Books by Jack Phillips Lowe

Last week we visited, very briefly, a few of the better books reviewed in the first few months of 2006. Today we complete 2006 with some suggestions to help you decide what to buy with the book token you found under the Christmas tree, beginning, perversely, at the end of the year with Karyn Anjali Mathura-Glubis’ Trinidad Transcending Time – a reproduction of the Cazabon Album of Trinidad, 1857.

This sizeable coffee table book differs from the one reproduced in 2002 by inserting colour photographs into the Cazabon lithograph of the self-same scene, with added comments on the scene itself plus an introduction with a brief history of Trinidad and biography of Cazabon himself.

2006 has been a bumper year for locally written and, in the main, locally produced coffee table books. Immediately preceding the publication of Trinidad Transcending Time a superb coffee table book on the life and work of Barbara (Barbie) Jardine, Barbara Jardine – Goldsmith was launched at Scrip–J printers. As well as pages of photographs of exotic jewelry made from exotic materials – and gold, silver and gemstones, there is a biography of the artist written by Judy Raymond.

Counting backwards still, a mere two weeks before the launch of Barbara Jardine – Goldsmith we were attending the launch of Emeritus Professor Dr Julian Kenny’s coffee table book Flowers of Trinidad and Tobago in the Atrium of Guardian Life Building in Westmoorings. I quote now from my review of that book “There is a wealth of information for those who would know more about the flowers that bloom in sun or in shade (or both), flowers that grow beside rivers and streams, flowers that grow on cliffs, on our savannahs and on the wetlands – and those that grow by the wayside.”

We skip a month or two from November to August and the launch of The Book of People by Kelvin Poon Affat. In this book you find (again sportsmen (McDonald Bailey, Brian Lara, Stephen Ames, Sir (sic) Learie Constantine, artists of assorted genres (Alf Codallo, “Daisy” Voisin, Sir Vidia Naipaul, Beryl McBurnie), politicians and activists (Basdeo Panday, Gene Miles, Mankanda Daaga, Albert Gomes). There are Carnival people and steelband people, kaisonians, educators, architects, lawyers, businessmen, religious leaders, villains (Boysie Singh, who else?) and, of course Dr Eric Williams . . . enough said?

I back-pedal a little to remind those who haven’t already bought Constance McTair’s witty, wicked, book The Bocas and the Bulldog that, despite the unlikely subtitle The Story of Sea Communication between Trinidad and Tobago it is an absorbing tragic-comedy of the relationship between Trinidad and Tobago in the past couple hundred years.

I turn now to books from “away” that I’ve enjoyed reading for you in 2006. In the Moon of Red Ponies by James Lee Burke is a rarity in the field of crime fiction being, by turns, both lyrical and brutal. An intriguing whodunit set in Montana . . . no, it’s impossible to give the thrilling flavour of this book. Take my word for it, if you like whodunits you won’t regret spending your book token on this one.

If you prefer romance, however, as I mentioned last week you’ll find romance with a difference in “Alphabet Weekends by Elizabeth Noble.

And on the serious side, if you’ve not yet read the 2005 Pulitzer prize winner Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel you’ve a lot of reading ahead of you to catch up with why Europeans conquered the Americas, rather than vice versa.

And there’s always Hugh Thomas’ hefty, yet surprisingly readable volume “The History of the Slave Trade”. And that’s about it for 2006.

Source : http://www.newsday.co.tt/features/0,49783.html

posted by Kris # 4:31 AM