THE WORLDS OF HAYAO MIYAZAKI: The Influences and Inspiration Behind the Iconic Films

THE WORLDS OF HAYAO MIYAZAKI: The Influences and Inspiration Behind the Iconic Films
NICOLAS RAPOLD
Frances Lincoln Ltd (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$35.00 all editions, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: An in-depth collection of the rich influences and sources of inspiration behind one of animated cinema’s all-time greats, and Japanese cinema’s most popular cultural export. Explore the inspirations behind the work of the legendary Hayao Miyazaki, one of animated cinema’s all-time great creators.

Often called the godfather of animation, Miyazaki is able to imagine and populate worlds like no other director or animator. His films, from My Neighbour Totoro to the Oscar-winning Spirited Away and The Boy and The Heron, are deeply original, each conjuring up their own complete and entrancing version of reality.

This book journeys through the rich mix of cultural, historical and artistic influences that shape Miyazaki’s storytelling. From Japanese folklore and childhood memories to architecture, classic cinema, literature and political commentary, it reveals how Miyazaki’s deeply personal vision creates layered worlds that somehow feel both fantastical and grounded in truth.

With insight into his process, visual language and recurring themes—including nature, flight, girlhood, resistance and renewal —The Worlds of Hayao Miyazaki offers fans and film lovers a deeper understanding of the imagination behind the magic.

A celebration of creative freedom, storytelling without limits, and the enduring power of animation.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: If you are not a Miyazaki fan already, this book could make you one. (But seriously, how can anyone not be a fan after seeing Spirited Away?) I'm willing to bet most all of us have at least one film fan, animation fan, Japanese-culture maven, in our gifting circle. Any of them will appreciate this beauty.

what we'll see on the journey

I'm sure we're all aware of animation's tremendous popularity. A safe bet to give a teen giftee is this lovely, immersive story of how the art of Miyazaki sprang from th art Miyazaki has seen and spoken lovingly about.

The publisher doesn't offer lots of spreads for publicity, understandably, but there are some lovely ones to take a look at:

It's great value for money spent, assuming you opt for the tree book version; the ebookmis a bit cranky and not as fluidly designed.

A very exciting gift to get, and one you'll be thanked for in longer terms than most gifts.

LITERARY GARDENS: The imaginary gardens of writers and poets, lovely (self-)gift object

LITERARY GARDENS: The imaginary gardens of writers and poets
SANDRA LAWRENCE (illus. Lucille Clerc)
Frances Lincoln Ltd (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$26.00 all editions, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: This book celebrates the most enchanting gardens from literature and re-imagines them with beautiful artworks. Gardens both real and imagined have long captured our imaginations. They are places of mystery and magic, beauty and danger, romance and revelation; writers have used them to reflect longing and create unforgettable moments of drama, escape, and wonder.

Literary Gardens explores thirty of the most atmospheric and emotionally charged gardens in literature. From The Secret Garden and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to Rebecca and The Great Gatsby, these fictional gardens capture the atmosphere and emotion of the stories they belong to. Some feel peaceful or nostalgic, others are rich with mystery or unspoken tension—each is shaped by the characters and moments that are revealed within them. In Literary Gardens, readers will uncover new stories and rediscover old favourites, guided by Sandra Lawrence’s lyrical storytelling and Lucille Clerc’s evocative vision.

Literary Gardens is a tribute to the spaces that have stayed with us long after the final page—a perfect gift for yourself, or anyone who has ever wanted to step through the page and into another world.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: What makes a gift book memorable? The thought you put into choosing it, of course; also the beauty of the object, the subject being presented, the way you wrapped it (or didn't). We all want pretty things as we define them around us.

Artwork and mini-essays that blen the strengths of each medium are a sure-fire hit...anyone who's read The Great Gatsby will have a picture of the garden in their head...but that's a bit the problem for me. My picture isn't quite this picture.

It's lovely as art, and gifted to the right art-lover, the essays really do fit with the artwork. I'm just not quite there with the fit with the selected reads.

Beautiful thing, this is, so don't stop yourself from getting and enjoying it.

