Bibliography

 [provisional]

Books:

Austen, J. (2007) Mansfield Park. London: Penguin Classics. ISBN 0140623140
Benjamin, W. and Underwood J.A., trans. (2008) The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. London: Penguin. ISBN 0141036192
Blake, W. (1977) The Complete Poems. London: Penguin Classics. ISBN 0140422153
Coverley, M. (2010) Psychogeography. 2nd ed. London: Pocket Essentials. ISBN 1842433478
Danchev, A., ed. (2011) 100 Artist's Manifestos. London: Penguin Classics. ISBN 0141191799
Drucker, J. (2004) The Century of Artist's Books. 2nd ed. New York: Granary Books. ISBN 1887123695
Flanders, J. (2011) The Invention of Murder. London: Harper Press. ISBN 0007248896
Jones, J. ed. (2004) The Isle of Wight Bedside Book. Wimborne: Dovecote Press. ISBN 1904349366
Keats, J. (1994) Complete Poems of John Keats. Ware: Wordsworth Editions. ISBN 1853264040
Keiller, P. (2012) The Possibility of Life's Survival on the Planet. London: Tate Publishing. ISBN 1849760720
McDonough, T., ed. (2010) The Situationists and the City. London: Verso Books. ISBN 1844673642
Mitchell, V and Keith, A. (1998) Isle of Wight Lines. Middleton Press: Midhurst. ISBN 1901706125
Moore, A. and Campbell, E. (2008) From Hell. 8th ed. London: Knockabout Comics. ISBN 0861661411
Rackham, O. (1986) The History of the Countryside. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0460044493
Searle. A. (2004) Walking Isle of Wighr History. Wimborne: Dovecote Press. ISBN 1904349315
Sinclair, I. (2003) London Orbital. London: Penguin. ISBN 0141014746
Sinclair, I. (2002)  Lud Heat and Suicide Bridge. London: Granta Books.
Smith, K.A. (1994) The Structure of the Visual Book. New York: Keith A. Smith Books. ISBN 0963768212
Watkins, A. (1988) The Old Straight Track. 2nd ed. Abacus: London. ISBN 0349137072



Websites:

Crickenberger, H.M. (2007) The Structure of Awakening. (URL http://www.thelemming.com/lemming/dissertation-web/home/structure.html). (Accessed 26th January 2013).
Davis, D. (1991) The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction. (URL http://classes.dma.ucla.edu/Winter09/9-1/_pdf/3-Davis_Work_of_Art.pdf). (Accessed 26th January 2012).

The Test Book arrives!

The test book arrived on Friday morning. What with my birthday and other matters, I haven't been able to get a post together till now.

Iain Sinclair - London Orbital

First, I should like to note that, although as with Keiller I have apparently rubbished the concerns of Sinclair several times, I hold him no actual malice. On the contrary, I actually like him quite a lot both for his qualities as a writer and for his qualities as a person that appear to be revealed through his writing. In fact, I haven't really got anything bad to say about any of the London psychogeographers, except Stewart Home, who I have disliked for years for reasons unrelated to his work as a psychogeographer. My verbal assaults against London are largely a rhetorical device, and, in fact, many of them are echoed in Sinclair's work. What I have objected to, mainly, is the focus on London as if it is the most interesting thing in the UK. Sinclair's take on this is interesting, simultaneously defining London as a microcosm and as something special and apart from the rest of the world (suggesting several times that everywhere beyond the M25 is 'nowhere') whilst simultaneously acknowledging that the road he is studying is an engine that drives this solipsism. He says of the motorway:

"By the time you've driven it...you should be way out in another eco-system, another culture: Newport (Mon.), or Nottingham, or Yeovil. The journey must mean something. Not a wearied return, hobbled, to the point of origin."

Worth a Thousand Words: Text and Images

One concern that, as I assemble the book,  is becoming obviously very important to Vectis is the way text and images interact within the structure of a book, and withn a 2D medium (the individual page) generally. Thankfully, I can lay claim to knowing at least a little of what I’m talking about with both subjects: the first being one of the main focuses of my previous MA unit, and the second being the subject of my BA dissertation, I am already well grounded in both. I am also helped by the fact that each subject has a (to my mind) clearly written and definitive book on the subject. These are Keith Smith’s The Structure of the Visual Book and Simon Morley’s Writing on the Wall: Word and Image in Modern Art, which have both been of immense help to me.

Oliver Rackham - 'The History of the Countryside'

For the past week or so my attention, when I have the time to read, has been turned to the rather fascinationg 'The History of the Countryside' by Oliver Rackham. Rackham is a landscape archaeologist, who writes on the subject of the history of the use of the British landscape with considerable vigour and authority, and, when he touches on the subject of conservation, not a little genuine pathos;

"There are four kinds of loss...there is the loss of beauty, especially that exquisite beauty of the small and complex and unexpected, of frog-orchids or sundews or dragonflies. There is the loss of freedom, of high-ways and open spaces...There is the loss of historic vegetation, most of which once gone is lost forever...I am specially concerned with the loss of meaning. The landscape is a record of our roots and the growth of our civilization. Each individual historic wood, heath, etc. is uniquely different from every other, and each has something to tell us."