Sunday, October 30, 2011

The London College of Communication

This time we will give you some information about the London College of Communication (LCC), which is the part of The University of the Arts London. The University offer students an exciting mix of high quality courses and strong links with the commercial and cultural activities. The Institute provides opportunities for study at all levels from access and national diploma to BA, MA and PhD. It offer courses in a range of fields from the fine and applied arts to conservation, fashion design, journalism and advertising.


The LCC has around 5,000 students, of all ages and from a variety of backgrounds and cultures. It has a great community atmosphere in a busy, stimulating environment where students play an active part in course development. Many courses offer field trips or work experience to complement your college-based learning programme.

Phaidon Press, the publisher for all art lovers

Phaidon Press is the world’s leading publisher of books on the visual arts, with offices in London, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, Milan, New York and Tokyo, and distributors worldwide. It has had a long and fascinating history, as recorded by art historian Nigel Spivey for Phaidon's 75th anniversary in 1998.

One of very recognizable book covers from the Phaidon Press

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Modern Fiction: Until TheDawn’s Light, By Aharon Appelfeld

Almost is the operative word here. From the novel’s opening lines, we sense the pain and urgency behind Blanca’s flight. In Aharon Appelfeld’s characteristic manner — that is, with a deftness that allows single words to suggest volumes of emotional complication — he draws us into this young mother’s story and makes us wonder what she’s fleeing from, and to. The answers to those questions constitute both the story line and the sociohistorical backdrop of this remarkable novel, expertly translated by Jeffrey M. Green.


Soon after the novel begins, Blanca and Otto reach a safe haven of sorts, a small vine-covered cottage in a village beside a broad river. As they rest from their travels, Blanca begins a memoir for her son. Driven by a desire to tell her painful story, and to exculpate herself from her increasingly grave misdeeds, she pieces together the events of the past five years of her life. She is, we learn, the daughter of Jewish parents: a frustrated would-be mathematician turned shopkeeper, and a loving mother whose chronic illness overshadowed much of Blanca’s childhood. Both parents lost some element of their connection to Judaism early on, though it was her father who more willfully cut those ties. Blanca’s maternal grandmother, on the other hand, is the town’s most passionate upholder of the faith. When the local synagogue closes its doors because so many congregants have converted, Grandma Carole stations herself on the steps and condemns the apostates at the top of her lungs, calling down the fire of God upon them.
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