BEYOND THE VEIL: The Victorian Obsession With Death and Mourning, lovely to look at, if weird and morbid

BEYOND THE VEIL: The Victorian Obsession With Death and Mourning
PAUL GAMBINO
Frances Lincoln Ltd (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$29.00 all editions, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Beyond the Veil is a visual exploration of Victorian mourning, charting the often peculiar and at times macabre ways of how the living memorialize the dead.

Beyond the Veil is a visual tour through the curious history of how we deal with death—the grief and mourning, the funerals, symbols, and ceremonies.

From Victorian England across to the US, learn about the often peculiar and at times macabre ways of how the living memorialize the dead.

Humans have always had ways of marking death, but in Victorian England death became a morbid obsession that went global—death was as much ‘celebrated’ as it was a source of fear and sadness. Queen Victoria herself became a figurehead of grief after the death of her beloved Prince Albert in 1861. Her ensuing fascination with death took many visual forms—from her ritualized embrace of black clothing to the building of ostentatious monuments—and massively influenced cultural norms in both the UK and further afield.

The Victorians built complex cemeteries, collected precious memento mori, commissioned bizarre death portraits, and obsessed over the correct mourning attire and funerary protocol, while turn-of-the century America saw reflections of many of these cultural phenomena. The bestsellers of the period were often about life and death (think Frankenstein and Dracula), while the art, architecture, and style—with its often dark and heavy gothic overtones—revelled in the glamorization of death. Beyond the Veil brings this extraordinarily elaborate and stylised visual culture together while expertly explaining and elaborating on its most peculiar and fascinating aspects.

For example, it explores:

The influence of Queen Victoria’s personal mourning on fashion and social custom.

The rise of Victorian cemeteries and funerary architecture.

The art of memento mori and post-mortem photography.

The emergence of spiritualism, seances and afterlife communication.

The fascination with gothic literature, symbolism and the romanticization of death.

Beautifully illustrated throughout with archival photography, artworks and design,Beyond the Veil is a must-have for lovers of history, art, and the macabre. It invites readers to step into the shadows of the past and discover how Victorian mourning shaped our modern relationship with grief and remembrance.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Lovely, design-heavy gift book, perfect for your history-minded or Victorian-obsessed giftee's coffee table. It's nicely written, easy to read, but...crucially for a book on this subject that depends on the quality of its sources...has no notes or bibliography worth spending time on. I certainly don't expect academic-standard citations, but more than the absolute minimum should've been attainable.

My longstanding dislike of Queen Victoria...won't someone, anyone, write an alternate history where Princess Charlotte lives through bearing Leopold's son?...hit glowing hot hatred as I read about how her abused-child narcissism totally screwed the entire world while she pouted and shouted about her playtoy...sorry, husband...being taken from her before she was tired of him.

contents page spread

English society, and the broader colonial sphere in Scotland and Ireland, out into the wider Anglophone world, began to follow some truly weird death and mourning customs:

sample of essay; interior spread about hair art

...because in the time before effective antibiotics, sanitation, and city planning, there was wide scope for mourning the loss of literally anyone close to you from some unexpected cause.

This chapter spread says it all:

Shadow of the Scythe indeed!

As an illustrated overview of a subject that can easily consume academic careers, this is a successful book. As a beautiful gift object, it also succeeds. As a jumping-off point for looking into the truly obsessive, dysfunctional Victorian worldview, it does a fine job.

spiritualism rose to prominence in this atmosphere

sensationalism about murder did, too

some trivia fragments

Altogether a book I'd think your serious-minded luxury-item-worthy giftee will like.

THE BIBLE OF BRITISH TASTE: Stories of Home, People and Place, lovely gift item for your Anglophile giftee

THE BIBLE OF BRITISH TASTE: Stories of Home, People and Place
RUTH GUILDING
Frances Lincoln Ltd (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$45.00 all editions, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Based on the highly popular blog and IG account, Bible of British Taste, this book will give readers a glimpse into the idiosyncratic houses that exemplify the best of British taste and style.

With a predilection for lived-in, even cluttered interiors, filled with antiques, artworks and paintings, this style rejects perfection and gives you a sense of what it would really be like to live in some of the houses you see in magazines.

