ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review On The Sea, A Useful Ghost, Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, and Pinocchio Unstrung
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A riveting chronicle of the four decades that defined contemporary London
Workers on the Silent Highway, a photograph from Street Life in London, 1877, by John Thomson and Adolphe Smith’ The best-known of the LCC’s Arts and Crafts fire stations, job architect HFT Cooper, 1901–2, still in service
[(L to R) Wikipedia/Public domain/courtesy Andrew Saint]
RON JACOBS enjoys a great tale, told by a US communist, of the lives of working-class New Yorkers
BRENT CUTLER searches a new history of contemporary Iran for an understanding of the Islamic Republic, finding both interesting detail and glaring omissions
MARIA DUARTE recommends the true story of the remarkable woman who sued Donald Trump for sexual assault not once, but twice
KENNY MacASKILL is disappointed by a polemical, rather than factual, account of the Lone Star State and its political path since the civil war
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the lives of Charles and Mary Bagot, and the insight this biography shines on the morals of pre-Victorian society
GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
London 1870-1910: City at its Zenith
by Andrew Saint
Lund and Humphries £24.43
THIS intriguing, informative, richly illustrated and engagingly written volume covers 40 years of a city living a epochal change, from the completion of the Joseph Bazalgette’s outfall sewers, switching London Underground to electric propulsion, the growth of trade unionism, birth of social democracy and … the first all-weather ice rinks made possible using a novel mixture of glycerine and water.
In a curious, and perhaps telling, coincidence, the period addressed is equivalent to the average lifespan for the time of just 41.8 years.
The agricultural depression meant that many sought refuge in London where overcrowding and poor sanitation caused much premature death.
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MICHAL BONCZA recommends a minimalist installation that prompts intriguing connotations
Read this book and be aware that this is our history, says RUTH AYLETT
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