The Portico Library

Saturday Selection: On the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon, we bring you ‘The Moon: Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite’. This influential 1874 text on lunar geology was written by James Nasmyth and James Carpenter. It was one of the first books to be illustrated with photo-mechanical prints. However, very few of these photographs depict the actual moon, but instead show a series of hand-made plaster models based on Nasmyth’s drawings. Technical... limitations meant that the kind of close-range views he and Carpenter sought could only be achieved this way. Nasmyth, an amateur astronomer, had spent decades studying the moon through a large self-designed telescope, producing detailed maps and drawings of its surface, some of which appear as engravings in the book. ‘The Moon…’ also includes more conventional schematic diagrams and cross-sections of the lunar landscape, thus strengthening its claims to scientific ‘truthfulness’.
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Our current exhibition 'Making the News: Reading between the lines from Peterloo to Meskel Square' includes a short film by Sophie Broadgate of the public launch evening, where #Amharic speaking Manchester residents Binyam, Sara and Mas introduced the shared histories of St Peter’s Field and Meskel Square and interpreted artworks by Robel Temesgen.
The exhibition runs until 23rd September and is open daily except Sundays and bank holidays.
Making the News is part of a Manchester-wide programme of activities commemorating the bicentenary of the Peterloo Massacre, exploring themes of protest, democracy and freedom of speech.

Saturday Selection: With the @cricketworldcup final taking place tomorrow, we’re showcasing one of the Portico’s many sports-focused books from the 19th and early 20th-century. ‘The Game Of Cricket’ details the technique and protocol of cricket in inter-war Britain, and was a volume in The Lonsdale Library, a series that also included ‘Fox Hunting’, ‘Salmon Fishing from All Angles’, and ‘The Way Of A Man With A Horse’. The series was edited by Hugh Lowther, the 5th Earl of Lo...nsdale, who was known as “the yellow earl” on account of his fondness for the colour. The Automobile Association (AA), which he founded, still has a yellow livery today. His name was later given to the Lonsdale clothing brand and the Lonsdale cigar size. By the time this book was written, cricket had been established in Manchester for nearly 150 years. Manchester Cricket Club (later Lancashire County Cricket Club) was founded in 1816, playing on land adjacent to the Manchester Botanical Garden. In 1856, the club was paid £1000 to vacate the site, which had been identified as an ideal location for the Manchester Art and Treasures Exhibition. They moved to the “inferior location” of Old Trafford, where they have been based ever since.
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Materials for a lecture•pep-talk•sing-a-long•sermon :
Microphone and speakers Mic stand Head set mic... Curtain and stand Clips / cable ties Ladder Robe / dog collar Bib Dentist chair Suit Lectern GoPro Torch Laser pen Pointer / baton Reading glasses Monocle Water jug and glass Clicker - batteries AAA Karaoke outfit Clothes rail and hangers Handouts Cue cards Couch / chaise longue... and more!
Book here for Interjectional Exercises at The Portico Library, the third in our summer 2019 events series looking at #power, #democracy, #language and the #press, with Rowland Hill and Manifest Arts #ManifestArts19. Performed in English and British Sign Language #BSL.
www.theportico.org.uk/events
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Thanks Mas, Sara and Binyam for the illuminating introduction to some of the historical parallels between Manchester and Addis Ababa at our commemorative #Peterloo2019 exhibition launch on Thursday.
'Making the News: Reading between the lines, from Peterloo to Meskel Square' continues throughout The Portico Library's normal opening hours until 23 Sept 2019.
www.theportico.org.uk/exhibitions

