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Content by Peter Fenelon
Reviewer Rank: 51
Helpful Votes:
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Reviews Written by
Peter Fenelon
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Climbers: A Novel
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by M. John Harrison
Edition: Paperback |
| Price: £4.89 |
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| Availability: In stock |
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Of gritstone and grey days...., 24 April 2006
Mike is a failure in his "real" life; fleeing a loveless marriage he returns to his ancestral North and falls in again with a clique of gritstone climbers; the novel essentially follows a series of tangled, fragmented lives through a year of climbing, contrasting the precision and determination required to master increasingly challenging problems on rock with disorganised, aimless lives. This is a book written by a climber; Harrison has been active in the sport for many years. The descriptions of climbing are powerful and seem authentic; the tales of Northern life just as affecting and powerful.
Harrison is more known for his fantasy and science fiction; this book brings the same cool detachment and eye for detail to a more mundane milieu and works just as well as his more fantastic work. A compelling and powerful novel.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
Definitive history of a true classic, 18 April 2006
A fine history of the Deltic in service. Although there's some history of the birth and development of the locos, the 'meat' of the book is a year-by-year analysis of how the the Deltics performed in service - Watson looks at how they came to make the East Coast Main Line their stamping ground, and examines some of the more unusual workings that the class were responsible for. The career of each loco is covered in detail from entry into service to withdrawal and preservation - or the cutter. The book is well-illustrated and is particularly informative and interesting when discussing the first and last few years of Deltic service.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Handsome guide with plenty of useful info, 18 April 2006
Although the translation is a bit perfunctory, this is a very handsomely produced guidebook to this fascinating city, with excellent sections on all the main districts and attractions and plenty of background information - it goes into a lot more historical depth than the typical guidebook and is particularly well-illustrated with photos and 3d maps.
The focus of the book is rather more on the basic history and geography of the city and its cultural/historic attractions than on shopping, eating and nightlife - such things tend to change too quickly for guidebooks to track well - but it certainly was a very good companion to and overview of Mexico City. We found it useful, informative, reliable and good value - pretty much all you can ask for in a guidebook.
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Speed Addicts
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by Mark Hughes
Edition: Hardcover |
| Price: £22.64 |
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| Availability: In stock |
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Handsome illustrated history of F1 by respected journalist, 18 April 2006
Mark Hughes is one of the more literate and enlightened journalists covering contemporary F1 and in this book he casts his eye over the history of the sport from the inception of the World Championship in 1950. The focus is on the men at the top and the background and atmosphere of the sport, the narrative and photographic captions giving a lot of insight into the history. Hughes writes with his usual wit and economy, telling the tale in broad brushstrokes that won't disappoint both F1 experts and the more general reader.
The book is primarily photographic though, drawing heavily on the Sutton Images catalogue - it's not quite up with Schlegelmilch's illustrated books but the selection and repro is of a very high standard.
One of the better one-volume F1 books, with enough mordant wit in the narrative to keep me coming back for more than just the pictures.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Sumptuous photographic history of sports car racing, 18 April 2006
Janos Wimpffen is already famous in the sports-car racing community for his monumental history of the sport Time and Two Seats. "Open Roads and Front Engines" starts a parallel series to his previous work; whereas Time and Two Seats is primarly a written and statistical history, Open Roads & Front Engines is a glorious photographic celebration of sports car racing - this volume covers the birth of the world championship to the twilight of the classic front-engined sports racer.
The pictures are evocative, beautifully reproduced, and large; the selection covers the obvious heroes in Astons, Ferraris, Maseratis and Mercedes as well as smaller cars, amateurs, locals, no-hopers, and assorted exotica. They're accompanied by informative extended captions, and cover racing, qualifying, pit and paddock shots, "off duty" moments, and all the atmosphere of international racing in a bygone age.
If you love sports cars, fifties racing, or good photography, this is an absolute must.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Full of charm, insight and wit., 18 April 2006
Jack Cardiff is one of the true craftsmen of cinematography, a pioneer particularly of Technicolor. His memoirs cover his childhood (born into a music hall family), his early days working in silent cinema and his long career as director and cinematographer in warm, affectionate detail, with plenty of anecdotes about the actors and directors he's worked with, a lot of material about travelling the world, and much insight into the art and craft of making movies look beautiful.
Cardiff writes with elegance, charm, and true insight about the people, the art and the politics of the movies. This is a splendidly readable and thought-provoking autobiography by a true artist.
