William Golding, The Double Tongue

For two years I've been writing a novel which involves some Greek mythological figures (my agent [still a new enough relationship for it to feel quite unreal] is going to send me final revision notes next week). Naturally I have been avoiding reading new fiction about Greek mythology, because I don't want to inadvertently poach, … Continue reading William Golding, The Double Tongue →

Bryher, Gate to the Sea

Bryher is a pen name. It's taken from one of the Scilly Isles, where the novelist Annie Ellerman once went on holiday and loved it. She was a shipping heiress, and lived in Switzerland with her husband Kenneth Macpherson and her lover Hilda Doolittle (the writer H D). She was a novelist and a patron … Continue reading Bryher, Gate to the Sea →

These I have quite liked

Here are short reviews of books I’ve liked recently, for your consideration. Georgette Heyer, Royal Escape (1938) This is not a Regency romance, and it’s possibly the weakest of her historical reconstructions, but I liked it enough to keep reading, simply because I don’t know the history of Charles II's escape from the Battle of … Continue reading These I have quite liked →

Penguin New Writing 28: Summer 1946

The stories in this issue of John Lehmann's Penguin New Writing are pretty grim, but the photographs and artwork lighten the mood. In his introduction Lehmann talks about the 'young men and women who for six years had lived on dreams of devoting their time and energies to writing ... I would take a bet that most … Continue reading Penguin New Writing 28: Summer 1946 →

Naomi Mitchison’s The Blood of the Martyrs

This time, in the Really Like This Book podcast scripts catch-up, I’m in Ancient Rome, rereading Naomi Mitchison’s excellent novel about very early Christians in the reign of the Emperor Nero, The Blood of the Martyrs, from 1939. You can probably guess the ending already from the clues in the title, but, trust me: it may be … Continue reading Naomi Mitchison’s The Blood of the Martyrs →

Naomi and Nicola cause a stir

This weekend, I lost what was happening in the rest of my world because I was immersed in the first Historical Fictions Research Network conference, in Cambridge at Anglia Ruskin University. The CFP for the second one, in February 2017 at the National Maritime Museum in London, will be sent out in the next week or so. There are conferences … Continue reading Naomi and Nicola cause a stir →

T H White’s The Once and Future King

In this Really Like This Book podcast script catch-up from the King Arthur mini-series, I’m going to pause briefly to remind you that Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur is the main source for modern retellings of the stories about King Arthur. The best twentieth-century retelling, in my considered opinion, is the tetralogy by T H White called The Once … Continue reading T H White’s The Once and Future King →

The Golden Age of Murder

Martin Edwards' The Golden Age of Murder is a fat and heavy hardback (the paperback is due out in 2016) endorsed by Len Deighton, as a study of the British writers who created the Golden Age of detective fiction in the 1920s and 1930s. It’s an absolute treasure chest of writers’ names and novels that have … Continue reading The Golden Age of Murder →

The two biographies of Naomi Mitchison

I’ve read two biographies of Naomi Mitchison in the past week (working up some conference papers). Both lean very heavily on Mitchison's published memoirs, and note that her record of her interwar life, You May Well Ask (1979), is deliberately vague about some important matters. Jill Benton’s Naomi Mitchison. A Biography (1990) is both rather too personal and unsettlingly … Continue reading The two biographies of Naomi Mitchison →

A homosexual sf future wrestling with political ecology: Naomi Mitchison’s Solution Three

If you like elliptical, immersive, euphemistic strangeness in your science-fiction narrative, this novel is for you. Published in 1975, Naomi Mitchison's Solution Three retains some slang that was archaic even then, like ‘cat’ for person, which made this reader jump, and certainly adds to the strangeness in the dialogue. Could you ever empathise with a … Continue reading A homosexual sf future wrestling with political ecology: Naomi Mitchison’s Solution Three →