What are you currently reading?

[hughtrimble]

Take a lot of his statements with a pinch of salt though, not the most accurate on the subject of rural life and crafts! He was an endearing fellow though.

Could you expand on this a little more? Was he more of a presenter and given incorrect information by others to present as his own?

 

[haptalaon]

I’ve just finished reading “The Old Country”, by Jack Hargreaves. It is the sequel to his book “Out of Town”, which I have yet to read (oops).

The book is an interesting read for anyone curious about the countryside and it’s recent history, especially when considered alongside his television programmes of the same names. Incidentally I have been following those series on the TalkingPictures TV Freeview channel.

The book is an inside take on the changes that happened to the countryside in the author’s lifetime, which was a few years back now, and finishes up discussing what will happen (now, has happened) to the people and land in the near future. His expectations have more or less played out unfortunately….

I’ve asked for the other book for my birthday and will look forward to reading it then.

Talking Pictures TV is so wonderful. I discovered it while having the worst week of my life and it's just so dreamy to have a full day of films you've never heard of, but all of them interesting. Read an interview with the people who run it, it's a real passion project, they do it out of their garden shed. It's so hard to access any kind of archival film and television if you live outside of London (where you can visit the BFI), especially now Network Television Dvd company has shut down

(Mr Network television died and presumably it hadn't been making enough profit. But it's a tragedy, an absolute tragedy, for those of us who enjoy or study old telly)

Anyway, I'm reading Underlsnd by Robert MacFarlane. I didn't get into Wild Places, but the writing in Underlsnd is great and the places he visits are all cthohic and terrifying

 

[Glow_worm]

Could you expand on this a little more? Was he more of a presenter and given incorrect information by others to present as his own?

A bit of both. A lot of what was written about traditional crafts during the late 1960s-70s revival was borderline at best, and plagiarised and regurgitated in books almost to the extent now seen with online blogs. A lot of it was just plain wrong- hearsay, poorly memories, craftsmen deliberately misleading authors for a laugh, and extremes being recorded as the everyday.

Hargreaves also came out with a lot of sweeping statements and presented a lot of opinions as facts- he was publically criticised for this at the time by historians. A lot of what he did was also staged, I've spoken to the man who did the hard work behind his fishing 'achievements'!

 

[Kirsty]

I was reading this:

Kayaking the Great Circle Trilogy: Down the Mississippi River, Around the Intercoastal Waterways and Across the Great Lakes
Randy Bauer, James J. Bauer

Thanks to this thread have more reading material ordered!

 

[hughtrimble]

A bit of both. A lot of what was written about traditional crafts during the late 1960s-70s revival was borderline at best, and plagiarised and regurgitated in books almost to the extent now seen with online blogs. A lot of it was just plain wrong- hearsay, poorly memories, craftsmen deliberately misleading authors for a laugh, and extremes being recorded as the everyday.

Hargreaves also came out with a lot of sweeping statements and presented a lot of opinions as facts- he was publically criticised for this at the time by historians. A lot of what he did was also staged, I've spoken to the man who did the hard work behind his fishing 'achievements'!

Thank you

 

[bobnewboy]

Talking Pictures TV is so wonderful. I discovered it while having the worst week of my life and it's just so dreamy to have a full day of films you've never heard of, but all of them interesting. Read an interview with the people who run it, it's a real passion project, they do it out of their garden shed. It's so hard to access any kind of archival film and television if you live outside of London (where you can visit the BFI), especially now Network Television Dvd company has shut down
…

NB: not particularly bushcrafty, but…

Yep. I’m retired and find that a lot of what TPTV broadcasts is absolutely classic. Well worth recording on our digibox and then watching at our leisure. Doubly so when the programmes on the more established channels appear to be in some kind of death spiral of quality, content, and repetition.

 

[Kepis]

 

[HillBill]

I'm currently reading Sharpes Command (again), by Bernard Cornwell. Thought it was the latest one but apparently there's another out, and one more due in Oct. This makes me a happy man.

 

[Pattree]

@Kepis
How are you getting on with that. I enjoyed it. Very much easier to read than Hutton!!

I do sometimes wonder whether our ancestors were aware of the thinking that we attribute to them. I find that reading a number of references to the same mythology gives me a satisfactory conjecture (if not a correct one )