MEET THE ALDEBURGH BOOKSHOP TEAM
This week we introduce Lily Leaver. Lily has just finished her first year at the Edinburgh College of Art, where she is studying Fine Art. You may have noticed that our recent window displays have been particularly good--all thanks to Lily. She's been with us for quite a few weeks and will be off travelling mid-August, but we are very much hoping that she will be back often in the university holidays.
Lily's reading choices are below.
Plays
Tom Stoppard
Arcadia
Faber & Faber
Paperback, £9.99
Set in a single room of a fictitious English country estate, Stoppard investigates a series of dichotomies; Romanticism versus Neo-Classicism, order versus chaos, past versus present, within subjects such as academia, nature, history and relationships. With these themes interwoven throughout a suspenseful plot and littered with compelling characters, this play lends itself to being read as a work of fiction, allowing one to sit with Stoppard’s weighty philosophical hypotheses and pick up on clues meticulously dispersed throughout the text. Flitting between two time periods, historians in the present day investigate the lives of the Regency-era inhabitants of Sidley Park over two hundred years prior, making for a tantalizing read full of dramatic irony and red herrings.
Poetry
Frank O’Hara
Selected Poems
Carcanet Press
Paperback £12.95
O’Hara shares his insightful and meandering contemplations on themes such as his New York coterie of artists and writers in the mid-twentieth century, the Cold War, and his most intimate relationships. Predominantly written during his lunch breaks whilst working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, O’Hara is frequently described as the modern-day flâneur, chronicling niche observations of his surroundings with plentiful imagery, providing a stirring insight into the bohemian lives of the New York School. Much like the work of his friends and contemporaries, such as Pollock and de Kooning, O’Hara’s poetry is oftentimes radical, experimental and immensely thought-provoking, particularly Why I am Not a Painter and The Day Lady Died.
Non-Fiction
John Berger
Ways of Seeing
Penguin
Paperback £9.99
This commonly revered collection of seven short essays had a profound impact on me as an artist, as Berger encourages his readership to question their stance as a viewer, the biases of artists and the impact of photography and advertisement on art. Particularly, Berger provokes one to consider the male gaze throughout the history of western art, from the European tradition of the reclining female nude in oil, to the perpetual objectification of women within contemporary media, (moving me to read the compelling works of critics such as Linda Nochlin, Rosemary Betterton and more recently, Katy Hessel). This series of essays promotes the consideration of the many aspects of the conception and perception of a work of art, succinctly covering a multitude of critical art theories.
Short Stories
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Flappers and Philosophers
Penguin
Hardback £14.99
Fitzgerald illustrates his criticisms and observations of early 20th century America, addressing themes of youth, wealth, beauty and idealism within a series of 45 short stories. Unlike his five novels, these short stories often involve a subtle element of Magical Realism, such as his most eminent novella and predecessor to The Great Gatsby, Diamond as Big as the Ritz. Fitzgerald’s characters vary with each story, yet so many of them display such vitality and provide a fascinating insight into the Jazz Age.
Memoir
Dolly Alderton
Everything I Know About Love
Penguin
Paperback £12.99
Alderton’s candid memoir evokes a sense of solidarity and comfort for those who read it. Interwoven with hysterical anecdotes, Alderton reflects on her relationships, antics and experiences throughout her 20s. Her wry, self-deprecating sense of humour is paired with devastating revelations, remedied with refreshing introspection. In terms of the wisdom imparts her stance is clear, stating that; ‘Nearly everything I know about love, I've learnt in my long-term friendships with women’. This book has been passed around all of my friends, sending photos of silly or resonant extracts to each other along the way.
Up Next
Robert Macfarlane and Stanley Donwood
Ness
Penguin
Paperback £9.99
Having recently moved to Suffolk, I felt compelled to browse our tremendous selection of ‘local’ books. Here, I discovered this modern fable and was enticed by Donwood’s illustrations, having greatly admired his work for some time.