Books I Want To Keep

I have read so many duds and books recently that I gave up on because their meh factor was way too high. These are the pearls in a bit of a swamp, the ones I actually finished. Bea Howe, Lady With The Green Fingers. The Life of Jane Loudon I rather unfairly only think of … Continue reading Books I Want To Keep →

The 1938 Club! Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop

This special podcast scripts recap from Why I Really like This Book, is on Scoop, Evelyn Waugh's magnificent satire about newspaper journalism. Scoop is also a member of The 1938 Club, a week of book reviews and blog posts about the reading of 1938, that's taking place between 11 and 17 April 2016. British journalism changed radically at … Continue reading The 1938 Club! Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop →

Evelyn Waugh’s Remote People

This short account of Evelyn Waugh’s travels in East and West Africa in 1930 is advertised in its new Penguin Modern Classics edition as ‘perhaps the funniest travel book ever written’. The ‘perhaps’ is well placed, because ‘funny’ is a matter of taste, ‘perhaps’ the taste of one who finds colonialism, racism and British Establishment … Continue reading Evelyn Waugh’s Remote People →

Noblesse Oblige 2: What Are U?

Mitfordians and class observers, be advised that Noblesse Oblige produced a sequel. That 1956 collection of essays edited by Nancy Mitford, subtitled ‘An Enquiry into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy’, spawned a sequel in 1969 called What Are U?, edited by her collaborator, Professor Alan Ross. Nancy Mitford's contributors were semi-serious and strongly literary, including John Betjeman and his immortal … Continue reading Noblesse Oblige 2: What Are U? →