Description
Book Synopsis
Since the early 1970s, Marina Warner has been one of the most challenging, subtle and profound commentators on the culture of past and present, unravelling our webs of images, ideas and beliefs, and making new and provocative connections.
This resonant collection draws together essays written over twenty-five years, offering a wide-ranging retrospective of her developing ideas. Whether writing on Vietnam, Mrs Thatcher, the dollar sign and the twin towers, Queen Elizabeth I and incest, weeping Madonnas, zombies or fairytales, Marian Warner displays a rare gift for blending historical and anthropological insights with deft and perceptive readings on individual works.
Trade Review
Marina Warner's essays and lectures reveal a consistently honest and agile mind preoccupied with the powerful controlling fictions of our lives * Observer *
She's a weaver of enchantments, each sentence a silken knot charming you further into her web of meanings * Independent on Sunday *
Clever, witty, erudite and, above all, usefully explanatory, these signs and wonders are a literary cabinet of curiosities for our sadly desultory times -- Alberto Manguel * Sunday Times *
As a leading explorer of a largely unchartered territory, Marina Warner is an impressive, inspiring but never intimidating guide -- Peter Stanford * Independent *
She is a terrific writer and an original scholar -- Victoria Glendinning * Daily Telegraph *
