He also delved extensively into the art of the Tudor period and came across the 16th century immigration issues.

With ancient beams crossing the ceiling, the date they'd been given of 1800 seemed out by centuries. As Gavin traced Stepps House through various hands and eras, he saw a past emerge that resonates powerfully with our present. This being said, lovely read but a bit of a long winded one, It could have been two books - The history of the house and the live of the author in my opinion. Good-humoured, unpretentious and a bit eccentric, it's more like having a well-read friend than a subscription to a literary review. Working with several interlocking cycles chiefly the seasons in art, farming and Elizabethan England, this book is also an extended meditation on the big issues of today and their effects on village life.If I’m honest, the art history was less interesting to me than the social history aspect of the book, but it has inspired me to take more interest in historical detail and the bibliography included will be invaluable for this. I really hate giving up on books I start reading, especially expensive hardback books like this one, but after persevering for days, I started skimming for information on the purported subject without luck and decided I’d wasted enough of my life on it. Slightly Foxed brings back forgotten voices through its Slightly Foxed and Plain Foxed Editions, a series of beautifully produced little pocket hardback reissues of classic memoirs, all of them absorbing and highly individual. The Hogarth Press where I’m working, is in the heart of the literary world, with authors coming in all the time.

As Gavin traced Stepps House through various hands and eras, he saw the picture of a past emerge that resonates powerfully with our present. This was particularly shown in the art of the time which was influenced by the more sophisticated European styles and techniques. Slightly Foxed introduces its readers to books that are no longer new and fashionable but have lasting appeal. But I have a love of art, literature, gardening, architecture and history (all represented throughout the book) and yet I still felt long portions overly tedious and at times pretentious.A hybrid work of domestic history and European art, of memoir and landscape, A Home for All Seasons is both grand in its sweep and intimate in its account of life on the edge of England. In fact, Pevsner, in a rare burst of enthusiasm, declared it to be one of the prettiest villages in the county, on account of its abundance of black-and-white buildings, ‘hardly disturbed by Georgian brick, though disastrously disturbed by some recent filling stations’. I assumed (like other reviewers) that this would concentrate on the house and surrounding areas of Herefordshire where author Gavin Plumley lives. Afew years ago, Gavin Plumley and his husband, Alastair, bought a house in the Herefordshire village of Pembridge. He has also been interviewed about the book by Michael Portillo on Times Radio and by Georgina Godwin for Monocle 24, as well as by the BBC local radio in Hereford and Worcester, Cornwall and Gloucestershire.

J. Marsh, Judith O'Reilly, Kelly Clayton, Kim Nash, Leah Mercer, Liz Fenwick, Louise Jensen, Louise Mumford, Malcolm Hollingdrake, Marcia Woolf, Mark Stay, Marcie Steele, Natasha Bache, Nick Jackson, Nick Quantrill, Nicky Black, Patricia Gibney, Rachel Sargeant, Rob Parker, Rob Scragg, S. A work of non-fiction, it was published by Atlantic Books in hardback and e-book on 2 June 2022 to wide acclaim and then released as an audiobook by W. Grove Press An imprint of Grove Atlantic, an American independent publisher, who publish in the UK through Atlantic Books. You can unsubscribe from our list at any point by changing your preferences, or contacting us directly.The author is entitled to his opinion, but I bought the book for the house not an essay on modern climate change, criticism of government officials’ handling of the pandemic, or the merits of socialism. From a simple question about the age of a house, this book takes you on a much wider journey, encompassing art, literature, history and nature, as well as the inescapable fragility of life. There were moments which felt “socially preachy” and I find that annoying, especially when I already feel that the book was misrepresented to me. A wonderful meeting of memoir and landscape, both rigorous and freewheeling, expansive and intimate, rendered in dreamy prose.

I listened to the audible audio edition but it isn't on Goodreads yet and I can't find the asin number to add it. What starts out as a straightforward house history morphs into something else, a wide-ranging meditation on place and past, taking in climate change, rural depopulation, the Reformation and folklore. All this gleaned while he tried to establish the age of his Tudor-looking property, for which there was no definitive record. With ancient beams crossing the ceiling, the date they’d been given of 1800 seemed out by centuries. It’s rare that non-fiction has the power to transport you so completely and catch you up in a world that you have never known, and that you never want to leave.As Gavin traced Stepps House through various hands and eras, he uncovers a past steeped in history and art, memory and nature that resonates powerfully with our present. I don’t know if the filling stations are still disturbing the village, but if they are, there are plenty of compensations: a 14th-century church with, so the story goes, the marks of Cromwellian musket balls still showing in its west door; a spectacular pagoda-like bell house dating back to the 1200s; an early 16th-century market hall; 17th-century almshouses; and streets stacked to the gills with picturesquely wonky black-and-white houses. As a final thought, while I was reading this the author posted a comment by a reviewer that said they weren’t able to continue reading the book due to the prevalence of references to his alternative lifestyle. The independent-minded quarterly magazine that combines good looks, good writing and a personal approach.