I read the first volume of James Lees-Milne's edited diaries, Ancestral Voices, which cover the years 1942-43, and was both repelled by his spiky and judgemental personality, and intrigued by his account of social history and the Blitz experience. But the diaries were very edited, and JLM assumed that his readers would understand his allusions … Continue reading Michael Bloch, James Lees-Milne. The Life
Category: baroque and dramatic
David Garnett, The Sailor’s Return
I have prejudices against David Garnett. Being a Bloomsbury hanger-on loses him points, as does his treatment of Angelica Grant, the girl he announced he would marry after he was introduced to her when she was in her cradle. I was also suspicious of his later friendship with T H White, a lonely and tortured … Continue reading David Garnett, The Sailor’s Return
Ann Stafford, Army Without Banners
Handheld Press (which I run) will be publishing a novel in March 2020 called Business as Usual, by Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford: it was originally published in 1933. I've been working on this since August last year. While researching the lives and careers of Oliver and Stafford I worked out that they published at … Continue reading Ann Stafford, Army Without Banners
Jan Morris, Hav
Jan Morris is one of the most familiar names in British travel writing, so I was surprised to find a new work by her that I did not know, Last Letters from Hav. The New York Review Books Original edition - Hav - has a stupendous cover image that relates to the sequel, Hav of … Continue reading Jan Morris, Hav
Margaret Kennedy, The Ladies of Lyndon
I read this in a Dial Press edition of the Virago reprint, with Nicola Beauman's sound introduction from 1981. It is the most satisfying English society novel I've read in a long time, yet is also flawed in its last third with too much exposition, as if Kennedy (this was her first novel) did not … Continue reading Margaret Kennedy, The Ladies of Lyndon
Alice Jolly: Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile
If the sign of a good book is that, while partway through it, you buy your own copy and take the library copy back, wondering whether to slide a post-it note inside urging the next borrower to do the same; and that you are mentally raking through the names of friends and family who would … Continue reading Alice Jolly: Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile
Isabella Tree’s Wilding and Tim Flannery’s Europe
These two books about European natural processes are curiously connected, though I had no suspicion of this when I bought them. I was obviously in the mood for a sustained period of browsing on ancient species ecology and the prospects for reversing the mass extinctions caused by people. Looking for hope in the face of … Continue reading Isabella Tree’s Wilding and Tim Flannery’s Europe
Katherine Addison, The Goblin Emperor
I can't remember how this truly excellent fantasy novel found its way into our house. We know it was at EasterCon this year, but while my husband claims the credit for buying it, I'm not sure. Maybe I looked at it so often in the Books on the Hill bookstall that I merely think that … Continue reading Katherine Addison, The Goblin Emperor
Sybille Bedford, A Legacy
Sybille Bedford is a glorious writer. She's alluringly readable, and the two novels I have read by her were instantly absorbing. Her prose exudes authority and intelligence, her novels charm, intrigue, persuade and convince. She is magnificent, and I don't understand why she has received so much less attention than, say, Elizabeth Bowen or Elizabeth … Continue reading Sybille Bedford, A Legacy
Alice Jolly, Between the Regions of Kindness
Alice thrust this novel into my hands as I began running for my train, since we'd spent too long talking in a café after meeting up in person again after almost eight years. We had become friends in Brussels fifteen years ago or so, where I was an editor and she was a novelist, and … Continue reading Alice Jolly, Between the Regions of Kindness
