Yorkshire, Richard Morris
Yorkshire, Richard Morris
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

Yorkshire
A lyrical history of England's greatest county

Author: Richard Morris

Narrator: Sean Baker

Unabridged: 11 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/04/2019


Synopsis

Yorkshire is 'a continent unto itself', a region where mountain, plain, coast, downs, fen and heath lie close. By weaving history, family stories, travelogue and ecology, Richard Morris reveals how Yorkshire took shape as a landscape and in literature, legend and popular regard. The result is a fascinating and wide-ranging meditation on Yorkshire and Yorkshireness, told through the prism of the region's most extraordinary people and places.

About Richard Morris

Richard Morris (b. 1947) is an archaeologist and historian. He grew up in north Worcestershire and began his career working on excavations under York Minster. Among the themes in his writing are buildings and belief (Churches in the Landscape (1998); Evensong (2021)), place, identity and cultural memory (Time's Anvil (2013); Yorkshire (2018)), and aviation and its people. Dam Buster joins two earlier biographies - Guy Gibson (1994) and Cheshire: the Biography of Leonard Cheshire VC (2000) - which connect in the world of flight and the deeds of No. 617 Squadron RAF.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jo-anne

It's England's largest county and one whose history encompasses every era of time. From the prehistoric creatures and landscape to the very modern, this book takes a trip around the wonderful diversity that is Yorkshire. At times Morris talks about very personal family history and at other times mus......more

Goodreads review by Calum

Fantastic, the book blends the personal with the grand. It reminded me of Sunday afternoons with my grandad in the dales and he regaled me with a mix of local stories or described the different geographical makeup of the areas we would visit around gods own county.......more

Goodreads review by Jo

Morris starts his history of Yorkshire by talking about how it was formed geologically billions of years ago. This is a look at the history, topography and character of the largest county (combined) in the country. Fascinating and well-written.......more


Quotes

[A] restless, poetic, strange book, and the territory it describes deserves nothing less Observer

[A] quirky, personal history of the Ridings ... Making an idiosyncratic selection of events from prehistory to the present day, and using some charming passages of personal memoir, Morris subtly draws out patterns and recurring themes that may explain the county's distinctive history ... Morris writes insightfully not just about one county, but about how places become what they are Mail on Sunday

Reading the book is like watching the author sift through layers of time: whatever will he turn up next? ... There is a wealth of fascinating information - I'd not known, for example, that the fashion for naming houses 'Windyridge' (as both my father and grandfather called theirs) derived from the popularity of a 1912 novel of that title by Willie Riley Guardian

In this meticulously researched book, Richard Morris reveals Yorkshire and Yorkshireness through a series of extraordinary journeys and stories ... Particularly interesting is the juxtaposition of nature, culture, religion and politics and the way in which places are defined and shaped by geography and terrain ... Morris's description of the River Swale as glittering and energetic could be a metaphor for his own writing, which is itself relentlessly energetic ... Fascinating Country Life

Although it is one of the most diverse counties geographically, Yorkshire has always inspired a fierce loyalty among those born there, and it is this sense of place that is the subject of the fascinating Yorkshire Choice

Engrossing ... Aims to look beyond the Eee By Gum stereotypes to explore the intersections between Yorkshire's landscape, language and identity, and reflect too on how outsiders perceive the county The Bookseller

County histories have been around considerably longer than many of our present counties, but in that heavily populated landscape this is no ordinary book, and its author no ordinary writer ... With footnotes to do an academic paper proud, Morris constantly comes across stories that he can't leave alone, that he burrows into, finding new connections and insights and behind which, you imagine, often lie sufficient materials for books of their own British Archaeology

One of the most unusual and thought-provoking guides to the county's distant and recent past Craven Herald

[L]earned and gripping Who Do You Think You Are? magazine