If there is anything that can make a strident music fan salivate in anticipation, it’s the idea of an unreleased track or lost album from a favourite band. It’s like catnip for the musicologist and can become like a biblical quest for a lost chalice of sound for the collector of rare grooves and scrapped… Continue reading at the publisher's website.
There are many reasons to tell the story of Mata Hari – an extravagant icon of femininity, famous burlesque performer, World War I spy, and “collector” of high one standing lovers – her life reads like a harlequin novel. But arguably one of the most curious (and morbid) anecdotes of her life occurred after her… Continue reading at the publisher's website.
Fancy living in your very own Rapunzel tower less than an hour’s drive from Paris? Our Rapunzel in this case was Anne Boleyn – the first of Henry VIII’s wives to be beheaded – who lived here in her formative years. It used to be much bigger mind you. The 14th century keep is all… Continue reading at the publisher's website.
We often have a romantic notion of what it might be like to walk into a thrift store and walk out with treasure. But in reality, what happens next can be a roller coaster ride that changes your life forever. In 2018, antiques dealer Laura Young discovered an ancient Roman bust in an Austin Goodwill… Continue reading at the publisher's website.
1. Ron’s Place: England’s secret Outsider Art palace Behind the facade of this unassuming Victorian villa in the heart of Birkenhead, Merseyside, lies a hidden treasure trove of creativity and passion that was hidden for decades. This is Ron’s Place, a conventional flat transformed by Ron Gittins into a dazzling shrine of art, drawing from the wellsprings of ancient… Continue reading at the publisher's website.
Django Reinhardt was a legendary jazz musician and considered by some the greatest guitarist who ever lived, even more so when you find out he did it all with two fingers. He began as a nomadic busker before becoming a virtuoso and then a romanticised Parisian sepia memory, who still calls out in rolling arpeggios… Continue reading at the publisher's website.
1. Abkhazia, the Lost Paradise by Pierpaolo Mittica Abkhazia is a non-place. However, it was once considered a paradise. In the years of the Soviet Union, this strip of land spanning 200 kilometres by 100 and facing onto the Black Sea was the chosen holiday destination of the political elite, who could enjoy hospitality of… Continue reading at the publisher's website.
At first glance she looks like just another bookish art historian in matronly 1940s garb – a most unlikely superhero. But Rose Antonia Maria Valland was a lone female spy who, during WW2, tirelessly and valiantly put her life on the line for the love of art, saving scores of looted works of art during Nazi… Continue reading at the publisher's website.
1. Keep everyone guessing with numerous aliases and identities Mathilde de Morny presumed many nicknames. Friends called her “Missy”, but in her artistic endeavours, she also went by the pseudonym “Yssim” (an anagram of Missy). When dressed in men’s clothing, she preferred “Max”, or sometimes “Uncle Max” or “Monsieur le Marquis”. Continue reading at the publisher's website.