Hot Air: The Inside Story of the Battle Against Climate Change Denial. By Peter Stott. Review by Barbara Lewis.
A year before the Kyoto Protocol committed the developed world to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, Britain’s Education Act of 1996 incorporated the Thatcher government’s 1986 Education Act that was designed to deal with a perceived issue of left-wing teachers indoctrinating school pupils. Two decades on, mathematician Peter Stott found himself defending climate science against its deniers, who used Thatcher’s legal legacy to take to the High Court their objections to Al Gore’s climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth being streamed in schools.
Hogarth and Europe: Uncovering City Life. Tate Britain Until 22 March 2022. Review by Carla Scarano.
The exhibition highlights Hogarth’s artistic connections with his European contemporary artists and his satirical depiction and moral flogging of Georgian Britain.
Poetry review – BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO LOSS IN THE MULTIVERSE: Charles Rammelkamp studies Claudine Nash‘s sympathetic and light-touch guide to coping with bereavement
The Wife of Willesden. Adapted by Zadie Smith from Chaucer’s ‘The Wife of Bath’. Kiln Theatre, London. Until 18 December 2021. Review by Carla Scarano.
Zadie Smith’s brilliant adaptation of ‘The Wife of Bath’ from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales triggers a rethinking of women’s roles in society.
REBEL TALK – Bill Jenkinson surveys a collection of poems on the climate emergency compiled and edited by Rip Bulkeley
Merryn Williams peruses this year’s George Crabbe Poetry Competition Anthology
Hokusai: The Great Book of Everything. Review by Carla Scarano. A selection of 103 drawings from Katsushika Hokusai’s encyclopaedic book of pictures is on display for the first time, at The British Museum in room 90. This unique and ambitious collection was composed between the 1820s and the 1840s and survived because the book was never published.
Jean Sibelius Life, Music, Silence by Daniel M.Grimley (Reaktion Books). ‘The evening atmosphere wonderful. As always when silence speaks: a secret pull of eternal silence and – life’s song.’ Jean Sibelius, diary entry August 1910
Poetry review – SICILIAN ELEPHANTS: Carla Scarano reviews a collection in reminiscent and reflective mood from David Cooke
Poetry review – OAK: Edmund Prestwich is captivated by an imaginative poem-biography of an oak tree by Katharine Towers
By Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, ecology, poetry reviews, year 2021 1 • Tags: books, ecology, Edmund Prestwich, poetry