Almanach - by Sharon Kivland (Paperback)

About the Book

A year in the life of a British artist and writer living in a French village. It is structured by the French Republican calendar and interrupted by other systems of time-managing mnemonics.

Book Synopsis

The year of Almanach is structured by the French Republican calendar and interrupted by other systems of time-managing mnemonics that have sought to perfect people in their own image.The resulting jump-cuts from images of plants and agricultural implements to the gory fates of saints and tips for making the best use of one's time prove fertile ground for the growth of meditations, speculations, and memories that are thought-provoking, often funny and seem determined not to let anyone, author included, off the hook. Kivland also considers how non-humans experience time and, through her relation of the tasks involved in gardening and food production, foregrounds how carrying these out 'at the right time' is becoming harder due to climate change.

Review Quotes

Sharon Kivland's wonderful Almanach is a joyous reanimation of the French Republican Calendar, rich in the sensory knowledge that comes from passionate attention to materials and materiality. It weaves the names and seasons of the historical text into a daily texture of incident and interaction, making them the filter for a perspective on contemporary global events, which are keenly observed through a history of unfinished revolutionary potential. A non-native terroir, where roots are for supporting others rather than fixing to a spot, is the terrain of a generous sociality extending beyond the human and into the vibrant temporalities of plants and animals. This radical porosity between times, places, and species sustains political hope at a moment when it is much needed. - ZOË SKOULDING

[This book] is a durational delight. Moving across its pages I feel the days passing, the seasons, time moving and also blurring, plus a strange desire to pluck out certain sentences and embroider them onto silk screens. I suppose this is because while Almanach is a book about time it is also absolutely a book about a place: this field, this house, this wine, these figs.Truly it is a delicious, tactile, heady thing. - DANIELLE DUTTON