I have been reading a lot in the last month, but haven't wanted to post Great Thoughts about any of the books, for various reasons: not good enough, a bit obvious, meh. Or, I'm actively pursuing the rights so I can republish them, so I am definitely not letting those cats out of the bag. … Continue reading Books That Made Me
Category: Virginia Woolf
Joanna Russ, How to Suppress Women’s Writing
This excellent book is the missing link (though obviously it hasn’t been missing at all to those who’ve known it for thirty years), between Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, and Mary Beard’s Women & Power. Published in 1983, it is a perfect blend of feminist insight and great intellectual clarity, and is a … Continue reading Joanna Russ, How to Suppress Women’s Writing
The Virginia Woolf industry is a problem
After I stopped applying for jobs in academia, I felt free to say this in public: I don't like what the Virginia Woolf industry has done to the scholarly study of women writers. I should also say that, while I don't much like her novels, Woolf's essays have influenced me, and I reread them for … Continue reading The Virginia Woolf industry is a problem
Angelica Garnett, Deceived with Kindness. A Bloomsbury Childhood
The only things I knew about Angelica Garnett before I read this autobiography were (1) that she was the daughter of Vanessa Bell and her lover Duncan Grant, and (2) that her eventual husband David Garnett had announced that he would marry Angelica on first meeting her, in her cradle. Deceived With Kindness suggests that … Continue reading Angelica Garnett, Deceived with Kindness. A Bloomsbury Childhood
Now posting on Vulpes Libris: The Life of Hilda Matheson, OBE
Over on Vulpes Libris I am wading through the 800 letters that Michael Carney used to construct his biography of Hilda Matheson. She was the BBC's first Director of Talks, and Vita Sackville West's lover (one of them) between 1929 and 1931. Her letters to Vita have ensured that her heroic struggles as a lesbian feminist … Continue reading Now posting on Vulpes Libris: The Life of Hilda Matheson, OBE
Sorrow and anger: Books I couldn’t finish or wished I hadn’t started
I don’t usually write negative reviews of books, because (1) it’s usually not fair on a writer to pillory them in public, (2) why waste the reader’s time? But sometimes writing a reasoned critical appraisal for the record can be a public service. For those searching online to find out if anyone else hated this book … Continue reading Sorrow and anger: Books I couldn’t finish or wished I hadn’t started
Reading Dorothy Richardson’s Pilgrimage
This conversation began when Brad Bigelow of The Neglected Books page noticed that I'd reviewed Pointed Roofs, the first volume of Pilgrimage. We began to chat about our respective experiences of reading the books, since he was only five volumes ahead of me, as I posted about Backwater and Honeycomb, and The Tunnel and Interim. … Continue reading Reading Dorothy Richardson’s Pilgrimage
Dorothy Richardson’s Pointed Roofs
Pointed Roofs is the first novel in Dorothy Richardson’s 13-volume sequence Pilgrimage, published between 1915 and (posthumously) 1967. I knew there were 13 novels, but when I was bought the 1938 Cresset Press edition in Brussels’ loveliest antiquarian bookshop, Het Ivoren Aapje, two months ago, I realised that my 4-volume edition only includes the first … Continue reading Dorothy Richardson’s Pointed Roofs
Sylvia Townsend Warner and Lolly Willowes
Today’s letter in the Really Like This Book podcast scripts catch-up is W, and today’s author is Sylvia Townsend Warner. She began her career in the 1920s as a musicologist and a specialist in Tudor church music, and died as a respected poet, novelist and biographer. She had her first literary successes all around the same … Continue reading Sylvia Townsend Warner and Lolly Willowes
Kate Macdonald 