Two notable series of photographs by Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen capture working-class life in the north-east of England in the last quarter of the twentieth century: “Byker” (1969-83), named after a Newcastle neighbourhood, and “Writing in  the Sand” (1978-98) about taking time out on the local coast.   Sean Sheehan   She […]

The presence of classics in working-class culture, challenging its more usual role in the education of the ruling class, is inspiringly documented in “A people’s history of Classics” (2020), by Edith Hall and Henry Stead.   Sean Sheehan   It had been evoked earlier, in the opening scene of Brian […]

The creation of a West and East Germany did not come about by design. Stalin wanted a buffer between the USSR and the West, not a separate, self-governing German state, and he looked to German communists who had fled to Russia during the 1930s and survived his purges.   Sean […]

At an obvious level, the distinction between fact and fiction is clear:  a story can be about factual truths or imaginative ones.      Sean Sheehan   Robert Lewis Stevenson’s “Treasure island” is a fictional story so there is no point in trying to get rich by searching through the […]

These two Dorling Kindersley books use a mixture of stunning photography, ancient lore, basic biology and practical knowledge to bring to life the importance and fascination of some of the planet’s plant life.    Sean Sheehan   The photographs do their job of draw  ing the reader in while the […]