Description Share Post The Flickering Fires Grahame Baker-Smith (Templar Books) Although Solvieg’s island is ‘a place of frozen waterfalls and bitter wild wind‘ this place is one with a history that springs from The Flickering Fires. Thereafter, as Grahame Baker-Smith did with other titles in this Earth series, like The Rhythm of the Rain, we’re introduced to a vital element’s role through history. We see how early humans used fire for cooking. They crafted tools to create it, in fact to ‘humble it in hearths’ and share stories about it. Furthermore, we realise how once tamed, firelight offered a chance to explore, to bring ‘light to once-dark caves‘. Then again, didn’t this element bring warmth? A chance for conversation, community? We journey from early discoverers through the Stone Age, Bronze and Iron Ages, realising how fire was fundamental to discovery and progress. In fact, didn’t prehistory offer mankind so much fuel that we moved ‘from charcoal kiln to blast furnace’? Then, from ‘pottery and gunpowder‘ onward to ‘mobile phones, computers, the internet’ and beyond? However where did it all begin? How was our planet touched by a fuel burst from night skies? Bookwagon is enthralled by The Flickering Fires. This visual history is a vast realisation, an exploration of might and wonder. We recommend this book hugely.
