Erskine Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands

The Riddle of the Sands was published in May 1903, and it has probably sold more than two million copies in its lifetime. Its author Erskine Childers was infuriated when it was described as fiction, because for him the issue of a probable German invasion by sea was real and the danger obvious. Many reviewers at … Continue reading Erskine Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands →

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell revisited

I haven’t seen the TV series yet (I’ve been away from home; the recordings are waiting), but precisely because I’ve been away from home, I’ve had time to reread the 800pp door-stop boot-thumper novel Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (2004) that made Neil Gaiman mutter about Susanna Clarke taking to writing like a novice musician sitting … Continue reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell revisited →

The stratagems of aristocratic survival, in Colette’s Julie de Carneilhan

This week's letter is C, and today’s author is Colette. Julie de Carneilhan was published in 1941, reprinted by Penguin in the 1950s in an English translation by Patrick Leigh Fermor. Apparently it was filmed in 1950, and in 1990. Leigh Fermor’s translation is over 60 years old now, as timeless as the novel itself, but also not modern; there’s … Continue reading The stratagems of aristocratic survival, in Colette’s Julie de Carneilhan →

The loucheness of the conservative novelist: Angela Thirkell writes about camp

Here's an extract from my next book, due out in July. This bit is about how Angela Thirkell, that most proper and dictatorial enforcer of correct social behaviour in her novels from the 1930s to the 1950s, let herself go when chortling with the girls about sex. Thirkell’s great lesbian creations of Miss Hampton and … Continue reading The loucheness of the conservative novelist: Angela Thirkell writes about camp →

Policing the supernatural, with Ben Aaronovitch’s Peter Grant series

If you like the idea of a policeman who uses magic, give Ben Aaronovitch's series a try. If you loved Lindsey Davis's Falco, the Marlowe-channelling detective from Ancient Rome, but want something a bit more contemporary, Peter Grant is your man. If you like the idea of a series that references Harry Potter characters as … Continue reading Policing the supernatural, with Ben Aaronovitch’s Peter Grant series →

The glory days of Edward Leithen: John Macnab and The Gap in the Curtain

I‘ve been working on John Buchan, on and off, for about thirty years. After the first ten years I went a bit stale. I was bored with his most famous character, Richard Hannay, and with The Thirty-Nine Steps, his most famous novel. I was even more bored of people not being interested in reading anything … Continue reading The glory days of Edward Leithen: John Macnab and The Gap in the Curtain →

Vintage knitting with Paton’s and Baldwins’ Woolcraft

This was one of my grandmother's knitting books. It dates from the later 1920s, and she kept it all her life, probably because she (her name was Kathleen Matthews, née Fare) was a countrywoman who made do and mended for her children, grand-children, nieces and nephews and half the village. She was certainly a fine knitter, … Continue reading Vintage knitting with Paton’s and Baldwins’ Woolcraft →

Margery Allingham’s The Beckoning Lady

This is the first podcast script for the first podcast series I produced, on an A to Z of authors I really like. Looking for Author A was tough: Asimov, von Arnim, Austen, Alcott, Aaronovitch and Adams stare at me pleadingly from the bookshelf, but the English detective novelist Margery Allingham has the most shelf centimetres. She … Continue reading Margery Allingham’s The Beckoning Lady →

Now posting on Vulpes Libris: Jim Carruth’s Killochries

It's Poetry Week for Vulpes Libris, so how happy was I that I had a beautiful new poem about mucking out the byre to write about. Jim Carruth's Killochries is simply lovely to read, taking no more than an evening, maybe even a longish train commute. Short lines, fine words, the story of a messed-up man sent by his … Continue reading Now posting on Vulpes Libris: Jim Carruth’s Killochries →

The silence of the persecutors in Dorothy Edwards’ Rhapsody

The stories in Dorothy Edwards’ collection Rhapsody (1927) are short and slight, and had been completely forgotten twice over. This acclaimed but lamentably not very prolific author was enthusiastically adopted by Bloomsbury who recognised an affinity with Katherine Mansfield in her faux-naif narrative style, but then edged her out when she didn’t obey their rules and started … Continue reading The silence of the persecutors in Dorothy Edwards’ Rhapsody →