Today’s letter in the first Really Like This Book's podcast A-Z series is H, and today’s author is Helene Hanff (1916-97), oh blessed be her name. She spent her life trying to become a Broadway playwright, and ended up writing a best-selling novel about her relationship with a London antiquarian bookshop from the 1940s to … Continue reading A life in books: Helene Hanff’s 84 Charing Cross Road
Category: Fanny Burney
Magnificently diabolical sexual politics in Jane Austen’s Lady Susan
This post is from my only Jane Austen podcast, because her tremendous novel-in-letters Lady Susan contains one of the truly great Appalling Women in British Fiction. We all enjoy a villain, but there is something particularly enjoyable about a female villain, especially when she’s written for readers who expect women to be pure, perfect, and positive. … Continue reading Magnificently diabolical sexual politics in Jane Austen’s Lady Susan