In 2012 Ruth Guilding, long-time contributor to World of Interiors, set up her blog and website, Bible of British Taste. Since 2016 has run an Instagram account of the same name, which now has almost 70k followers and an engagement rate of over 6%. In December 2022 she created the first issue of a magazine based on these accounts, which quickly sold out.

Now working alongside an influential younger generation of British tastemakers such as Edward Luke Hall (228k IG), Ben Pentreath (172k) and Duncan Campbell (70k), she has become the unofficial arbiter of the quirks and eccentricities of what makes British style.

This book charts the development of this style from the work of William Morris and the Bloomsbury circle up to the present. With unrivalled access to the locations, all the photographs are taken by the author.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: A potted history of Style as practiced among the British strivers and arrivistes since Victoria's reign, it's a gift item for the aspiring Anglophile. The author's quite the maven on the topic. Her Instagram account is filled with lush images of English cozy, homey, gemütlich comforts and some grand-looking stuff to break up the sameness.

where we're going, aka the Table of Contents

I'm always fascinated by these super design-oriented books. They're evergreens in publishing terms, books that can't fail (as a class, not individually) because people need gifts that make a statement: "I know you, I know you like {topic/thing/activity} so I'm going to show you just how fond I am of you with this book about it." One enormous category for this kind of object is the coffee-table book. It sits and looks lovely, it can be leafed through by awkward guests and/or during an embarrassing moment offering a social lifeline, and (in this specific book's case) be enjoyed simply for its intrinsic handsomeness.

all photos by the author

I turned pages and admired, felt oddly comforted in a world of confusion and turmoil by this steady thrum of solidity, and came through the experience with admiration for the author. This is a very cohesive presentation of British (English, really) style. It's clearly pervasive...she doesn't repeat any locations...and deep-rooted, the history bits demonstrate.

For my part, it's not my taste, it's cluttered and I'm morally certain every one of these spaces is dusty and musty. I'd feel the need for a full-time vacuumer/duster supported by a weekly wash-up specialist indoors, and at least two gardeners.

So, not so much on the aspirational scale for me. But it's fascinating, and for the right recipient, a gift that will elicit delighted coos and warbles of envious ecstasy.

DARK LONDON: A Journey Through the City's Mysterious and Macabre Underworld, for the ghoulish giftee closest to your heart

DARK LONDON: A Journey Through the City's Mysterious and Macabre Underworld
DR. DREW GRAY
Frances Lincoln Ltd (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$22.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Dark London brings together the history of the city’s seamier side, picking out the most scandalous, curious and bizarre aspects of London’s shadowy and fascinating underbelly.

From dark crimes of passion to shocking tales of grave robbing, gruesome murders, dens of iniquity, Victorian séances, and haunted houses—not far beneath London’s everyday bustle and glitter there has long been a fascinatingly rich underworld of criminality, superstition, scandal, and macabre debauchery.

In Dark London, social historian Dr Drew Gray, a specialist in the history of crime and punishment, delves into the city’s grim yet compelling past, uncovering the people and places that shaped its darker identity.

Across more than 100 real-life cases and curiosities, he explores how London became both the heart of a growing empire and a stage for vice, greed, and human fallibility.

Highlights include:

The London Burkers, a notorious gang of resurrectionists whose leader confessed to stealing and selling nearly 1,000 bodies to London’s medical schools in the 1830s.

The Whitechapel Murders of 1888, still the world’s longest running serial murder mystery.

The prisons of Newgate and Pentonville, where shifting attitudes towards justice revealed the tension between punishment, reform, and moral control.

The legend of Spring-heeled Jack, the terrifying, leaping figure who caused panic across London’s streets.

The Great Stink of 1858, when London’s polluted Thames brought the city to a standstill and forced a revolution in sanitation and public health.

Dark London brings together the history of the city’s seamier side, picking out the most scandalous, curious and bizarre aspects of London’s shadowy and fascinating underbelly.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: London's been a world city, most of the time, since the Romans lost Colchester in 60CE and moved their colonial government there. Lots of scope for serious weirdness of the supernatural stuff sort, and viciousness (or just misguided trying to help) of the human sort. Both leave separate kinds of stains on the memory of society, locally as well as internationally.

