Harry Phillips
In the 1980s I wrote a book on an early photographer of Sydney’s Blue Mountains district. His name was Harry Phillips and the book was called ‘The Far-Famed Blue Mountains … Continue reading
Hollywood, once upon a time…
John Kobal’s The Art of the Great Hollywood Portrait Photographers is as good as his book on Hollywood with Kevin Brownlow, which is one of the essential books to read … Continue reading
The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-9
How equipped are our governments to deal with emergencies? Supposing a worldwide epidemic, which many scientists forecast, or even a tornado, were to strike, would there be an effective support … Continue reading
Tanizaki’s Makioka Sisters
The Makioka Sisters (Sasame Yuki, Light Snow), first published in 1948, was written by Junichiro Tanizaki (1886-1965). Tanizaki wrote The Makioka Sisters after translating the Tale of Genji into modern … Continue reading
The king of Paris: Alexandre Dumas
We know him best as author of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, but Alexandre Dumas’ greatest creation was his own life. He had a saying: “Old … Continue reading
Tosa diary
THE TOSA DIARY was written in 935 by a famous Japanese scholar, poet and government administrator named Ki no Tsurayuki who lived in the reign of the Emperor Sujaku. Tsurayuki … Continue reading
The Margery Allingham question
Margery Allingham (1904-68) wrote stories about crime, which fact places her reputation somewhere in the wide ground between those of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Agatha Christie. But where precisely do we … Continue reading
