A Home for All Seasons

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All this gleaned while he tried to establish the age of his Tudor-looking property, for which there was no definitive record. The result of his labours is a fascinating comparison of the 16th and 21st centuries, not the least of which is the plague and its more modern equivalent. For younger bookworms – and nostalgic older ones too – there’s the Slightly Foxed Cubs series, in which we’ve reissued a number of classic nature and historical novels. 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 listened to the audible audio edition but it isn't on Goodreads yet and I can't find the asin number to add it. 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. 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.Mrs Woolf, wife of the manager, is a very celebrated author and, in her own way, more important than Galsworthy.

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. 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’. His efforts involved bringing in experts to assess the tree rings in the beams as they can accurately date a building.

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. That simple question set them off on a discovery process, delving into the house's mixed and varied history, and expanding out from that (via a lot of medieval art, especially Breughel; the author is an art historian) into the rhythms and processes of the countryside generally, and how to live within them. It had some interesting details but I didn't enjoy Gavin reading it as there was no shading in his narration. I almost felt that I had somehow been tricked into reading it by a “false description” given by the publisher and even those who had reviewed and blurbed it. Finding the date of construction takes Gavin down many rabbit holes through the seasons, and cycle of the year as well as the historical context of the home from the 1500s and beyond.

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. This was particularly shown in the art of the time which was influenced by the more sophisticated European styles and techniques. Engrossingly fusing domestic history, memoir and art, Gavin Plumley’s A Home for All Seasons tells the fascinating story of a couple’s journey of discovering the full past of their ancient Herefordshire house.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 . The Hogarth Press where I’m working, is in the heart of the literary world, with authors coming in all the time.

Corvus Atlantic’s commercial fiction list which includes women’s, historical, romance, sci-fi, crime and thriller. The perfect Christmas present for anyone who has ever been curious about the house they live in and who might (or might not) have lived there before them. There were moments which felt “socially preachy” and I find that annoying, especially when I already feel that the book was misrepresented to me. He also delved extensively into the art of the Tudor period and came across the 16th century immigration issues. 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.Grove Press An imprint of Grove Atlantic, an American independent publisher, who publish in the UK through Atlantic Books.