Blue Wolf Reviews

Tag: Silk

  • The Silk House

    The Silk House

    In every sense, The Silk House seems to have encapsulated the author’s passion for history, weaving and healing. Her enthusiasm for these topics makes the story come alive and with some interesting research and some fine imagination, a creative tale is told. Katye Nunn writes so well she seamlessly moves from the past to the present forming links for the reader.

    The story begins with Thea Rust, an Australian teacher who has been accepted to teach History at a Public School in England. Her father was an excellent student there, and the school has just decided to enrol girls. She was the ideal choice as her History teaching and studies are specifically what the school is looking for, as well as her sporting prowess on the hockey field. Until the girls and Thea have suitable housing, they are staying at a place called Silk House.

    Silk House is the central core to this story. We follow in earlier times, a maid called Rowan, who served there. In 1768, Rowan has been employed by the master of the house, Patrick Hollander. At the front is a shop selling fine silks. It is not a happy house though, as the maid Alice, resents Rowan, and makes her life difficult. The master and his wife have problems as it seems his wife is unable to conceive.

    At this time, a new pattern maker, Mary-Louise Stephenson approaches Patrick with some amazing styles and designs, and he is taken by their beauty. A poor manager, Patrick manages to inflame his wife, the maid and the pattern maker. The outcome is tragic.

    Thea, who is sensitive to the history of the house, senses a presence. There are physical signs of occupancy to contend with. Her introduction to a new school and a new country could not be more enthralling, mysterious and exciting. With help, Thea uncovers a tragedy and dismantles the problem. A very satisfying read in all respects!

     

  • The Silk Roads A New History of the World – Illustrated Edition

    The Silk Roads A New History of the World – Illustrated Edition

    History is an amazing place to visit as it holds so many secrets, strange events, life lessons and most of all, wonderful adventures from times long gone, seldom remembered and not all that often placed into a context that can be enjoyed in other than a scholarly manner.

    Peter Frankopan, who admits to a lifelong passion with history and Neil Packer, illustrator extraordinaire, have bought to life the history of The Silk Roads, the web of trade routes of the Ancient Worlds in such as way as to make the stories, indeed the history that comes with them real; as vital and alive today as it was many years ago, when the world was a very different place to the modern word of today, or is it?

    Each of the chapters has an interesting title, offering a hint of what is to be revealed, bringing this ancient history into the very real context of today’s world of the Middle East, China and Afghanistan.

    Well told, the words used are entertaining, suitable for a wide range of readers with the narrative presenting the facts and intrigue of history with a freshens that is delightful, making what many could easily perceive as a very dry subject, anything but dry.

    So much took place so many thousands of years ago that makes modern civilisations look somewhat tardy in their development and attitude to the ancient peoples, who had already solved so many of the issues that have, over the years, plagued modern life.

    Their great, sprawling, well run and wealthy empires were respected, often feared for their warlike tendencies, their trade routes sophisticated and well developed, and a tax system which would be the envy of many a government today.

    Also billed as The New History of the World, which could be a little tongue in cheek, the work does what is sets out to do, present History in a way that has broad appeal, with accompanying illustrations which will delight, intrigue and definitely do add something extra to the text.

    Scholars may well pick fault at some of the flamboyance contained within the work, but for a young audience just beginning to discover a world outside of their immediate surrounding, the exotic mystery that has come down through history, that seems to go firmly with The Silk Roads, is well presented, informative and offers a fresh, easy to understand perspective of times long gone that laid the foundations for the world in which we Iive today.