Book Notes, April–May 2021

Wayne writes: Not in any particular order, here are books I read during April and May (and an extra):

The Dig by John Preston. Penguin Books, 2021 (first published 2007). A fictionalized account of the discovery and excavation of the Sutton Hoo ship-burial treasure. ‘Certain changes have been made for dramatic effect’: indeed, yes. Preston is entertaining, but fortunately we have some good books on the actual events, which involved many more people and multiple dig seasons.

Fearless by Allen Stroud. Flame Tree Press, 2020. This seemed from descriptions as if it might be a good science-fiction novel about a sort of Coast Guard-rescue ship in space. Not quite. It’s ‘woke’ in a forced way, it’s told awkwardly from multiple points of view and in ‘real time’ (a character telling the story in one chapter turns up dead in the next), the physics of the action are questionable, and the novel ends without a resolution – so, the start of a series, but I won’t be returning.

E. McKnight Kauffer: The Artist in Advertising, edited by Caitlin Condell and Emily M. Orr. Rizzoli/Electa and Cooper Hewitt, 2020. Kauffer was an American graphic artist (1890–1954), a pioneer of the Modernist poster and dust-jacket. This new biography, by multiple authors, is a good example of how to make a book uncomfortable for the reader. The main type is sans serif, none too large and with enormous indents, shoulder notes are in a tiny (six point?) typewriter-style face and in red, and captions are also tiny, in a light roman font, and difficult to relate to the pictures. The text shifts here and there on the page, out of alignment, as do the illustrations, which are not always as sharp as they might be. The book’s designer, who explains at length in a sort of manifesto, chose to reflect Kauffer’s personal contradictions and ‘varied nature’; each spread is ‘its own composition and . . . part of the overall gestalt’. Sorry, no, not over nearly 300 pages. Prefer Mark Haworth-Booth’s E. McKnight Kauffer: A Designer and His Public (2nd ed. 2005).

The University Printing Houses at Cambridge from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century by Brooke Crutchley. Cambridge University Press, 1962. This is one of the series of short Christmas books issued by the University Printer in Cambridge for many years. I had long admired the Chapin Library’s copy – elegantly printed in an oblong format, bound in a lovely rust-colored cloth, and housed in a marbled-paper slipcase – and when a chance came along recently to buy one for myself at a discounted price, I leaped at it. Now if I could find, also at a good price, the 1961 Cambridge Christmas book, Bridges on the Backs, with lift-the-flap illustrations by David Gentleman, I would be even happier.

Arts and Crafts Pioneers: The Hobby Horse Men and Their Century Guild by Stuart Evans and Jean Liddiard. Lund Humphries, 2021. A good, if overly long, account of a different side of British art and design, and (especially from my point of interest) book production, in the late nineteenth century, concurrent with and following on the work of William Morris. Well illustrated in a tall format.

Evelyn Dunbar (1906–1960): The Lost Works, edited by Sacha Llewellyn and Paul Liss. Liss Llewellyn Fine Art and Pallant House Gallery, 2015. Dunbar is best known for her Second World War paintings of Land Girls and other scenes from the home front, but like so many other British artists of the period, she had a varied output including murals and book illustration. The ‘lost works’ of the title refers to a cache of Dunbar art set aside at her early death and forgotten, though in family hands, for a generation. Dunbar’s biography is more fully presented in Gill Clarke’s excellent Evelyn Dunbar: War and Country (2006), and more recently in Evelyn Dunbar: A Life in Painting (2016) by the artist’s nephew, Christopher Campbell-Howes, which I have yet to read.

Time for Tea by Tom Parker Bowles. 4th Estate, 2021. The latest publication from Fortnum & Mason, London grocers and tea merchants (since 1707). Much more than everything you ever wanted to know about tea, and a blessing to anyone wanting to be a tea connoisseur: where tea is grown, how it’s grown, what kind of tea (so many kinds) one should choose to fit a mood or occasion, much more sophisticated than my Darjeeling if I can get it, but English Breakfast in a pinch (and for breakfast, with lots of milk and one sugar), and Orange Pekoe for iced tea. Plus recipes for scones, etc. I have a fondness for Fortnum’s, and very much regret that they gave up (due to the pandemic) their gallery restaurant in the Piccadilly store as well as their satellite café at St Pancras.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. Del Rey, 2021. I enjoyed The Martian, but skipped Weir’s Artemis as it had terrible reviews and features a wisecracking petty criminal, which I didn’t think would appeal to me. One review of Project Hail Mary noted that Weir now returns to his hero ‘sciencing’ his way out of many, many problems, which was enough to convince me to order an autographed copy from Blackwell’s (and I liked the U.K. dust-jacket better than the American one, and Blackwell’s pack so beautifully). Science, indeed, to the extent that having some math and physics and biology background is definitely a plus for reading this book. Anyway: hey, I read a best-seller! It’s not often that my tastes align with the mainstream. Although I did read another best-seller recently, which I forgot to put into my January notes:

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline. Ballantine Books, 2020. I read Ready Player One not all that many years ago, enjoyed it, and like other readers never thought that it needed a sequel. After reading Ready Player Two, my opinion hasn’t changed. Characters who were sympathetic in the first book are here acting like jerks, and if they have only a limited time to save the world (another quest!), why do they sometimes act as if they aren’t on the clock? To be fair, I also enjoyed Ready Player One more than the sequel probably because I was more familiar with the pop culture Cline used in the first book, compared with what Wade and his friends deal with in Ready Player Two, except for one chapter set in the world of The Silmarillion. I’m hopeless with the music of Prince, and with most of the films of John Hughes.