Islington Reads: September 2023

Everyone is invited to the next meeting of Islington Reads on September 26, 2023 at 7 pm in the Sanctuary with the author. The author is C. S. Richardson and the book is All The Colour in the World. We will be recording it but it will not be available on Zoom.

All books discussed at Islington Reads are available for purchase at A Novel Spot Bookshop. A limited number are available from the church library. Please contact Anne Marriott at anne.marriott@gmail.com if you need to borrow a copy of the book.

A synopsis of the book is available below:

Henry, born 1916, thin-as-sticks, nearsighted, is an obsessive doodler—copying illustrations from his Boy’s Own magazines. Left in the care of a nurturing, Shakespeare-quoting grandmother, eight-year-old Henry receives as a gift his first set of colouring pencils (and a pocket knife for the sharpening). As he commits these colours to memory—cadmium yellow; burnt ochre; deep scarlet red—a passion for art, colour, and the stories of the great artists takes hold, and becomes Henry’s unique way of seeing the world. It is a passion that will both haunt and sustain him on his journey through the century: from boyhood dreams on a summer beach to the hothouse of art academia and a love cut short by tragedy; from the psychological wounds of war to the redemption of unexpected love.

Projected against a backdrop of iconic masterpieces—from the rich hues of the European masters to the technicolour magic of Hollywood—All the Colour in the World is Henry’s story: part miscellany, part memory palace, exquisitely precise with the emotional sweep of a great moment.