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Kate Macdonald

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Category: baroque and dramatic

Sarah Lonsdale, Rebel Women Between The Wars

I pre-ordered this book because I’ve been waiting for it for a very long time. Lonsdale has been researching women journalists and journalism in British fiction for much of her career as an academic at City University London, and before that was a journalist writing for a variety of papers and magazines. Rebel Women Between … Continue reading Sarah Lonsdale, Rebel Women Between The Wars →

Kate 20thC, baroque and dramatic, biography, community life, Edwardian, fashion history, feminism, getting published, history, letters, memoirs / diaries, outdoor adventure, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, Sarah Lonsdale, technology, the life of the times, the world of work, wartime Leave a comment November 7, 2020November 7, 2020

Michael Bloch, James Lees-Milne. The Life

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 →

Kate 20thC, architecture, art, baroque and dramatic, biography, diary, fine art, history, James Lees-Milne, letters, memoirs / diaries, Michael Bloch, oneupmanship, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, publishing, terribly refined, the life of the times, the world of work 8 Comments May 19, 2020

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 →

Kate 20thC, baroque and dramatic, community life, David Garnett, drinking, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, sea stories, the life of the times 3 Comments March 20, 2020

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 →

Kate 20thC, Ann Stafford, architecture, autobiography, baroque and dramatic, community life, feminism, humour, memoirs / diaries, middlebrow studies, political / social commentary, sociology, terribly refined, the life of the times, the world of work, vaguely horror, wartime 4 Comments January 27, 2020

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 →

Kate 20thC, animals, architecture, art, baroque and dramatic, community life, dystopia, Jan Morris, nature, outdoor adventure, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, the life of the times, travelogue 1 Comment January 17, 2020

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 →

Kate 20thC, architecture, art, baroque and dramatic, bildungsroman, Edwardian, family saga, Margaret Kennedy, middlebrow, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, terribly refined, the life of the times Leave a comment January 9, 2020December 28, 2019

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 →

Kate 19thC, 21stC, Alice Jolly, baroque and dramatic, community life, family saga, feminism, medicine, memoirs / diaries, nature, outdoor adventure, political / social commentary, science, sociology, the life of the times, the world of work, thriller 3 Comments December 20, 2019

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 →

Kate 21stC, baroque and dramatic, community life, Isabella Tree, memoirs / diaries, nature, outdoor adventure, political / social commentary, science, sociology, the life of the times, Tim Flannery, time travel Leave a comment November 27, 2019

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 →

Kate 21stC, baroque and dramatic, community life, family saga, fantasy, Katherine Addison, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, the world of work 1 Comment June 22, 2019

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 →

Kate 20thC, baroque and dramatic, community life, family saga, G B Stern, history, Nancy Mitford, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, Sybille Bedford, the life of the times Leave a comment June 2, 2019

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  • Re-reading Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising
    Re-reading Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising
  • Ernest Hemingway's Islands in the Stream
    Ernest Hemingway's Islands in the Stream
  • Letters to and from Sylvia Townsend Warner
    Letters to and from Sylvia Townsend Warner
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    John Wyndham's Trouble with Lichen
  • About
    About
  • A life in books: Helene Hanff's 84 Charing Cross Road
    A life in books: Helene Hanff's 84 Charing Cross Road
  • Ben Aaronovitch, Lies Sleeping
    Ben Aaronovitch, Lies Sleeping
  • George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier
    George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier
  • The horrible stepmother in The Optimist's Daughter, by Eudora Welty
    The horrible stepmother in The Optimist's Daughter, by Eudora Welty
  • Reading Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage
    Reading Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage

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1920s 1930s 1950s 1960s aliens Angela Thirkell archaeology architecture art Barbara Pym biography birds Cambridge detection Dornford Yates Dorothy Richardson drinking family life fantasy farming fashion fast cars feminism First World War France gender Germany Harry Potter H G Wells history Ireland John Buchan John Lehmann journalism King Arthur literary history London magic memoir middlebrow murder music Naomi Mitchison newspapers New York Paris Penguin New Writing poetry politics post-war poverty publishing Rivers of London romance satire science science fiction Scotland Second World War servants small-town America space opera Sylvia Townsend Warner Terry Pratchett translation travel village life Vulpes Libris Wales wartime witchcraft witches women women's history women's lives

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