wilson
photo by Herbert Rose BarraudI re-read 'The Making of a Marchioness' recently, a novel I first heard of via Nancy Mitford, in her 'The Blessing.' Like 'The Shuttle,' by the same author, it's published...
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I WANT MY MUMMY: Two strange medieval spices by Elizabeth Chadwick
Mummy. Les Livres des Simples Medecines.Not all items classed as spices in the Medieval period had a culinary use. Some were medicinal and not what we would regard as a spice today. One item a...
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Tosca by Miranda Miller
As a novelist, I’ve never doubted that fictional characters are real; we all know what we mean when we refer to Sherlock Holmes, Hamlet, Mr Micawber or Lizzie Bennett. It gets more complicated when...
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Another way of marking time, by Carol Drinkwater
The month of Messidor, from the Latin 'messis', corn harvest.Dates are on mind as this week as I have celebrated a big birthday. I was hunting about to see what of...
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Hinskey Outdoor Pool by Janie Hampton
Hinksey Pool is a welcome oasis in OxfordOxford has one of Britain’s best outdoor swimming pools. Surrounded by trees and blossom with a view of distant hills between the flowering bushes, Hinksey...
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Princess Ida by Lynne Benton
I’ve just come back from seeing a 21st century production of a 19th century operetta by the late, great Gilbert and Sullivan. The reason for my attendance at this event was because my oldest...
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Genghis Khan's Girls by Katherine Roberts
Our April guest is Katherine Roberts. Not only was Katherine one of the first History Girls; the book she talks about here, Bone Music, is published by The Greystones Press, the independent publisher...
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April competition
To win a copy of Katherine Roberts' Bone Music (see yesterday's post), answer this question in the Comments below"If you had Borta's power to spirit-travel in the body of an animal, which animal would...
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La Reine Blanche by Mary Hoffman
The "other" Mary TudorNo, not England's first Queen Regnant but Henry the Eighth's favourite sister.If this new biography had its title translated into The White Queen, readers might think it was...
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Lace and blade... and historical fiction, by Gillian Polack
This month, whenever I read a book I react to it. My reactions are visceral. The systems of names in fantasy worlds (historical and other) gave me negative ones. I wanted to invite the authors over,...
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The West Ham Vanishings: Unsolved Crimes in Victorian London - By Anna Mazzola
The criminal history of London in the late 19th century is dominated by one man: Jack the Ripper. But he may not have been the only serial murderer stalking the streets of London. During the 1880s and...
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"The sweet of the year": Shakespeare’s spring flowers - Katherine Langrish
It’s Act 4, Scene 3 of ‘The Winter’s Tale’ and Autolycus the thief is singing a song about spring.When daffodils begin to peerWith hey, the doxy over the dale,Why then comes in the sweet of the yearFor...
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Nomenclature of Colours - a Book Review by Joan Lennon
Before there were DIY paint charts and high-fidelity digital shade matchers, there was Werner's Nomenclature of Colours. In 1814, Patrick Syme (Flower-Painter of Edinburgh) adapted the pioneering work...
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A House with History by Sheena Wilkinson
My house doesn’t have much history. It was built in 2002 and I’m the only person ever to have lived there. Of course the land it was built on has a history – everywhere does, but there’s nothing in the...
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MR.PEACOCK"S POSSESSIONS by Lydia Syson. A review and an interview by Adèle...
This novel is pleasurable on so many levels that it's going to take me a while to list them all, and to do so without any spoilers.MPP, as I'll call it, is a novel that explains and illuminates a short...
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My Secret Drawer by Karen Maitland
The Old Red Lion Inn, Holmes Chapel. Photo: David DixonWhen I was a little girl I became obsessed with the dream of finding a secret drawer and spent many fruitless hours searching and prodding every...
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London's Mithraeum Liturgy
On the evening of Thursday 17 May 2018, just over a week from the date of this post I, Caroline Lawrence, will be meeting with children aged 8-12 (and their guardians) at an ancient Roman underground...
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Not the Villa Pisani at Stra – Michelle Lovric
The weather could not have been more golden, and the company could not have been more intelligent, attractive and beloved. Before we set off for the villa, I printed out some information that I...
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Fake or fortune (or perhaps both)
Although I'm fascinated by the Second World War and write novels set in that period (1), I also have a Master of Philosophy degree in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and that's why I am sitting in...
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