winterbadger | Entries tagged with dunnett

I haven't been keeping track of books this year, so I'm probably going to miss out a few titles. But, then, if I'm not remembering them, they can't have made that much of an impact, right?
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It was dusk when Nicholas reached the end of his journey. On his right the sky was tinged with the dying sunset above the black spine of the mountains. Before him, lamplit in snapdragon silks, was a city of tents, the hosts of its banners stiffened like hog-thorns. He could see the viper and eagle of Alessandro and Bosio Sforza; the cross and crescents in azure and gold of the papal banner, and above all, the eagle Federigo, Count of Urbino, the flag of its commander. On the hill, the tents of the enemy lay like embers, and the banner of Count Jacopo Piccinino could only be guessed at.

(From Chapter 35 of Dorothy Dunnett's Niccolo Rising)

"In 1934 two young journalists [one of them the future husband of my favourite author] paddled from Glasgow to Skye. Wearing singlets and kilts, and with only the inner tube of a car tyre for safety, they negotiated their flimsy sea-canoes through the challenging waters of Scotland’s west coast.

Their dispatches to newspapers and subsequent book “The Canoe Boys”, were not only tales of adventure, but also penetrating analyses of the problems of Highland life."

Two BBC Radio reporters repeated the trip in 2007 and produced a three-part series on it.

There's also a diary.

MOST keen.

Current Mood: enthralled

"For those of easy tongues, she said. Remember, some live all their lives without discovering this truth; that the noblest and most terrible power we possess is the power we have, each of us, over the chance-met, the stranger, the passer-by outside your life and your kin. Speak, she said, as you would write: as if your words were letters of lead, graven there for all time, for which you must take the consequences, And take the consequences."

from Queen's Play by Dorothy Dunnett