The Seaside: England’s Love Affair
£11.90£19.00 (-37%)
“…a fascinating barometer of the state of the nation right now, in the wake of austerity, Brexit and Covid.” – Travis Elborough
England’s seaside is made up of a striking variety of coastlines including cliffs, coves, pebbled shore, wide sandy beaches, salt marshes, and estuaries cutting deep inland. On these coastal edges England’s great holiday resorts grew up, developed in the early eighteenth century originally as spas for medicinal bathing but soon morphing into places of pleasure, entertainment, fantasy and adventure.
Acclaimed writer Madeleine Bunting journeyed clockwise around England from Scarborough to Blackpool to understand the enduring appeal of seaside towns, and what has happened to the golden sands, cold seas and donkey rides of childhood memory. Taking in some forty resorts, staying in hotels, caravans and holiday camps, she swims from their beaches and talks to their residents to delve into their landscapes, histories and contemporary plight.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Granta Books (4 May 2023) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Hardcover | 400 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1783787171 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1783787173 |
| Dimensions | 15.3 x 2.8 x 23.4 cm |
by Lynnski
The book was a disappointment as soon as I opened it. Cheap paper, all text with no pictures. I was expecting photographs of each resort in it’s hey day and the sort of book to have on your coffee table. I live in Gt. Yarmouth and it’s not even in the book! I sent it back the same day.
by Damon Hampson
In this beautifully written book, Madeline Bunting offers part travelogue, part social and cultural history of the English seaside. In a welcome contrast to Paul Theroux’s classic but acerbic view of the English coast in “The Kingdom By The Sea” (which the author references) Bunting not only shines a light on the urgent challenges facing many English seaside towns, but reminds us why they are a source of enduring fascination and popularity in the first place.
by Auribus
This cogently written impassioned book should be required reading for all MPs representing coastal resorts as investment in infrastructure projects is all very well but it has to go hand in hand with improving health and education inequalities as well as alleviating poverty and deprivation.
The author cites places where the arts have been used to stimulate regeneration such as the Turner Contemporary Arts Gallery in Margate. The danger is though that it can lead to the gentrification of certain areas of coastal towns whilst not addressing the deeply entrenched social divisions. Using the arts can be beneficial but it has to have a broad appeal and not just cater to the middle and high brow middle classes.
Skegness has the annual SO Festival which is great but that is only for two days a year. If the levelling up funding is used wisely to redevelop the foreshore then the hope is that it will bring long term benefits to the whole community but there is much work to be done for that to happen.
by J Whitgift
When the English think if the seaside, they think of sun, sea and ice cream. Of summer holidays, arcade games, fish and chips, and family run B&Bs. This book captures some of that vision, but only as a passing dream which has been replaced by deprivation and neglect.
An interesting read if you are interested in the politics and effects of longterm neglect and social change, but not if you’re more interested in reflecting on past memories of Blackpool. If you are looking for the latter then unfortunately you will be disappointed by this book.
by C. Davis
I’ve spent a lot of time in coastal resorts so was looking forward to this unusual book. Unfortunately it was a dismal read and I ended up flick reading many of the chapters. The author was particularly unkind about Weston-super-Mare and failed to notice its thriving art and live music scene.
by Wyn Grant
Very well written book, if unavoidably a little sad, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not sure what the answers are for fading resorts.
by Sidney Sussex
What a depressing book – an unremitting picture of deprivation and decay. The author’s political leanings are paraded in every chapter which becomes tiresome even when you agree – and her editor should have spotted the overuse of the word ‘liminal’ which is irritating. Disappointing but not one for me I’m afraid . . .
by John Copeland
The author visits all manner of seaside resorts, but the text is boring, nearly every restort having similar characterstics. Writtn in the first person, the book follows various towns that have seen better days. Each resort has a detailed history, followed by a session of the author swmiing in the sea, ending up with fish and chips in a pub talking to the locals. It would have been far better if the book had been written in a thematic approach: Hisoty (limited), present day economic considerations; and the Future. A most dreary book that I gave up reading after 150 pages being unable to bear any more. There are equally dull black and white photographs to accomany the dreary text. Not recommended.