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Sto caricando le informazioni... In Tasmania: Adventures at the End of the Worlddi Nicholas Shakespeare
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. Nicholas Shakespeare, British novelist and biographer, and his wife travel to Tasmania to take a break from it all, fall in love with the place and decide to move there. This book is the result of that decision. It's part history, part genealogy, part ramble as Shakespeare conveys to us his discovery of Tasmania and his familial connections to the place. The story is in four parts - the first is about Shakespeare's research regarding his long lost relation Anthony Fenn Kemp, who was the self-described "father of Tasmania", (described elsewhere in the book as a "great ass".) When Shakespeare tells the librarian at the Hobart archives that he is related to Kemp she advises him "I would not go around divulging that information." Through Kemp's story we learn about the early European settlement of Tasmania. Part II tells of Tasmania's Aborigines and how they were thought to have died out, but have been recently "rediscovered". Part III tells of another of Shakespeare's long lost relations and provides insight into the hardships of a generation later than Kemps - those who migrated to Tasmania in the early twentieth century. Finally, Part IV brings us back to today (with a brief diversion to tell the story of actress Merle Oberon, a "true daughter of Tasmania") and completes the story of how Shakespeare and family came to Tasmania. The book does ramble, but as one who loves history and who has dived down rabbit holes doing my own genealogical research, I was more than happy to ramble with him. As an author Shakespeare has a light touch, and though the book is almost 400 pages long it seemed to go quickly each time I picked it up. As each of the four parts stand mostly on their own, I did put the book down in between parts but on picking it back up I found myself staying up late to finish each part. I picked this book up in Hobart in 2018 when visiting Tasmania, and it's sat in my rather large pile of "to be read" books until now. I am happy to finally be making time to tackle that pile and bring it back down to a manageable size. :) nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
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The settlement of Tasmania by Europeans began 200 years ago. Nicholas Shakespeare first went there, having heard of the island's exceptional beauty, and because it was famously remote. He soon decided that this was where he wanted to live. Only later did he discover a cache of letters written by an ancestor as corrupt as he was colourful: Anthony Fenn Kemp, the so-called Father of Tasmania. On his mother's side, too, Shakespeare found he had unknown Tasmanian relations: a pair of spinsters who had never left their farm except once, in 1947, to buy shoes. Their journal recounted a saga beginning in North Devon in the 1890s with a dashing but profligate ancestor who, having played tennis with the Kaiser, ended his life in disgrace in the Tasmanian bush... Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)994.6History and Geography Oceania and elsewhere Australia TasmaniaClassificazione LCVotoMedia:
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The structure of the book is really scattered. The author tries to weave his personal situations (e.g. the birth of his son) into the already complicated story of the island of Tasmania, but he makes abrupt shifts and leaves out context which make the whole book feel like a jumble.
Among the fluff and nonsense are some nice anecdotes about the island that stick in the memory. These give a narrow but interesting view of Tasmania. ( )