Cart
Free US shipping over $10
Proud to be B-Corp

The Bookman's Tale Ronald Blythe

The Bookman's Tale By Ronald Blythe

The Bookman's Tale by Ronald Blythe


$10.99
Condition - Very Good
6 in stock

Summary

Ronald Blythe has spent his life among the artists and writers of his native Suffolk. His books, especially the bestselling "Akenfield", have given East Anglia a distinctive literary voice. This book accompanies Ronald through the lanes of Constable country, and observe him in his study following his early morning writing routine.

The Bookman's Tale Summary

The Bookman's Tale by Ronald Blythe

Ronald Blythe has spent his life among the artists and writers of his native Suffolk. His books, especially the bestselling "Akenfield", have given East Anglia a distinctive literary voice. Here we accompany Ronald through the lanes of Constable country, we observe him in his study following his early morning writing routine, we meet John Clare, Traherne and countless other writers who continue to influence him, we join him in the ancient tradition of Anglican worship season by season, and luxuriate in the simple beauty of his ancient farmhouse and its garden, made by the artist John Nash. Literature, poetry, spirituality and memory all merge to create exquisite stories for our times.

The Bookman's Tale Reviews

Talking of bats, there is a lovely passage in this book in which the author wakes up to find a bat lying next to him. The bat is alive but doesn't respond to questioning, so Blythe carries him out to the shed, to "leave him to his bat thoughts". This is a collection of the author's columns from Church Times: a kind of rural journal of evensongs, visits from friends, books read and remembered (Auden, RS Thomas), the changing light through his windows, and the watchful moods of his white cat. There are excursions to Aldeburgh or Little Gidding, and visits from chirpy young engineers who rewire his house or find a spider gumming up the central heating.Such material could have made for an appallingly fey read, but Blythe's extraordinary attention to the world around him, and the modest exactness of his thinking, make him seem curiously apt to keep the company of those old Greeks up above. The writing throughout is exquisite ("rain-smirched light looking for the altar" in church; the "nice drudgery" of proofreading a book; a painter's "easel folded up in the car like a sleeping insect"), and a serenely humane humour is never far away: "How does one listen to the radio without hearing all this news? It is a problem." My only disappointment (and a vanishingly rare one in this job) was that the book was so short.Steven Poole,The Guardian

Additional information

GOR001540408
9781853119804
1853119806
The Bookman's Tale by Ronald Blythe
Used - Very Good
Hardback
Canterbury Press Norwich
2009-06-30
160
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - The Bookman's Tale