John-Paul Flintoff has written up Fiona Houston's Garden Cottage Diaries in his Times column, Green Central. Fiona's story of "Living in the Past" and the attendant recipes, notes, linocuts and so on appealed to him on many levels, we're very glad to learn! John-Paul is the author of Through the Eye of a Needle - an entertaining tale of how he made his own clothes to find meaning instead of idly consuming sweatshop-made threads. Having made underpants from nettles, he's no stranger to green challenges. Here's what he wrote about The Garden Cottage Diaries:

Having recently stayed in the utterly unmodernised cottage that featured in the BBc's Victorian Farm series (and written about having no electricity, heating or water here) I was very excited to come across a new book in which another writer spent a whole year living in a rudimentary 18th century cottage in Scotland.

The Garden & Cottage Diaries, by Fiona J Houston, are not only fascinating but beautifully produced with photographs and lino cuts by the great Clare Melinsky (whom fellow lino-cut enthusiasts will know illustrated Penguin's Shakespeare playtexts).

Houston is scrupulously honest about the trials of living in the past -  something that many environmentalists think we'll all be doing fairly soon as overpopulation and resource depletion kick in.

She cooked meals from her own produce, lay on a lumpy straw bed she'd grown to loathe and rose in the dim light of the winter dawn to make porridge. She walked everywhere, and in home-made 18th century clothes too. Towards the end of the year she began to feel like a nun, "or perhaps a prisoner, counting the days till my release".

That said, she enjoyed learning to use her ingenuity, rather than money, to solve problems, and ate well, with plenty of variety, using only her own produce. She also felt more vigorous and strong - "Cottage life was so physical that I seldom sat down for long."

It's a lovely book, and I strongly recommend it - as well as the films about Houston's project [on Saraband's site].

The story of one woman's journey back in time in rural Scotland to the late eighteenth century is now coming to Germany... Gerstenberg Verlag are publishing The Garden Cottage Diaries by Fiona J Houston; the German edition is available now.

The specialist review site Art Book Review has given a resounding thumbs up to Clare Gibson's Hidden Life of Ancient Egypt, despite its being ostensibly more a history book than an art book.

Here is an excerpt:

The first impression is that it’s a lot more than the usual “Ooh, look, mummies” approach to a civilisation that was well-advanced in art, architecture and science. Ancient civilisations die out either because they destroy themselves (the Incas probably cut down so many trees that their water supplies and agricultural systems dried up), or they become overwhelmed by invasions or they just develop beyond themselves.

What I think I like most about this book is the freshness, not just of its approach, but of the images. Yes, we’ve all seen them, or ones like them, before, but here they’re in an artistic context and suddenly all those representations of human and animal forms look fresh, as though you’re seeing them for the first time; which, in a way, you are.

As well as copious illustrations which never start to get repetitive (a not-infrequent problem with ancient history), Clare provides complete yet admirably concise descriptions and explanations that bridge the gap between seeing and understanding without overloading you with information.

On balance, I’m beginning to think that this is exactly the sort of thing this site needs: a fresh look at something you’d initially pass by as being irrelevant to contemporary painting.

A lost temple of Tutankhamun has been identified in Egypt. Dozens of carved blocks from the temple’s walls have been found during recent work at Luxor, recycled into medieval structures. Among the carvings are indications that Tutankhamun, who died aged 18, was an active warrior during his short reign (1333-24 BC), and it has been suggested that his death may have been the result of a battle injury [writes Norman Hammond in the Times, Jan 26, in this article]

To celebrate this and the recent find of workers' tombs at Giza, we are offering THE HIDDEN LIFE OF ANCIENT EGYPT at HALF PRICE! £10.00 from this site, for this week only!

BOOKS WILL BE SHIPPED OUT ON 2ND FEBRUARY.

We can now announce the long-awaited release of the fully updated and revised edition of this best-selling gem of a handbook. It will be available in May.
“An educational and easy-to-use guide for anyone keen to learn about architectural styles and building design.” —RIBA on the first edition

Watch this space for the opportunity to look inside the new edition, and to order your copy before it's on general release.

New light is shed on the building of the pyramids at Giza by the latest find of workers' tombs, which shows that free men, not slaves, built the landmark structures. The tombs were built beside the king’s pyramid, which indicates that these people were not slaves (if they were, they would not have been able to build their tombs beside their king’s).
Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Antiquities Council, said that this discovery indicates that the workers came from top families of the Delta and Upper Egypt. Workers rotated every three months, and those who were buried there died during the construction process.

Find out more about the tomb discovery on Zawi Hawass's own site here.
Learn more on daily life in ancient Egypt in Clare Gibson's acclaimed new title
The Hidden Life of Ancient Egypt - see inside the book here (and buy here)
Or find it on amazon.co.uk
Or (for US visitors) on Barnes & Noble.

Ashley Page's wonderful Nutcracker, as performed at Glasgow's Theatre Royal Dec 09, reviewed here.

Photos of Page's Nutcracker appear in Scottish Ballet: 40 Years : book available here, or via Scottish Ballet's site, or on amazon.co.uk

Mary Brennan's Scottish Ballet: Forty Years is reviewed in The Scotsman (Saturday Jan 2) and in The Scots Magazine for January 2010.

We at Saraband are delighted to have been part of Scottish Ballet's anniversary celebrations. There's still time to catch The Nutcracker!