Category Archives: Books and Culture

Column: Help save history and Peter Pan

Posted on August 21, 2014 by David Brussat

Winchester, a city 68 miles southwest of London, was the seat of government in England until the 12th century, and the center of its trade in wool. The town figures as Kingsbridge in Ken Follett’s novel “The Pillars of the … Continue reading →

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Tennessee sky scrape

Posted on August 16, 2014 by David Brussat

Continuing with A History of the Future, here’s what happens to skyscrapers after nobody can afford to keep them juiced. The passage begins in Nashville, with the protagonist’s first view of the former Capital of Country Music. Every American city … Continue reading →

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Ben Deaver wakes up

Posted on August 15, 2014 by David Brussat

Here is a passage from the latest novel, A History of the Future, in Jim Kunstler’s World Made by Hand trilogy – he is working on making it into a quartet. The novels take place a few years after some … Continue reading →

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Eyesore of the month?

Posted on August 3, 2014 by David Brussat

The New York State Capitol is not Eyesore of the Month, but an illustration filling in for an eyesore in Jim Kunstler’s World Made By Hand, which I finished rereading last night. Here is a passage from that book. The … Continue reading →

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‘World Made By Hand’

Posted on July 31, 2014 by David Brussat

My column about Don Powers’ presentation at Boston’s Traditional Building Conference a couple of weeks ago, which comes amid a lengthy set of threads about real or fake building materials on the TradArch listserv, reminded Steve Mouzon (who also spoke) … Continue reading →

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World’s best sculpture

Posted on July 29, 2014 by David Brussat

No, the sculpture on display here is certainly not the best sculpture in the world, but it’s head and shoulders above most of what the artistic establishment considers the best – that is, twisted contortions of metal, symbols arrayed as … Continue reading →

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Mr. Wemmick’s castle

Posted on July 19, 2014 by David Brussat

Here’s a great passage from Great Expectations, where Pip is introduced to the household of his guardian’s clerk, Wemmick: Wemmick’s house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut … Continue reading →

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Hazlitt on painting

Posted on July 10, 2014 by David Brussat

Here is a passage from my favorite writer William Hazlitt’s essay “On the Pleasure of Painting,” written, I think, in the early 1820s. The famous British critic is known most for his essays on Shakespeare and other literature, but his … Continue reading →

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Eyed by Anne Boleyn

Posted on April 24, 2014 by David Brussat

Here is a passage from Bring Up the Bodies, the second, following Wolf Hall, of Hilary Mantel’s trilogy (the third is yet to be published) on Henry VIII’s romantic life. In this passage, seen from the perspective of protagonist Thomas … Continue reading →

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More from “Wolf Hall”

Posted on April 8, 2014 by David Brussat

  Here’s another passage from Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, the pageant of Anne Boleyn’s investiture as Henry VIII’s queen: And looking down on them, those other Londoners, those monsters who live in the air, the city’s uncounted population of stone … Continue reading →

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