Bear with me as I tell you of Edmund de Waal's Journey Into Obsession along The White Road. On the face of it a book about the history of porcelain is not going to excite anyone outside of a geriatric antiques daytime TV game show but de Waal's obsession is altogether more poetic and, frankly, a little off the wall. What he, and clearly others, have found is the depth of passion that the art and science of the highly prized individually thrown art objects, and equally a lot of mass produced humble domestic utilitarian objects, has inspired.
It starts in China, of course, but in the middle of this road is central Europe (in Germany and France particularly) and he then travels to the mining county of Cornwall via America. Fresh research and the perspective of a minimalist potter make this pretty much his own genre. A suitable sequel to the Hare with Amber Eyes.
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