Posts Tagged ‘Liberty’s Fire’
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World Book Week writing competition results. . . and other news
4June 6, 2017 by Lydia Syson
Authors aren’t just for World Book Day, and the positive effects of an author visiting a school continue to have an impact long after books and banners have been packed up. (Here I am at Sidcot School, Somerset, where bookseller Books on the Hill kindly looked after sales and signing.) Not that the author always sees this. Happily, some of the schools I visited in March this year have sent me a selection of the writing their students produced in response to our sessions. I promised to send a hardback copy of the US edition of That Burning Summer to the author of the story I liked best. Little did I realise how hard it would be to choose.
Category News | Tags: author visits, books to introduce children to politics, historical fiction, Island of Last Hope, Liberty's Fire, Rainham Mark Grammar School, Sidcot School, That Burning Summer, The Mount School, winner, World Book Day, World Book Week, writing competition, YA for Sarah Waters fans
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The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia: book review
0May 8, 2016 by Lydia Syson
Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with Louise Michel, teacher, poet and revolutionary heroine of the 1871 Paris Commune, but she’s not exactly a well-known figure in the English-speaking world. Yet. If The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia, the new graphic biography by Mary M. Talbot and Bryan Talbot, has anything like the success of their remarkable first collaboration, Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes – and it certainly deserves to – that could be about to change.Michel is hardly obscure. In fact she’s legendary. She’s iconic. In France (and indeed New Caledonia) there have been schools and streets and squares named after her, not to mention two International Brigade battalions and a Metro station. She romanticised her own life in her keep reading
Category News | Tags: Bryan Talbot, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, Graphic novel, Liberty's Fire, Louise Michel, Mary M Talbot, Paris Commune, The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia, Utopia
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February News: National Libraries Day and Ebook Special Offers
0February 3, 2016 by Lydia Syson
If you value your local library, this Saturday is the day to show your appreciation. Find out what’s going on near you here. Southwark residents like me have lots to celebrate, as our council has not only worked hard through the cuts to keep libraries open, but in Camberwell we’ve even got a brand new one, open seven days a week, and it’s glorious. It’s hard to imagine a greater contrast to the dank, windowless basement that used to be Camberwell’s children’s library. Things are very different just over the border in Lambeth, where half the keep reading
Category News | Tags: A WORLD BETWEEN US, Camberwell Library, CWISL, Durning Library, ebook offer, ebook promo, ePub, iBook, Kobo, Lambeth Libraries, Liberty's Fire, National Libraries Day, Nook, Romantic reads, Sainsbury's ebooks, Valentine's Day reads
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Happy ‘Nu’ Year
4January 6, 2016 by Lydia Syson
My New Year’s resolution should possibly be to work out how to exert better control over my headline images on WordPress…In fact, instead of website improvement, I’ve been preoccupied with 1950s home improvement at The History Girls this month, where I wonder if that whole decade wasn’t one big cover-up. The post – The Mastery of Knack – was inspired by a Christmas present, a copy of The Practical Householder of October 1956. keep reading
Category News | Tags: A WORLD BETWEEN US, Cold War, DIY, Liberty's Fire, Luc Sante, Practical Householder, Sky Pony Press, Spanish Civil War, Steven Pinker, Style, That Burning Summer, The Other Paris, The Sense of Style
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Gingerbread Pigs
0December 13, 2015 by Lydia Syson
My kitchen is heady with the scent of cloves and ginger and muscavado and cinnamon. The biscuity part of our gingerbread house is ready to be stuck together with icing, and adorned with sweets. We will eat it on New Year’s eve. Having managed to burn a few trayfuls during supper last night, we’ve still got more hearts and stars and snowflakes for presents and tree-hanging and emergency fuel to cut out and bake, and also, this year, pigs. keep reading
Category News | Tags: Armadillo, best gingerbread recipe, Christmas gingerbread, Gingerbread fair, Gingerbread recipe, Liberty's Fire, old-fashioned gingerbread, Paris Commune, Paris en Images, Place du Trône, Prue Leith, Roger-Viollet archive, The History Girls
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‘Resist the attempt to construct an argument’
2October 19, 2015 by Lydia Syson
This slogan flashed by while I sat enthralled by William Kentridge’s video installation Notes Towards a Model Opera at the Marian Goodman Gallery in Soho, London. It made me smile because I now spend two days a week as a Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at the Courtauld Institute for the History of Art encouraging students to construct an argument. Yet when I’m writing fiction, arguments are something I know I have to resist, despite my political themes. keep reading
Category News | Tags: Art, Carnegie, Cultural Revolution, Dada Masilo, Liberty's Fire, librarians, Marian Goodman, More Sweetly Play the Dance, Notes Towards a Model Opera, opera, Paris Commune, Revolution, William Kentridge
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In which I go ‘Down The Rabbit Hole’…
0October 2, 2015 by Lydia Syson
…with fellow History Girl, Catherine Johnson. A little over a year ago, the world of children’s literature cheered the launch of a brand new radio programme, DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE, broadcast from the creative and groundbreaking station Resonance FM. Once a month, a thoroughly expert team – Katherine Woodfine of Booktrust, Louise Lamont of LBA and Melissa Cox of Waterstones – put together a book-packed 30 minute show which has proved itself an unmissable and wide-ranging guide to everything that’s new in children’s books. I know I’m addicted to archives, so I would say this, but trust me – the DTRH one is more accessible than most and well worth exploring! keep reading
Category News | Tags: Children's books, Down the Rabbit Hole, Katherine Woodfine, Lady Caraboo, Liberty's Fire, Louise Lamont, Melissa Cox, radio, Resonance FM, Timbutoo
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Who are you like?
0September 18, 2015 by Lydia Syson
UKYAX is all about breaking down barriers between readers and writers, and finding new ways to spread the word about books. With that in mind, Chelley Toy and I have had emails flying back and forth all week concocting a quiz to whet your appetite for the Nottingham event, and introduce you to some of the characters in my novels. Now step this way to discover your (historical) fictional twin… keep reading
Category News | Tags: Chelle Toy, children's book quiz, favourite characters in historical fiction, Liberty's Fire, literary quiz, Lydia Syson quiz, Tales of Yesterday, UKMGX, UKYAX, UKYAX blog tour, YA quiz
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UKYA Extravaganza
0September 6, 2015 by Lydia Syson
I’m not sure if it sounds more like a circus or a speed-dating event for authors and readers, but I am absolutely certain that the second ever UKYA Extravaganza on October 2015 is going to be a sell out. If you live anywhere near Nottingham and want to come, do book as soon as you can. These events are all about bringing YA authors to fans outside London – read here keep readingCategory News | Tags: A WORLD BETWEEN US, Emma Pass, Kerry Drewery, Liberty's Fire, Nottingham, That Burning Summer, UKYA Extravaganza, Waterstones
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In the footsteps of Communards
0July 6, 2015 by Lydia Syson
What happened to the revolutionaries who managed to escape Paris after the bloody fall of the Commune? Over three thousand ended up in London, men, women and children too. I’ve blogged about following the trail of some of those exiles today at The History Girls. Follow the link to find out more about what I found, including ‘bloody foreigners’, police spies, chemistry lessons and Louise Michel’s International School in Fitzrovia.
Category News | Tags: anarchists in Fitzrovia, international school, Liberty's Fire, Louise Michel, The History Girls
