Benn Books

ITALIA: THE ART OF LIVING ITALIAN STYLE is a title that may be misleading. This is not a 'decorator's source book' (though it certainly is an indispensable resource of information for any designer of interiors or exteriors!): this is a book rich in the Italian ambience that marries a respect of history in all forms while providing some of the finest photographs of a wide vista of Italian towns and gardens and homes. It is unique in its approach and a most rewarding read as well as a picture tour through Italy.

Edmund Howard utilizes the gifts of photographer Oliver Benn in partnering this leisurely journey through all parts of Italy.The writing and the visuals are equal in quality and when paired as they are here they are inimitable. Howard divides the book into chapters: 'Towns and Landscapes' surveys the various regions from the north (Venice) through Tuscany to the south with Rome and Sicily; 'Architecture' details the forms or buildings as they have developed through centuries; 'Interiors' span the humble with the grand; 'Gardens' are explored in all varieties. Then Howard and Benn swoop down on a chapter titled 'Details': here Doors and Windows, Frescoes, Fountains, Colors, Stonework, and Mosaics are scrutinized with word and image, a point where the reader gains more information about the Italian style than in any other source.

Realizing that the book will seduce many to visit the land of all this beauty, the book closes with a 'Visitor's Guide' which succinctly outlines the most interesting places to see in all of the Italian and Sicilian towns, villages and cities surveyed in this book. This is a photographic feast and a completely entertaining and readable as well as informative book. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, January 06

A few copies of 'Kayos' have swapped hands a few times across the USA and have gained good responses. Whether or not you've yet managed to read that book, Kevin's new novel - 'Ankhst' - is currently available through this site. It's a different genre - mainstream fiction rather than humor - but is probably an even better read and almost-certainly has wider appeal.

Guidebook that covers what to visit...like national parks and historical sites, museums, markets, mountains, lakes and Coast. What to watch for...wildlife and tribal customs. How to travel..by plane, car or Land-Rover, precise mileage for all highways and byways. Where to stay...details and prices...with opinions...of hotels, lodges and camps. What best to eat and where. What to buy...souvenirs and handicrafts and what to pay. How to say it: English-Swahili glossary.

I loved this book passionately as a child and just re-bought it as an adult so my own children can enjoy it. Cowritten by Yehudi Menuhin (that's Baron Menuhin to you, buddy), it's the story of a hapless, happy king who has too many accountants and not enough money. His crown jewels are always falling out and rolling under the throne, the palace ceiling leaks, and every time he counts his accountants, the number changes--and gets higher! The Chief Accountant determines he must save the kingdom by firing the King's beloved fiddlers, which is a tragedy in a kingdom where music is happiness and happiness is music. But the fiddlers' salary, put back into the palace, fixes everything except the happiness of the kingdom.

Enter the cat (distantly related, we are told, to the famed cat fiddler who got the cow to jump over the moon). He advises the King that it is his highness himself who must bring back music to the kingdom. Joachim, the cat in question, teaches the King how to play the violin, and once the King is performance-ready, he becomes a wandering troubadour of sorts, traveling far and wide across his lands to bring music back to the people. The music is contagious, and every subject is asked to learn an instrument, and before you know it, the fleet of accountants, in their waistcoats and tails, are transformed into a full, brilliant symphony orchestra, and music is restored to the palace at last! The story is full of the kingdom's silly-wise sayings about music, and the story's language and these sayings give the whole book a romantic feel, reminiscent of fairy tales and fables and fitting into the pantheon of children's literature perfectly.

The last three pages of the book feature line drawings of Baron Menuhin demonstrating the exercises for fiddlers that Joachim taught the King. (This may be the didactic inspiration for the book, but the story itself glosses over this element, and it stands alone as a charming romance.)

Angela Barrett's illustrations are brilliant. This was only her first or second published project, and she did a bangup job. The King, The Cat and The Fiddle is one of those illustrated books that are simply dense, which children love! Everywhere you look in the pictures, musical notes and keys are hidden in the palace's design, and you can also see thoughtful evidence of the palace's disrepair. Beautiful and captivating.

Highly recommended, and should be back in print for the children of today!

I discovered 'Little Quack' at a school library and fell in love with it. Even though it is about 9 reading levels below me, the illustrations are absolutely adorable. Maybe I'm just nuts, but I think the adventures of Jacky, Blacky, and Little Quack are simply darling.

An ingenious book that even adults love to play with! When my daughter was young and we'd read together, I puzzled over the amazing construction of these moveable parts, illustrations, and pages more than she did.

The background described on the back cover is worth knowing:
"Tom" Seidmann-Freud was actually a very extraordinary woman! Martha Seidmann-Freud was the artist niece of Sigmund Freud and like her famous uncle, held her own, very decided views. Over half a century ago, she designed a moveable book that woudl "delight and surprise," full of games, stories and ingenious ways for the reader to take part. Reproduced now as "The Magic Boat," it still has "Tom" on the cover as she wished--because she liked the idea of using a man's name.

Rosemary Wells has done it again! Max's New Suit playfully explores a simple concept that is familiar to toddlers and their grown ups. Combining a simple text with her extremely expressive illustrations, Ms Wells tells the story of brother and sister team, Max and Ruby. In this amusing tale, Max must get dressed in his new suit (which he hates!) to attend Ruby's tea party. Despite Ruby's help, the precocious Max wants to do it himself and this is where the story takes a delightful twist.My 6-month old Max loves the Max books and recognizes the Max and Ruby characters. The illustrations and text are clear and colorful while complimenting each other. This book holds his attention during our frequent readings and, I believe, helps to foster his sense of humor and fun. Max's New Suit will keep both child and reader entertained for reading after reading! It is an essential book for every baby's library (or, as Ms Wells might say, every Bunny's library).

