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Set in the Welsh Borders in 1980, "The Claude Glass" charts an unlikely friendship between two neighbours: Robin, the seven year old son of English hippie sheep farmers, and Andrew, a child so neglected by his impoverished parents that he is left almost mute, seeking solace among the farm dogs. Exploring his parents' semi-derelict farmhouse, Andrew finds an antique convex mirror - a Claude Glass - and, gazing into it, the two boys see their wild, rural landscape strangely ordered. But this comforting vision proves fragile as tensions and sexual jealousy rock the adult world around them. Written with a lyricism and freshness that echoes the work of Bruce Chatwin and Esther Freud, "The Claude Glass" draws you into the lives of its startling characters and their tarnished romance with nature.
In this acclaimed study of British statehood, identity and culture, Tom Nairn deftly dispels the conviction that the Royal Family is nothing more than an amusing relic of feudalism or a mere tourist attraction. Instead, he argues that the monarchy is both apex and essence of the British state, the symbol of a national backwardness. In this fully updated edition, Nairn’s powerful and bitterly comic prose lays bare Britain’s peculiar, pseudo-modern, national identity—which remains stubbornly fixated on the Crown and its constitutional framework, the “parliamentary sovereignty” of Westminster.
This is the first book to be published on the stained-glass art of Thomas Denny. While his name is known mainly within ecclesiastical and glass-making circles, it is likely that Denny's art is instantly recognisable to a great many more. His radiant windows in Gloucester, Durham and Hereford Cathedrals and in many churches and chapels around the UK are arguably some of the art world's best-kept secrets. Denny (b.1956) originally studied painting at Edinburgh College of Art and has translated this painterly experience into a uniquely expressive style of stained glass. His works combine the aesthetic invention of modern British forbears such as John Piper with subtle reference to the medieval and ancient past. Including eleven heartfelt essays as well as poetry and the artist's own testimony, which explore and explain the subject matter, techniques and dazzling effect of Denny's craft, this book will be of interest to members of the thriving community of contemporary glass-makers as well as anyone who has seen and been moved by his work.
In The Agony of Shopping and Other Plays, Vince takes us on a roller coaster ride of the soul where flashes of light, nobility, and hope are intermingled with shadows of decadence, greed, and despair.
WHAT MAKES A TERRORIST? HOW DOES ATROCIOUS MADNESS DEVELOP?WHAT TURNS A HUMAN BEING INTO A MONSTER-BEAST?Some answers to these questions lie in the human proclivity to worship the finite, to project and serve idols . . . and thus to bring destruction to the idolaters and to others.The psychological-philosophical-theological dynamics of idol formation and idol worship are worked out in Light in the Labyrinth.