Some of Michael Dames is a bit fanciful. I got my copy of the Silbury book second hand off Pompey John Westwood. (The bloke with the tattoos and annoying drums, who is also an antiquarian book seller).
The paperback gazetteer of Burl’s definitely always comes on travels, yes. I don’t have from Carnac to Callanish and sense that a rash visit to Abebooks might be in my future
A small batch of recommendations (shocking photo I’m afraid) though I don’t think the one on Tomb Of The Eagles is widely available (got it in their gift shop, on the way out, naturally). Spectacular views.
The Miles Russel book is unusual as he interprets sites from an architectural perspective. Josh Pollard’s book traces the Avebury area through time, prior to the henge etc, and through to the present day. He’s written a more general book on Avebury, in a similar vein to Burl’s. The fourth book is specifically about Orcadian monuments.
Agreed, K, Dames is quite fanciful - though I quite like that - particularly that notion of Silbury being a basket containing all the flora from the locale - - I was particularly smitten with his idea that the hill was built atop a star-shaped configuration of grass…something we could never know ; )
SNAP on the Tomb of the Eagles (bought in Kirkwall) - a great book - good old Ron Simison refusing to be held back and resolving to roll-up his sleeves and get stuck-in - - we had the pleasure of meeting Ron when we visited the site, it was a real treat to be shown the site and be given the low-down by that fellow.
Cheers for the recommends - the Miles Russel in particular sounds intriguing - I think I may be joining you in an Abehunt : )
Just bunging on a couple of photos of 2 signed books that sit well together. The Mark Radcliffe book is a delight - he did a reading at Bradford Waterstones - when I stepped up to have the book signed I mentioned to Mark that I’d last seen him at the first night of Julian Cope’s residency at the Lemon Tree in Aberdeen - and reminded him about how the gig was disrupted by a girl hurling abuse at Julian - she was telling the fellow that his new LP (Autogeddon) was crap - Julian laughed it off at first, but when she persisted, he took a tenner (the ticket price) from a member of his crew, marched over to where the girl was sitting with her chap, put the money in her hand and then frog-marched her out of the door! It was excruciating to witness. Anyroad, when Mark handed the book to me I saw he’d written ‘fellow Cope-ite’ - I thought that was a lovely thing to write. Cut to a few months later - Julian was doing a reading in the same branch of Waterstones upon pub’ of MA - I was quite friendly with Julian at that point so we hung out for a while after the reading - I had with me a copy of MA Julian had sent to us (we received 2 copies as a thank you for the 12 Apostles photo) - naturally I had it signed - I’d mentioned my encounter with Mark, so again I was delighted to see that Julian had signed it to a ‘fellow Radcliffian’ : )
I didn’t like Pi in the Sky I’m afraid. A section that jumped the shark was where Poynder makes the claim that dolmens resemble the letter pi deliberately to alert us to how mathematically sophisticated the builders were. The conclusion is not necessarily incorrect, I don’t really know, but (1) the dolmen structure was the inner chamber shrouded by earth, pebbles, etc and thus not capable of signalling anything let alone (2) a Greek letter that was only formalised many centuries after dolmens were built.
I like the sound of the James Vogh book which is mentioned in the Arafel posts on lunar planting.
I didn’t realise Mark Radcliffe was a megalithomaniac. Mark E Smith had some less flattering epithets if I recall correctly.
Stewart Lee, the not especially funny comedian and Covidian extraordinaire, is another one. He’s had a couple of articles published in Weird Walk, on monuments in Wales and Herefordshire.
Yeah, nevertheless, suggestive serendipity I would say…there’s a good argument in Vogh’s book about how the Pythagaorean brotherhood learned their geo = Earth - metrey = measurement from both the Egyptians and the Brythonic “Hyperboreans” or “British”…so I forgive Michael his (probable), hyperbole as I follow his parabola (as it were), …
