GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
Stealing from the Saracens
Revelatory account of how Islamic architecture shaped Europe
IT'S A STEAL: Christopher Wren used the Saracen 'vaulting' method in his design for the dome of St Paul's Cathedral
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis
PAUL DONOVAN is tickled by the excruciating take-downs of one of the funniest, wittiest, political writers around.
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ELLIS RAE is persuaded that the advantages of the ‘talking cure’ are superior to the treatment of mental illness with drugs
JOHN GREEN, MICHAL BONCZA and BELLA KATZ review The Good Boy, Broken English, and Don't Be Prey
Stealing from the Saracens
by Diana Darke
(Hurst and Company, £25)
WITH this book, Diana Darke will surely alter the way many look at the great European cathedrals of Notre Dame in Paris, Canterbury, Cologne or Burgos.
In highlighting that the elementary design features and construction methods of their spectacular architecture were “borrowed” lock, stock and barrel from Islam at the time of the Crusades, Darke opens our eyes to evidence of a colossal cultural cross-fertilisation.
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, albeit with the proviso that it is accompanied by an acknowledgement of provenance. Yet recognition of this wholesale architectural borrowing in the West seems conspicuously absent in more recent times.
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