Author Drew Gray's biography as provided by Frances Lincoln Ltd:

Dr. Drew Gray is a social historian of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who specialises in the history of crime and punishment. Drew is Head of Subject for Culture (Humanities, Media, & Performance) at the University of Northampton and teaches modules on both the History and Criminology programmes. His previous works include Murder Maps: Crime Scenes Revisited; Phrenology to Fingerprint 1811-1911 and London's Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City.

That's one helluva CV. The gent knows how to present the facts and images in tandem, all illustrated books from him to date, so why would this one fail? Spoiler: It doesn't.

The history of crime, the historical context of punishment, the social context of these dark patches of London's history aren't exhaustively explored in this handsome gift book. I felt the illustrations were well-chosen and -presented; but sometimes pulled well above their weight in explication of societal details. I can't give full five stars because I was niggled by this, despite this being the book's literal purpose for being an illustrated overview.

We all have a well-loved ghoul somewhere on our gifting list. Someone who really enjoys the frisson of crime and punishment, who wants that extra thrill of knowing what humans are capable of...and this is the book for them. It's also very much a book for your Londonphile/Anglophile giftee. I think you, faithful reader, might like it for your own coffee table.

Here, look at some of the more than a hundred images:

contents

punishment

murder

spooky stuff

humanitarian harms done

A very nice gifting idea for Yule...especially suitable for the Goth nibling/grandchild.

THE WORLDS OF JANE AUSTEN: The Influences and Inspiration Behind the Novels, celebrating 250 years of the beloved authoress

THE WORLDS OF JANE AUSTEN: The Influences and Inspiration Behind the Novels
HELENA KELLY
Frances Lincoln Ltd (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$35.00 any edition, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Explore the extraordinary life of Jane Austen in this fresh and engaging guide that reveals the real woman behind the beloved novels. Featuring expert insight, new research and over 150 photographs and illustrations, this is an essential companion for long-time admirers and first-time readers alike.

Despite the tranquil, even cosy, image of Austen and her work that still lingers in the popular imagination, her life in fact coincided with a period of intense, immense change, what is still sometimes called the Age of Revolutions. The American Revolutionary War began the year of her birth. By her eighth birthday, Britain had been forced to formally recognise the existence of the United States. The French Revolution broke out in 1789, when she was thirteen, and came close to her family: Austen’s cousin Eliza’s French husband died under the guillotine. When she was 22, there was an uprising in Ireland. All through Austen’s teenage years and her early adulthood, the old certainties were being subjected to challenge, new ideas were springing up—about democracy and freedom, about slavery, about poetry, about the position of women.

The Worlds of Jane Austen invites readers to see one of Britain’s most beloved authors in a completely new light. Far from the quiet world of country houses and tea parties, Austen lived through revolution, war and major social change, and her sharp, observant fiction reveals just how engaged she was with the issues of her time.

This lively and accessible guide features expert insight from bestselling author Helena Kelly alongside its over 150 photographs, artworks and illustrations that bring her world vividly to life.

Whether you are discovering Austen for the first time or returning to her novels with fresh eyes, The Worlds of Jane Austen is the perfect companion for curious readers, literature lovers and admirers of classic storytelling.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Jane Austen's 250th birthday is 16 December 2025. If you're among her legions of fans, celebrate joyously; if you're like me (mildly interested, not much bothered to be pro or con), remember how many of your friends love her and her stories...and take this as your cue to add this book to their Yule gifts.

the table of contents...we're going a lot of places!

I'm pretty sure any Janeite would like this as a coffee-table book, as a conversation piece, an ornament...but it's definitely got more than slick prettiness at its heart.

chapter one's opening spread...you see where the book's headed

It's going to be a read, not just a look-and-lust, book, with information abour Austen, about the world around her, about the way she and her English people lived.

the French Revolution happened when Austen was thirteen

In bringing the times of Austen's life into focus, the text is maybe a bit less thrilling than the images, but that's an old guy with tons of history reading behind him. No matter your level of knowledge about the times, you'll find interesting nuggets and fun details to commit to memory. The images of Austen's more local sights are so deeply evocative as to be cultural icons in their own right.

the eternal, fixed image of "English countryside"...thanks in part to Austen

The author doesn't dwell on or avoid controversies rampant in Austen's time. It's astounding to me that we can criticize the decisions about what to write about made by a two-hundred-eight-years-dead woman without even slightly critiquing modern political figures' elisions and silences.

when many in Austen's circle profited from slavery, is it any wonder she kept quiet about it?