Join us this evening at 6pm to commemorate the Peterloo Massacre which took place 200 years ago this summer, and explore how the press and the public conversation help shape our democracy. Reading, publishing and interpretation all play crucial roles in the struggle for power and representation, today as in 1819.
With new artworks by Robel Temesgen and an introduction to the graphic novel 'Peterloo: Witnesses to a Massacre' by Polyp, Shlunke and Poole, plus interpretations in... Amharic and English from local performers.
ማን እያወራ እንዳለ ይመልከቱ - Look who’s Talking, 6pm-8pm, Thursday 4 July, 2019.
#Peterloo2019 Manchester Histories New Internationalist People's History Museum Manchester Art Gallery #Amharic #Manchester
Thanks to Dr Robert Poole, Ellie Holly, Filine Wagner and Vivian Pencz. Supported by Slater Heelis.
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Turn-of-the-century American expatriate Elizabeth Robins Pennell did her best to convince readers on both sides of the Atlantic that cookery books were real literature and that “greedy women” ought to be celebrated, herself among them!
Hear these stories and others about American taste-making at our event this Friday 5 July at 18:30:
Tasting America: An Edible Literary History
... Alongside a lecture by our expert Michelle J. Coghlan we'll be serving succotash lettuce wraps, a mini chilli bowl with fresh corn tortillas and mini pumpkin pies. Also serving drinks at the bar, including bourbon and ginger beer. Dietary requirements accommodated for - just get in touch.
Book here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/tasting-am erica-an-edible-li…
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There’s one month left to apply to the #porticoprize! £10,000 will be awarded to the book that best evokes the spirit of the North of England. Open to poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Apply here: https://bit.ly/2VSOvjN

Saturday Selection: On June 29th 1613, William Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre burned down during a production of The Life Of Henry VIII (a.k.a. All Is True), a collaboration between Shakespeare and fellow playwright John Fletcher. The theatre's beams and thatched roof caught fire, following a cannon shot fired as a theatrical special effect. The Globe was rebuilt in 1614, and demolished in 1644, before being rebuilt again in 1997. The Portico has multiple editions of The Comple...te Works of Shakespeare, the oldest of which dates from 1765. Among the library’s oldest features are the circular portraits of Shakespeare and John Milton, which can be seen on either side of the library’s domed ceiling cupola. This is one of several allusions to Shakespeare strewn around 19th-century Manchester, including the Shakespeare pub on Fountain Street, the statue of Shakespeare above the entrance to the 1845 Theatre Royal (designed by Portico member Francis Chester), and the long-gone Shakespeare Street with its intersecting Romeo Street and Juliet Street.
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Rewriting the North: Manchester, Fiction & Rewriting the Past
TONIGHT at 6:30pm Rosie Lugosi + #LiviMichael talk about women, class, drawing inspiration from place and the special way Manchester reinvents itself. #LinnieBlake chairs the discussion before an audience Q&A session. Come along for Event 2 in our #rewritingthenorth series.
Creative Writers MMU Blackwell's Bookshop Manchester #porticoprize English at Manchester Met Comma Press Commonword Young Identity Internation...al Anthony Burgess Foundation Contact The Portico Sadie Massey Awards for Young Readers and Writers group
Book now: http://bit.ly/2Lnq3QX
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Thanks Northern Soul for previewing our exhibition 'Making the News: From Peterloo to Meskel Square' alongside other commemorative events at People's History Museum, Manchester Museum, MCDC - Manchester Craft & Design Centre and more.
Don't miss the exhibition's free launch event, ማን እያወራ እንዳለ ይመልከቱ - Look who’s Talking from 6pm on Thursday 4th July.

Next week! Join us for this performance in #Amharic and English by local residents responding to the work of Ethiopian artist Robel Temesgen.
First-language English speakers benefit from often unrecognised advantages around the world. What if the roles were reversed? For this event, Amharic-speaking Manchester residents interpret Ethiopian artist Robel Temesgen’s imagined newspaper headlines in their own words for English-speaking audiences – reconsidering the balance of power between publisher, reader, translator and listener in the age of fake news and ‘alternative facts’.
Free, booking required.

Saturday Selection: On June 22nd 1675, the Royal Observatory opened in Greenwich, later playing a major role in the history of astronomy and navigation, and lending its name to Greenwich Mean Time. James Glaischer (1809-1903) was Superintendent of the Department of Meteorology at Greenwich for 34 years, and, as a pioneering balloonist, ascended as high as 10,900 metres above sea-level to measure the temperature and humidity of the atmosphere. We’ve picked out two of Glaischer’s books; 1871’s ‘Travels In The Air’ and 1873’s ‘The Atmosphere’. Incidentally, June 22nd also marks the anniversary of the 1633 trial of the "father of observational astronomy" Galileo Galilei, who was convicted of heresy and forced to recant his view that the Earth orbits the sun.