During her time as a student of Fine Art Printmaking at the Royal College of Art in London (graduating in 2007), Gemma Anderson developed a unique and intimate working relationship with the curators of scientific collections at the Natural History Museum, University College London and Kew Gardens. The extensive access she was granted to a Read More
Though not set out chronologically, some works hung on the wall and some lying in glass cabinets, this exhibition takes us on a gently meandering journey through Dundee University’s archives, showing us how the approach to landscape painting has changed over 200 years. The earliest work on show, William Sawrey Gilpin’s The Quay at Ipswich Read More
I have often asked myself and never found an answer Whence kindness and gentleness come, I don’t know it to this day, and now must go myself. (“People Met”) Before the carnage of Benn’s early poetry, Michael Hofmann offers an insightful, engaging, funny and enjoyable introduction into Gottfried Benn’s life and extraordinary career. He describes Read More
The son of a butcher and a jute weaver, John Duncan is one of Dundee’s most internationally renowned artists. He was born in the Hilltown area of Dundee in 1866 and this exhibition marks the 150th anniversary of his birth. A meeting with Patrick Geddes, Professor in botany at Dundee University College (1889-1891), became the Read More
The Serengeti Rules is a an excellent book on ecology written by a molecular biologist, S B Carroll, in which he links mechanisms of control found at the molecular level with the factors determining the relative numbers of plants and animals living together in ecosystems. The decisions of policy makers and funders over thirty years have Read More
A midnight court during which only men are invited to speak is where the reader of John O’Donoghue’s Fools & Mad finds herself at this epic poem’s finale. Yet these are no ordinary men, but a jury of twelve poets hand-picked by Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift from Ireland’s literary history. They have been gathered here Read More
Jessie Burton’s debut novel has certainly attracted a lot of attention. One look at the list of awards and recognition the book has received is enough to entice any curious reader. The Miniaturist is also in the process of being translated into thirty-two different languages, an impressive feat for an actress/executive assistant who wrote a Read More
If the reader seeks hearts and flowers in the sunnily-named Happiness, they are to be found, albeit pumping viscerally or severed in vases. Jack Underwood questions how we experience, understand, appreciate and attempt to capture that sometimes elusive state. In something of a Ying/Yang complement he explores whether happiness is possible without its shadow boxer. Read More
When reading poetry I have a habit of dog-earing the most affecting pages. Unfortunately for my edition of Rosie Shepperd’s The Man at the Corner Table, I’ve dog-eared damn near every page. Shepperd trained as an economist and has worked in finance throughout the UK and the US, all the while publishing poems in the Read More
On picking up Glaciation by Will Stone, my first thoughts were of death and religion in an Ice Age setting. This was prompted by the ice-covered sculpture of Christ on the front cover, and a quotation from Percy Bysshe Shelley seemed to confirm this assumption, “The glaciers creep like snakes that watch their prey, from Read More