I don't think Austen was to be reasonably held to our standards not because she was Above Criticism as a Genius, but because we are not capable of understanding how it felt, what pressures there were on her to need to write for a wide audience as a woman in a terribly repressive patriarchal system. (And NO this not remotely similar to today's repressive patriarchal system any more than it is similar to Classical Athenian or Roman patriarchal systems. Every era has its own iteration of the same horrors.)

That she never addressed the widespread abolition movement even tangentially is not, to my mind at least, to be accounted a failure on her part. It was a choice made for her own reasons that you and I don't and can't know or feel. Your or my response to those things not discussed are our impositions onto a past we cannot reasonably judge.

We can, and should, judge the art; we can, and should, judge the artistry inspired in the centuries since her death. This overview-with-illustrations is a very good way to experience the roots of the culture's enduring love for All Things Austen.

a few images from films or shows inspired by the storyverse of Jane Austen

FRIDA KAHLO'S LOVE LETTERS, passionate Love for others in her own words

FRIDA KAHLO'S LOVE LETTERS
SUZANNE BARBEZAT
Frances Lincoln Ltd (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$24.00 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: ‘I don’t know how to write love letters. But I wanted to tell you that my whole being opened for you. Since I fell in love with you everything is transformed and is full of beauty . . . love is like an aroma, like a current, like rain’

Frida Kahlo lived a passionate life and the letters shared between her and those she loved are an intimate insight into her life. Letters were sent to her first love, Alejandro Gomez Arias, and to her husband Diego Rivera. But she wrote declarations of love to many others, including Leon Trotsky, Nickolas Muray and Jose Bartoli.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Is somebody, other than the spy agencies, archiving people's emails? I doubt a book like this will be possible to collect in thirty years. That makes me sad.

It's lovely to have this peek into Frida's life of love.

who we're talkin' about
I deliberately said it that way because "love life" carries an entirely different meaning in English. I think no one exemplifies a "life of love" better than wounded, damaged Kahlo. Her many surgeries, her intense pain after the accident that mangled her, the earliness of her death...she was FORTY-SEVEN! I mean, I knew she was too young to die, but that's barely middle age!...all conspired to keep her isolated. It was inevitable. No wonder her artwork is a riot of color, is so intensely involved in portraying volumes in space...it had to be, or she'd go mad. Madder.

Frida in 1926, pre-accident
How I wish she'd lived in the time of the internet. How grateful I am that she didn't. It's like wishing her accident never happened, or she was not so severely broken by it...she wouldn't have been herself, then. Would we know of her as the monadnock of art she is had she not been made famous for overcoming her physical disadvantages? 17 September 1925 ruined one life, opened another. From the life before, her love letters to Alejandro Gómez Arias show a callow, intense crush on this handsome guy:

hubba hubba! me likee!
...who, to be honest, is very crushwortthy on value of face. The letters are, well, those of a young, very young, woman finding out about this amazing thing called Love:

It's the sort of thing that causes some people to insist their papers be burned after their death. I'm not sure that's wrong of them. After all, outpourings of Love are utterly cringe if you're not also in love; sometimes even if you are, but in a good way then.

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of Frida's letters as an object, and as per usual give Frances Lincoln Ltd's designers big ups for their presentation. I understand this is a gift object. I would give it five of five stars if it had included some of the responses the recipients returned. I'm not al all sure that would've been the same book, of course, so that's why I got as close to the full five as I did. I'm quite sure I'd gift this to my lesbian pal (she's still iconic among us, despite the careful heteronormativity of this selection), or my Frida freak cousin, or just pretend I'll give it to someone and end up keeping it on my coffee table for people to flip through.

It's two hours well-spent learning about the close relationship between a gifted artist's openness to Love, and her creative intensity. This was a spirit not to be trapped, not to be bound, not to be trammelled; this was a woman who Loved where she would, who she would.