"Modern Zanzibar Cuisine" is not only a lot of tasty and thrilling recipes. The anecdotes that accompany many of the recipes take one on a historical and geographical tour along the Swahili coast where I, in my younger years, spent so many happy days.
Torbj. Sundblom

Commenting yesterday evening on the current infighting within the governing Labour party, a famous British tycoon said that whether in a business organisation or in a government if the team are not all on-side you're sunk. The latest volume (2001-7) of Tony Benn's diaries brings us the latest thoughts of the most celebrated serial dissident in British politics. Throughout his long career as successively the Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood Benn then Viscount Stansgate and latterly plain Tony Benn, the author has been a cabinet minister, almost deputy leader of the Labour party, and longest-serving member of the House of Commons. He is now well over 80, widowed and retired from Parliament, no longer in robust health but still phenomenally active with speeches, broadcasts, interviews and journalism, and of course as articulate and nonconformist as ever.

Benn is not an intellectual of the stamp of Richard Crossman, whose background and career were similar and whose diaries were in their time as famous. By political instinct he is a man of the people, by temperament a perfect gentleman. He is almost a kind of English Chou En-lai, but less cerebral and with a passionate commitment to the politics of consent. The strongest thread running through this volume is his detestation of the politics of Tony Blair, which he represents as manipulative, messianic, egotistical and deeply undemocratic. On every page this diary prompts, but does not resolve, the question `How is representative democracy compatible with any kind of effective action?' He laments the slowness of the earnest left-wing talking shops, he knows what Labour committees can be like, specifically the one immediately after 9/11 which he had difficulty in getting to discuss that pivotal event because it was concerned as usual with leaflet distribution, but when it comes to what he perceives as Blair's answer, namely just ignore everyone else and `do what you think is right', every instinct in his makeup revolts.

That Blair achieved the electoral success he did largely through contempt for the processes of the party he led I don't doubt, and I wish Benn had addressed this matter with the candour he shows elsewhere. He is pretty dismissive himself of rigmarole and flummery, and I have to quote one jewel of his typical style, following the death of John-PaulII

`The election announcement has been delayed, the royal wedding has been delayed, because the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prime Minister want to go to Rome and therefore couldn't be there for the wedding. The whole thing is a complete farce really.'

As well as the manner in which Blair drove through his policies, Benn is of course in complete opposition to the policies themselves. `Modernising the poor out of existence just won't work' is memorable and, one suspects, true, as the inherent nature and particularly the ongoing cost of the `reforms' become evident. Again I wish Benn had addressed the public perception that the kind of socialism he represents is cumbrous, but he is more concerned with attacking what `New' Labour has put in its place, which it is hard to view as any model of efficiency either, though of course some are still trying to. He opposes the war in Iraq as you might expect, but also the campaigns in Afghanistan and in the former Yugoslavia, and he charts his own descent into disillusion with Israel, of which he had once been a fervent supporter.

Benn will talk to anyone, and his interview with Saddam is given in extenso here. He is on friendly terms with Conservative opponents, and his patrician courtesy and impeccable good manners have even made him good buddies with Dr Paisley, despite his open support for Sinn Fein and a united Ireland. What complete oafs he makes some of our leaders seem, and while on the topic of Mr Bush I recall another delicious remark regarding the President's supposed fondness for giving people nicknames `I wonder what nickname he gave Tony Blair.'

More than in previous diaries, we meet the family man here, now elderly, living alone and bereaved of his beloved American wife Caroline de Camp Benn. There are numerous accounts of how he was reduced to tears, and I have no difficulty with this image of him despite the composure that he so rarely loses in public. There are several photographs of the clan, and also numerous accounts of his interactions with his children and grandchildren. One particularly interesting facet of the diaries is of course that one member of the cabinet appointed by his abhorred Blair is none other than his own able and adored son Hilary, currently Secretary of State for International Development and uncannily reminiscent of his father in face, voice and gesture. We hear a bit of their conversations, but not as much as I would have liked to hear. You could not make Tony Benn stay on-side for any government or Labour party establishment if he did not happen to agree, but this is something different.

In a touching postscript he leaves open, as he obviously must, the question whether he will ever publish another volume of diaries. I am still left unclear and tantalised as to how his precise way of operating would make modern governing possible, or how he would, in the top job, cope with any such figure as himself in his cabinet. However the warnings he sounds about the decline of democratic process are loud valid and clear. It is not just the fault of Blair, or of New Labour, or of politicians in my own opinion. It is a matter of our own inertia and complaisance as citizens and electors. Benn rightly castigates the House of Commons for dereliction of its duty to keep a rein on the executive, and from America I don't hear many voices from either side of the political divide averring that the Congress is doing much better in that regard. Tony Benn you do a great job and don't kill yourself doing it.

Mr. Benn, a bank clerk on his way to a fancy dress party, discovers a dazzling red suit of armor in a shop window. So Mr. Benn goes into the "TRYING ROOM" in the shop, to try on the armor. He finds himself whisked away into a world involving a dragon, white horse, and castle. Of course, Mr. Benn himself is the red knight. And he soon finds himself on a quest-like endeavor.
"Mr. Benn - Red Knight", written and illustrated by David McKee, is truly an enjoyable book. It was first published in the U.S. in 1968, and is still in print today, and for good reason. The story combines an adventurous plot with a wonderful character and charming narration.
This little storybook is suitable for any person, young and old. So read Mr. Benn and make your life (at least for ten minutes) a little less ordinary.