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Kate Macdonald

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Mo Moulton, Mutual Admiration Society

The subtitle of this impressively large group biography makes a big claim: 'How Dorothy L Sayers and her Oxford Circle remade the world for women'. The publishers have latched onto the most obviously marketable aspect of the book - the selling power of Dorothy L Sayers' name and life - and thus skewed the reader's … Continue reading Mo Moulton, Mutual Admiration Society →

Kate 21stC, biography, community life, letters, literary history, middlebrow, Mo Moulton, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, the life of the times, the world of work, theatreland 3 Comments December 6, 2019

Isabella Tree’s Wilding and Tim Flannery’s Europe

These two books about European natural processes are curiously connected, though I had no suspicion of this when I bought them. I was obviously in the mood for a sustained period of browsing on ancient species ecology and the prospects for reversing the mass extinctions caused by people. Looking for hope in the face of … Continue reading Isabella Tree’s Wilding and Tim Flannery’s Europe →

Kate 21stC, baroque and dramatic, community life, Isabella Tree, memoirs / diaries, nature, outdoor adventure, political / social commentary, science, sociology, the life of the times, Tim Flannery, time travel Leave a comment November 27, 2019

To the recycling!

Another in my popular series of mini reviews in which I grumble about books on a scale from furious bitterness to indifference. You can read more of these, and find links to others, here. Today I clear out the books on the meh end. Susan Schwartz, Byzantium's Crown I enjoyed the premise for this fantasy … Continue reading To the recycling! →

Kate 20thC, 21stC, community life, detective, fantasy, historical romance, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, science fiction 4 Comments November 5, 2019November 5, 2019

Hong Kong: stories from within

This is not a book review, but a distribution post. A Hong Kong friend has been collecting publicly available blog posts, articles and Tweet threads written by people who have been caught up in the protests in Hong Kong this year. We've presented them here to help spread the word more widely in the anglophone … Continue reading Hong Kong: stories from within →

Kate 21stC, community life, essays, political / social commentary, the life of the times, the world of work, translation 3 Comments October 14, 2019October 14, 2019

Kathleen Jamie, Surfacing

Kathleen Jamie is a poet, but it's a curious thing: she never speaks about her poetry in her essays. I've read and reread her earlier collections Findings and Sightlines, and I've drenched myself in her new essays in Surfacing now a couple of times, but it's only just occurred to me that if you only come to Jamie … Continue reading Kathleen Jamie, Surfacing →

Kate 21stC, animals, archaeology, community life, essays, history, Kathleen Jamie, memoirs / diaries, nature, outdoor adventure, political / social commentary, sea stories, the world of work, travelogue 3 Comments September 16, 2019

Mary Kelly, The Spoilt Kill

This is a tremendous crime thriller from 1961, that won the Crime Writers' Association Critics' Award for that year. Mary Kelly went on to write more detective novels, but somehow her name has disappeared from sight. Crime fiction historian Martin Edwards says that she stopped writing fiction in her forties, because she chose when and what … Continue reading Mary Kelly, The Spoilt Kill →

Kate 20thC, community life, detective, family saga, fine art, Mary Kelly, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, sociology, the life of the times, the world of work, thriller 4 Comments September 8, 2019

Christina Dalcher, Vox

Update: Vox won the Goldsboro Glass Bell Award on 16 September 2019! The title of this very good thriller is a little misleading: the word 'Vox' (Latin for the voice of, as in 'vox populi', the voice of the people), doesn't appear anywhere in the novel. I was hoping for some time that it would … Continue reading Christina Dalcher, Vox →

Kate 21stC, Christina Dalcher, dystopia, Margaret Atwood, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, science, science fiction, sociology, technology, the life of the times, thriller, vaguely horror Leave a comment August 11, 2019September 17, 2019

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  • Mo Moulton, Mutual Admiration Society
  • Isabella Tree’s Wilding and Tim Flannery’s Europe
  • To the recycling!
  • Hong Kong: stories from within
  • Kathleen Jamie, Surfacing
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Top Posts & Pages

  • Mo Moulton, Mutual Admiration Society
    Mo Moulton, Mutual Admiration Society
  • The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser
    The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser
  • Working is good for you: Louisa May Alcott's An Old-Fashioned Girl
    Working is good for you: Louisa May Alcott's An Old-Fashioned Girl
  • The performances of Roderick Alleyn: Ngaio Marsh at her best
    The performances of Roderick Alleyn: Ngaio Marsh at her best
  • About
    About
  • The Virginia Woolf industry is a problem
    The Virginia Woolf industry is a problem
  • Selective history in Geoffrey Trease's The Crown of Violet
    Selective history in Geoffrey Trease's The Crown of Violet
  • Dorothy Richardson's Pointed Roofs
    Dorothy Richardson's Pointed Roofs
  • Gene Wolfe's The Shadow of the Torturer
    Gene Wolfe's The Shadow of the Torturer
  • Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes
    Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes

this is what I write about

1920s 1930s 1950s 1960s aliens Angela Thirkell archaeology art Barbara Pym biography birds detection Dornford Yates Dorothy Richardson drinking family life fantasy farming fashion fast cars feminism First World War France gender Germany Harry Potter H G Wells history Home Front immigration Ireland John Buchan John Lehmann journalism King Arthur literary history London magic Mapp and Lucia memoir middlebrow murder music Naomi Mitchison nature newspapers New York opera Paris Penguin New Writing poetry politics post-war poverty publishing Rivers of London romance satire science science fiction Scotland Second World War small-town America space opera Suffragettes swords Terry Pratchett translation travel village life Vulpes Libris Wales wartime witchcraft witches

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