Tower and Town, September 2019 (view the full edition)A Good ReadThree history books - or at least 'books about history' - this month, so I can only apologise if that's not your thing. Lara Maiklem with Mudlarking, and Gillian Tindall in The Pulse Glass both examine how we decode the past through objects. Maiklem has spent fifteen years fossicking about on the exposed mud of the tidal Thames, which she calls 'the longest archaeological site in England'. Moving west to east round the curves of the river she unearths an almost limitless range of objects - Roman gaming pieces, printer's type, buckles - and the shoes they once fastened - combs, beads, pins and needles. Hundreds of clay pipes, pieces of Elizabethan lace, toys and utensils are anaerobically preserved in the Thames mud, many of these items looking as though they were lost only yesterday. As P Larkin didn't actually say - what will survive of us is rubbish. Gillian Tindall also looks at small domestic items, the flotsam of history, preserved by chance or sentiment as witnesses of past lives. The Pulse Glass of the title is a thirty-second sandglass (like an egg-timer), used to measure heartbeats, which belonged to the author's great-great-grandfather. Like Lara Maiklem, Tindall uses this and other objects to recover narratives and recreate lives and locations, reflecting on the nature of memory, history and permanence. A thoughtful and discursive read. Thirdly a 'proper' history book (by which I mean looking at documentary records rather than randomly surviving domestic items). Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune: how younger sons made their way in Jane Austen's England by Rory Muir looks at - well, exactly that, how the young men who didn't stand to inherit money and position had to make their own fortunes (in order to become eligible to marry a Bennet sister?) I blame Colin Firth*. Ever since he emerged, sopping wet and smouldering from that lake, publishers have slapped 'Jane Austen' on book jackets, cheerfully confident that it will help sales. In this case it's justified, Miss Austen having had a large family of brothers and cousins whose lives can help illustrate the potential and merits of careers in the Army or Navy, the Church or the law, commerce, or India. *Not really. He can do no wrong. Finally, if you want a good novel please read A Modern Family by Helga Flatland. It's such a perceptive study of the love, the jokes, the resentments, and the seething exasperation between adult siblings. Debby Guest |