Military histories tend to be less-than-riveting for readers who are not war buffs – and who wants to join that club? – but novels based around non-fictional episodes of warfare can fill the gap created by our need to know more about significant moments of military history. Sean Sheehan […]
Culture
Pictures of everyday life
A woman passes a child from her arms to those of another woman; a man walks his pet; girls play on a swing; women wash themselves; in the countryside, fruit is gathered from a tree; two men wrestle for a sporting prize before a judge. Sean Sheehan The […]
Bosch
Of all the great paintings in Madrid’s Museo Nacional del Prado, the one that possibly attracts the most visitors is Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of earthly delights”. Sean Sheehan It is a large triptych – over 213 cm (seven feet) high and 365 cm (12 feet) wide – but […]
John Donne: staying awake
The title of a new biography of an English poet, “Super-infinite”, points to the multi-faceted life of a 16th-century poet whose life journey unfolded in such unexpected ways as to fully earn the book’s subtitle: “The transformations of John Donne”. Sean Sheehan The love poetry and erotic verse […]
Writing about war
“Warriors for the Working Day” is a gripping tale of tank warfare in France after the Normandy landings in 1944. Sean Sheehan Although fictional, the story is based on the experiences of the author, Peter Elstob, who fought for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War before […]