If you’re looking for gifts that will entertain, inform and stand the test of time then search no further! Book Festival Director Vicky Dawson suggests five books for the discerning Christmas stocking this yuletide season.
Tristram Hunt- The Radical Potter– an astonishing and ultimately heart breaking look at the life and legacy of Josiah Wedgwood in the context of his time, his contribution to the Midlands Enlightenment and in the anti- slavery movement.
Jenny Uglow- Sybil & Cecil– A book as vibrant and full of movement as the subject’s (Sybil Andrews and Cecil Powers) own art. Their futurism and pioneering abstraction was actually inspired by early music, medieval myths and the rapidly changing face of the British countryside.
David Kynaston- On The Cusp Days of ’62– continuing the epic Tales of a New Jerusalem series that started with Austerity Britain and once again humbling in its scope, effortless scholarship and narrative drive.
Zoe Playdon- The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes– born into a wealthy Scottish landowning family and with the financial means of precuring synthetic hormones, Ewan was able to live as a boy and a man, before a landmark legal case on the right to inherit the family baronetcy, tested the British legal system to the limit of its understanding. Compelling, challenging and fascinating.
The reread- Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park-prepare yourself for Jonathan Dove’s critically acclaimed chamber opera coming to BIF in 2022. Impoverished Fanny Price is sent to live a one of the family at the Northamptonshire country estate of Sir Thomas Bertram….Is Mansfield Park a critique on ‘theatricality’? oh, surely not…..
For those who prefer a little theatre in their lives, why not surprise someone with our Buxton International Festival gift vouchers, which can be either purchased online or bought directly through the Festival office.