The Pinecone

A riveting biography of—simultaneously—the fascinating Sarah Losh, her family, her place, and her works. Brilliantly done, and it made me want to go to Wreay and see Sarah's creations.

This was a densely detailed book, so detailed that Sarah Losh nearly gets lost in it. The fact that her journals were lost and papers she burned most of her papers makes it difficult to know what she was thinking when she designed and built her buildings. You have to rely on what the people of Carlisle, Wreay, and her extended family remembered and had written about her either in official village or town business or any surviving paperwork held by her family who appeared to be very good at destroying paperwork. She was forgotten by all but those in the Wreay area and the Losh library was broken up with not much of the Losh house still standing. I learned from the book, had some "really? you've got to be joking" moments, and have a few show more words whose definitions I have to look up. show less

While I enjoyed this biography, the actual amount of biography of Sarah Losh was relatively small. No doubt this was a result of not having diaries and other personal documents to use as source material. There was a lot of information which was provided to give the background and to fill in the picture of her life.

There appeared to be only one portrait of Sarah Losh and this too highlighted the difficulty of writing a biography without the photographic sources which many biographers of more recent subjects have. I wished there were more pictures of the church she built at Wreay as this was her most important work - one full page photo of the nave of the church would have given a better impression for the reader.

This biography is show more well-written and therefore easy to read in spite of a lot of detail. The family tree was invaluable and I referred to it many times. show less

This is a First Reads for me - I won this as a Giveaway.

I was intrigued about this woman - another Sarah living a life in another time, building a very unusual church before women could officially be architects.

The idea was more romantic than the actual writing down of it. The illustrations in the book were very helpful, but larger pictures would have helped me visualize this church better. I struggled with really seeing this church in my mind with all of the odd and unique designs.

This book was filled with characters and I struggled with that, also. I was grateful for the family tree that was included in the book, but I never was able to get the names straight and really remember who was what. There seemed to be a lot of filler in the show more book. Good in the sense the author was trying to give us background of the times, but there was often so much information that I found myself drifting in and out as I'm reading through this.

I enjoy non-fiction. Non-fiction can be a bit difficult to read but informative, and I like to read about things I did not even know existed - like this church, for instance. However, I had a hard time following the story of Sarah Losh. So much of her life history was lost when she burned her papers before her death and the author went into detail about other people in her life to make up for this shortage. I'm also not British and I struggled with the places, trying to figure out where exactly this place is and where all these other towns are. There is a map and I studied it, but it wasn't enough for me.

At the end, I was still confused about what exactly this church was like and who all of these people were and I had difficulty getting through all of it. show less