Lyndall Hopkinson is the daughter of Tom Hopkinson (author, journalist, editor of Picture Post), and the novelist and poet Antonia White (her real name was Eirene Botting, but she never used it so let’s stick to Antonia). This 1988 biography of Antonia is mainly about, and trying to explain, if not excuse, Antonia’s destructive awfulness … Continue reading Lyndall Hopkinson, Nothing to Forgive
Edith Sitwell, Bath (1932) I am now a resident of Bath, in south-west England (or will be in 6 weeks or so, builders permitting). When our old house was being packed I fished Edith Sitwell’s Bath out of the bookcase from the very hands of the packers, so as to have time to read it … Continue reading Three short reading pleasures
The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman was published in 1914, and is the story of Ellen Sawbridge who marries her older suitor Isaac Harman when she is 18. He delays the wedding by a few weeks so that the announcement of his knighthood in the Birthday Honours will appear on their wedding day, making her … Continue reading H G Wells is aggravating again: The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman
I've been having trouble with Penelope Lively lately. I love most of her adult novels that I've tried, with the glaring, embarrassing, exception of Booker-winning Moon Tiger which I found dull. I now have two theories as to why Moon Tiger is in all the charity shops, but few of her other novels are. The … Continue reading The trouble with Penelope Lively: Oleander, Jacaranda
Now that I'm no longer applying for jobs in academia, I feel free to say this: 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
I was surprised by quite how much I wanted to read Philip Pullman’s next Lyra novels. Reading Northern Lights, The Amber Spyglass and The Subtle Knife when they came out twenty years ago was rather an ordeal for me, as I don’t much enjoy stories about children in danger, struggling to survive. But I devoured them, … Continue reading Philip Pullman, La Belle Sauvage
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
