Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Anglesey in Welsh, 14 Jul 2009
This book about the Welsh island of Anglesey could be reviewed as one of those that you pick up, flick through, and instantly want to own. That was my reaction to it, but unless you can actually look through the pages, such an assertion is not very helpful! The photographs, mostly in colour and mostly by those renowned landscape photographers, Jean Williams and Mick Sharp, are absolutely superb. The quality of light in some of them is so fresh it is like looking out of a window on a breezy spring morning when the air is clear and the sunlight is magical. Perhaps more importantly for most readers, the photographs capture the essence of the subject, whether that be a standing stone, a view or even the detail of a wall - if you don't think you can learn something by looking at a blank wall, or that it can make an interesting photograph, see page 37 of this book. It is not just the visual aspects that appeal, though. Much thought has gone into the construction of this book. It opens with a simple map showing all the places mentioned in the text. This is very useful for someone like me, who has never visited Anglesey - although now I want to go there, which is surely what the local tourist board and the local economy will want to hear and highlights the valuable contribution that such publications can make, with ripples extending ever outwards.
The text is by an archaeologist, Frances Lynch, who knows the area well, starting at chapter one with early prehistory and moving forward chronologically. Thankfully, it does not stop at the medieval period or the ever-fashionable Tudors, but carries on right up to the present day, covering the more modern industries and monuments, reminding us that history and archaeology began yesterday. At 128 pages plus six pages of index and further reading, the book might be described as short, but it is better described as succinct - not a word or a picture is superfluous and although the pictures are not cramped, no space is wasted.
And if you want to get inside the spirit of Anglesey, this is the book for you. I have to admit that I've not read this edition, because this is the Welsh-language one. But I thought it would be useful to repeat my review of the English-language edition here - and to warn readers to buy the correct version, because at the time of writing this review, Amazon has the title in English, not Welsh!
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