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Morgan at Le Mans
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by David Dowse
Edition: Paperback |
| Price: £15.29 |
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| Availability: In stock |
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
In-depth account of an unlikely Le Mans campaign, 16 Jan 2006
David Dowse was Morgan's PR consultant, and became involved with the Aero 8's first attempt at Le Mans in 2002, over 40 years after the marque last competed there. He and the Morgan board decided that the right way to go was to set up a works team and Dowse volunteered to manage it. Most of the book tells the tale of the Morgan works team from idea to the finishing line at Le Mans in 2004.
It's a tale of long hours, stretched budgets, muckups, triumphs, recalcitrant machinery and above all of passion for the sport and of teamwork.
Dowse put a lot of his own time and money into the team, and his account is highly personal. There are passages that make uncomfortable reading - his relationship with one of the team's principal backers became highly strained and the anger Dowse felt over this is very clear in his book.
As an unvarnished account of what it takes just to get onto the grid in modern sports car racing this is a fascinating book. Definitely of interest to Morgan fans, sports car or Le Mans enthusiasts, and indeed anyone interested in a story of strong characters working against tough deadlines.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Huge and eccentric, 11 Aug 2005
This is a heavily-illustrated and thoroughly researched compendium of virtually every kind of real, hypothetical, and fictional spacecraft ever created - in terms of sheer breadth it's astonishing, particularly when it comes to unbuilt spacecraft of the 50s-70s. There are two five star books in here trying to get out - a complete history of real and proposed spacecraft and a history of the spaceship in fiction, they both crowd each other a little in this huge volume, but the contrasts and counterpoints do make for interesting reading. It's big, it's expensive, but if you've got a serious interest in spaceflight or in science fiction's depiction of spaceflight this book is unique and valuable.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
Dark, witty, expansive fantasy debut, 28 Jun 2005
At first glance, there's little to separate this debut novel from a score of other fantasies - an island is being threatened by strange insects, and only a mysterious emperor and his circle of immortals provide any hope of salvation. You've read the same kind of thing dozens of times before, and I admit that it deterred me from buying this book - but it had very strong word-of-mouth recommendation...In fact, if anything, this is reminiscent of the steampunk noir of China Mieville. It's much more a novel of character, intrigue and politics than most fantasy. The basic setup places four kingdoms on a moderately-sized island, all four nominally governed by an immortal emperor (and no, we don't know how he got there) who coordinates the fight against the mysterious insects, and his Circle of immortal heroes. The war is starting to go badly - the Insects are on the advance and are gradually turning more and more areas into hive-like Paperlands. And immortality is a gift - and one that can be taken away. The Immortals are the best people in the Empire at any particular trade or craft or skill that can help repel the Insects - so there's a master archer, sailor, warrior, etc. Nobody's place is secure - anyone can be formally challenged at any time.... you're only immortal until someone better comes along! We see this novel through the viewpoint of Jant Shira, a halfbreed who is the only person left with the ability to fly. Jant is an outcast, a street kid elevated to immortality in his early 20s who spent his early years involved in drug smuggling, and whose habit still grips hard now he's immortal. Jant is the Emperor's messenger; trusted, known to all, and trying to keep the war against the Insects going in the face of conflict between various mortal lords and kings. Jant's task is complicated by his addiction, and by the first signs of cracks appearing in the Circle.... This is a densely-plotted, richly-characterised novel, told with wit and relish, a lot of surprises, a well-imagined world, and a much more sophisticated view of power politics and intrigue than most fantasy. A great read, and a very fine debut
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Long and fascinting insider history of the British press, 12 May 2005
Roy Greenslade - journalist and academic - has produced what must be the definitive history of the British press over the last sixty years. His approach is quite simple; he divides the half-century up into five year chunks and in one chapter he covers the business and human issues - who was buying/sacking/occasionally bedding whom, who was working where, how the relationships between proprietors, editors and journalists worked; in the next he'll cover the news agenda and political background to it. There are several key themes in the book: - the reduction in diversity, as the number of papers diminished
- the increasing political control exerted over papers by their owners
- the decline in quality (and rise in circulation) of the bottom-end tabloids
- the increase in readership of the 'quality' press
- the battles in the marketplace between papers competing for the same market sector
- the legal and regulatory framework surrounding the press.
- the "odd characters" that jourmalism throws up. There is a lot to read here - it's a dense and often closely-argued book, with a lot of first-hand insight and anecdotes from journalists Greenslade has worked with during his long career. Keeping track of who worked where and when is important (particualarly when you remember there's three Cudlipp brothers!) but Greenslade is equal to the task of telling the story in a straightforward fashion. An excellent recent history of the British newspaper for the general reader.
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