Paul Pindar
Posted on | June 25, 2010 | 2 Comments
25th June, 2010
The most extraordinary thing happened to me yesterday.
I have been in an email correspondence with a man who is an expert on Jacobean furniture, and to whom Paul Pindar’s house, that amazing carved oak front which is no so beautifully on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum, is well known.
He sent me a picture of an engraving of the interior of the house, which I had never seen. So there I was, on the 53 bus, suddenly looking into Paul Pindar’s sitting room. What a strange and wonderful experience that was.
The only thing I have ever known like it is when I went to the Bodleian Library to look up Paul Pindar’s book bequest, one of the earliest ever made to the then nascent Bodelian (the eponymous Thomas Bodley was obviously a friend of Pindar’s ) only to find that all the books he had bequeathed the library were early seventeenth century astronomical texts.
I had conceived the idea of the character of Jamal al-Andalus, the Arab astronomer who befriends and helps Pindar in the Aviary Gate, long before I ever knew this.
Strange how art so often imitates life.
Tags: Bodleian Libraries > Paul Pindar > The Aviary Gate > Victoria and Albert Museum
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‘Pindar Diamond’
'Forbidden love, sailors and secrets - fasten your seat belts for Hickman's period tome ... Think Jane Austen meets Pirates of the Carribean' In Style
The Aviary Gate
'A lush, ancient tale of treacherous secrets, forbidden love, and murder in an Ottoman palace.'
July 26th, 2010 @ 1:01 pm
I’ve just read ‘The Avaiary Gate’, which is now officially one of my all times favourite books, infact I enjoyed it so much that I promptly ordered ‘The Pinder Diamond’ which I’m now reading following it’s delivery this morning. One of my favourite words is ‘serendipity’ which is how I came by The Aviary Gate in the first place, so Pinders astronomical books are no surprise plus I’m a great believer in ‘things’ finding us rather than the other way around:)
Anyway I posted a review of The Avairy Gate on Good Reads and I’m hoping to get as many of my friends as possible to read your beautiful book.
August 13th, 2010 @ 5:23 pm
Thank you so much, Adrienne. That is one of the nicest comments I’ve ever had to one of my books. It’s readers like you that make it all worth while. Do let me know what you think of The Pindar Diamond. I’d love to know.