Thursday 9 December 2021

Book Recommendations 2021

 (from my current project, "36 Views of the Avon Gorge")

As I keep telling myself, I'm buying rather fewer books these days – no, really – although somehow they do keep turning up on my doorstep, most recently a couple from France. Unlike the government, however, I continue to welcome them all into the house, regardless of where they come from, even though we're several stages past "full". They can doss on the floor or under a table until we can make room for them.

So, I hesitate to make book recommendations but, as I see I didn't make any last year, I see no reason not to bring just a few to your attention. Spending other people's money is always a pleasure, isn't it? The only problem is, if you leave it much more than a year most good photobooks will have already ascended into the "collectible" sphere. None of these have yet, however, AFAIK.

Me Kaksi, by Pentti Sammallahti (EXB, 2021)
I keep buying Sammallahti books, only to find they contain much the same photographs as the last one. This one is no different,  but it's beautifully produced by Atelier EXB (formerly Editions Xavier Barral) and if you don't have a Sammallahti yet, this is a good place to start. Buy direct from the publisher.

End Time City, by Michael Ackerman (EXB, 2021)
Another EXB book, a new edition of a classic, first published 20 years ago, impressionistic B&W glimpses of Benares, "the most sacred city in Hinduism, which welcomes pilgrims who have come to die here to erase their sins and put an end to the cycle of rebirth". A bit grim, and not a book to cheer you up on a wet Wednesday, but an enthralling and unblinking view of the Hindu way of death.

Blind Spot, by Teju Cole (Faber & Faber, 2016)
I kept coming across Teju Cole's name, and when the penny dropped that as well as a well-regarded writer he is also a photographer, I decided to buy this fat hardback brick of a book, which is still available new at a bargain price if you shop around. You get 150 photos, many of which are superb, accompanied by little prose essays, not much longer than a typical blog post. I've enjoyed dipping into it over the year.

Gigantic Cinema: a weather anthology; edited by Alice Oswald and Paul Keegan (Cape, 2020)
If you're into landscape, you're probably also into weather. This is not a photobook, but an anthology of bits of poetry and prose about weather in all its manifestations. As you may know, Alice Oswald can do no wrong as far as I am concerned, and this incredibly diverse and well-chosen selection is a wonderful read. I'm not sure about the decision to present the pieces without attribution – they are numbered, and there is an index – which I found irritating (OK, Alice Oswald can almost do no wrong), although it is true that the absence of names can have an interesting effect, rather like reading an enormous cento, if you're in the right mood.

Island Zombie: Iceland Writings, by Roni Horn (Princeton University Press, 2020)
Also not a photobook, as such, although like the Teju Cole it combines photographs with essays, rather longer in this case. I have an unaccountable enthusiasm for Roni Horn – almost the definition of the sort of conceptual artist I tend to avoid – which dates back to an exhibition at Southampton University's John Hansard Gallery in 1996 that featured some of her atmospheric photographs, and where I bought a couple of volumes of her multi-volume magnum opus about Iceland, To Place. If only I'd known how much they'd come to be worth (those collectors again!) I'd have bought the lot. Her artistic relationship with Iceland (somewhere I'd love to visit some day) is explored in depth and with great honesty, erudition, and insight.

Cold Mountain Poems, by Han Shan; edited and translated by J.P. Seaton (Shambhala, 2009 and 2019)
If, like me, you have a liking for the poetry of Zen, you may well already have this, or some other version. Although I've had the book (in its original pocket hardback version) for a long time, I have found myself dipping into it quite often during these quasi-monastic days of the pandemic. Incredibly, these poems were written during the T'ang period (618-907), when we here on this island were mainly singing the praises of violent men or lamenting the vicissitudes of fixed fate. The very attractive hardback is now ridiculously overpriced, but it's still available in paperback.

When people meet Han Shan,
they all say he's crazy
face not worth a second look,
body wrapped in rags...
They haven't a clue when I start talking:
I wouldn't say what they say.
But I leave this message for those who
come looking for me:
"You could try to make it to Cold Mountain."



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