A Home for All Seasons

Product Information

Features about Gavin’s home and life in Pembridge have also appeared on Inigo, Sphere and in Herefordshire Living. The independent-minded quarterly magazine that combines good looks, good writing and a personal approach. The perfect Christmas present for anyone who has ever been curious about the house they live in and who might (or might not) have lived there before them. This being said, lovely read but a bit of a long winded one, It could have been two books - The history of the house and the live of the author in my opinion.

The Hogarth Press where I’m working, is in the heart of the literary world, with authors coming in all the time. I assumed (like other reviewers) that this would concentrate on the house and surrounding areas of Herefordshire where author Gavin Plumley lives. He has also been interviewed about the book by Michael Portillo on Times Radio and by Georgina Godwin for Monocle 24, as well as by the BBC local radio in Hereford and Worcester, Cornwall and Gloucestershire. J. Marsh, Judith O'Reilly, Kelly Clayton, Kim Nash, Leah Mercer, Liz Fenwick, Louise Jensen, Louise Mumford, Malcolm Hollingdrake, Marcia Woolf, Mark Stay, Marcie Steele, Natasha Bache, Nick Jackson, Nick Quantrill, Nicky Black, Patricia Gibney, Rachel Sargeant, Rob Parker, Rob Scragg, S. Mrs Woolf, wife of the manager, is a very celebrated author and, in her own way, more important than Galsworthy.It had some interesting details but I didn't enjoy Gavin reading it as there was no shading in his narration. Keen to fit in, yet sensitive to homophobia, Plumley and his husband soon came up against the harsh realities of life in a rural community. Gavin Plumley considered himself a distinctly urban being… until he met his rural husband, Alastair.

If your interest is the Herefordshire aspect of this one, I would say steer clear- it doesn't give anywhere near enough sadly. Grove Press An imprint of Grove Atlantic, an American independent publisher, who publish in the UK through Atlantic Books. Finding the date of construction takes Gavin down many rabbit holes through the seasons, and cycle of the year as well as the historical context of the home from the 1500s and beyond.Corvus Atlantic’s commercial fiction list which includes women’s, historical, romance, sci-fi, crime and thriller. I almost felt that I had somehow been tricked into reading it by a “false description” given by the publisher and even those who had reviewed and blurbed it. All this gleaned while he tried to establish the age of his Tudor-looking property, for which there was no definitive record.

Slightly Foxed introduces its readers to books that are no longer new and fashionable but have lasting appeal. Mixing history and art, memoir and landscape, A Home for All Seasons is grand in its sweep and intimate in its account of rural life. From a simple question about the age of a house, this book takes you on a much wider journey, encompassing art, literature, history and nature, as well as the inescapable fragility of life. It’s rare that non-fiction has the power to transport you so completely and catch you up in a world that you have never known, and that you never want to leave.For younger bookworms – and nostalgic older ones too – there’s the Slightly Foxed Cubs series, in which we’ve reissued a number of classic nature and historical novels.

As Gavin traced Stepps House through various hands and eras, he saw the picture of a past emerge that resonates powerfully with our present. You can unsubscribe from our list at any point by changing your preferences, or contacting us directly. I listened to the audible audio edition but it isn't on Goodreads yet and I can't find the asin number to add it. What starts out as a straightforward house history morphs into something else, a wide-ranging meditation on place and past, taking in climate change, rural depopulation, the Reformation and folklore .With ancient beams crossing the ceiling, the date they’d been given of 1800 seemed out by centuries. The result of his labours is a fascinating comparison of the 16th and 21st centuries, not the least of which is the plague and its more modern equivalent. What starts out as a straightforward house history morphs into something else, a wide-ranging meditation on place and past, taking in climate change, rural depopulation, the Reformation and folklore. Working with several interlocking cycles chiefly the seasons in art, farming and Elizabethan England, this book is also an extended meditation on the big issues of today and their effects on village life. Engrossingly fusing domestic history, memoir and art, Gavin Plumley’s A Home for All Seasons tells the fascinating story of a couple’s journey of discovering the full past of their ancient Herefordshire house.