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Category: drinking

New Year, new duds

It is downright depressing to find so many books from my TBR shelf turning out to be duds. The only upside is that I have contributed several to the charity shop, and I might have learned a bit more about how not to write. F Tennyson Jesse, The Lacquer Lady (1929) I’ve long had Jesse … Continue reading New Year, new duds →

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Kate 20thC, 21stC, Alastair Moffat, archaeology, baroque and dramatic, Beverley Nichols, biography, community life, drinking, F Tennyson Jesse, family saga, fantasy, fashion history, historical romance, history, Meriel Buxton, outdoor adventure, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, Robert Jordan, Roderick Floud, the life of the times, the world of work, travelogue 5 Comments January 10, 2022April 3, 2022

The Hot Gates, by William Golding

This is a collection of twenty essays, reviews and magazine columns written by the British novelist and Nobel laureate William Golding, from the early 1950s to the early 1960s. It's a time capsule, packed with riches, and one stand-out comic essay on the body-soul dislocation experienced when flying across the USA. (Bourbon is involved.) Much … Continue reading The Hot Gates, by William Golding →

Kate 20thC, archaeology, bildungsroman, book prizes, drinking, essays, fantasy, literary history, memoirs / diaries, nature, outdoor adventure, political / social commentary, science, sociology, the life of the times, the world of work, William Golding Leave a comment January 3, 2022

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

J B Priestley and Jacquetta Hawkes, Journey Down a Rainbow

I found this book of travel writing about the south-west of mid-1950s USA in The Second Shelf, a new antiquarian bookshop in London specialising in works by women. This was only the second book (partly) by a man I've seen there (the other was a lesbian pulp novel apparently written by a man with a … Continue reading J B Priestley and Jacquetta Hawkes, Journey Down a Rainbow →

Kate 20thC, archaeology, architecture, art, community life, drinking, history, J B Priestley, Jacquetta Hawkes, letters, memoirs / diaries, myth, nature, outdoor adventure, political / social commentary, sociology, the life of the times, the world of work, travelogue 3 Comments April 8, 2019April 7, 2019

Canadian sff: Sleeping Giants, and Bloody Rose

Two mini reviews of science fiction and fantasy novels by Canadian writers, of Sylvain Neuvel's Sleeping Giants, and Nicholas Eames' Bloody Rose. Sleeping Giants I enjoyed this a LOT. Partly it was the plot: gigantic metallic pieces of what appears to be a body are found buried in remote, and less remote, locations on Earth. … Continue reading Canadian sff: Sleeping Giants, and Bloody Rose →

Kate 21stC, baroque and dramatic, community life, drinking, fantasy, humour, Nicholas Eames, outdoor adventure, parody, political / social commentary, science fiction, Sylvain Neuvel, Terry Pratchett, the world of work, thriller, vaguely horror Leave a comment December 17, 2018

Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling

Shall I count the ways in which I love this novel? It's a joy to read, easy and deep and delightful. It made me cry. I bought it on holiday and I loved it. It's snort-out-loud funny. It's utterly fascinating if you're not 28 and not from Ireland, like discovering a world of linguistic delights. … Continue reading Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling →

Kate 21stC, bildungsroman, community life, drinking, Emer McLysaght, family saga, feminism, humour, nature, parody, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, Sarah Breen, sociology, the life of the times, the world of work 2 Comments September 17, 2018September 16, 2018

Clair Wills, Lovers and Strangers. An Immigrant History of Post-War Britain

I bought this book because I wanted to patch the gaps in my reading about immigration, and Lovers and Strangers deals with the 1950s to the present day.  Although the book is marketed as focused on the Windrush generation, it's much more complex than that, and does a very welcome job of showing how immigration … Continue reading Clair Wills, Lovers and Strangers. An Immigrant History of Post-War Britain →

Kate 21stC, autobiography, Clair Wills, community life, drinking, fashion history, feminism, history, letters, memoirs / diaries, outdoor adventure, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, the life of the times, the world of work, travelogue, wartime Leave a comment September 3, 2018

Sylvia Townsend Warner, The Flint Anchor

The Flint Anchor was published in 1954, six years after The Corner That Held Them. Both novels are the fruits of Sylvia Townsend Warner's cultivation of a dispassionate attention to the passing of time, and a refusal to show a narrative attachment to any one character.  This was not conducive to my teenage reading, so I'm … Continue reading Sylvia Townsend Warner, The Flint Anchor →

Kate 20thC, community life, drinking, family saga, historical romance, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, sea stories, Sylvia Townsend Warner, terribly refined, the life of the times 1 Comment August 27, 2018August 26, 2018

Lyndall Hopkinson, Nothing to Forgive

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 →

Kate 20thC, Antonia White, biography, community life, drinking, family saga, history, memoirs / diaries, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, sociology, the life of the times, the world of work, Tom Hopkinson, vaguely horror Leave a comment April 9, 2018April 8, 2018

Rumer Godden, The Greengage Summer

This 1958 novel crackles with foreboding. It is based on the apparently artless retelling by a teenage girl of a summer spent in France with her elder sister and their younger siblings. It seethes with barely understood sexuality, and, in the absence of any reliable and responsible adults, the dangers that Joss and her sister … Continue reading Rumer Godden, The Greengage Summer →

Kate 20thC, bildungsroman, community life, detective, drinking, fashion history, nature, outdoor adventure, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, Rumer Godden, the life of the times 14 Comments December 27, 2017

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Top Posts & Pages

  • Women in Translation: Colette’s Gigi, and The Cat
    Women in Translation: Colette’s Gigi, and The Cat
  • Working is good for you: Louisa May Alcott's An Old-Fashioned Girl
    Working is good for you: Louisa May Alcott's An Old-Fashioned Girl
  • H G Wells: Mr Britling Sees it Through
    H G Wells: Mr Britling Sees it Through
  • The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser
    The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser
  • George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier
    George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier
  • Ernest Hemingway's Islands in the Stream
    Ernest Hemingway's Islands in the Stream
  • Neil Gaiman’s The Sleeper and the Spindle
    Neil Gaiman’s The Sleeper and the Spindle
  • Vita Sackville-West, Saint Joan of Arc
    Vita Sackville-West, Saint Joan of Arc
  • John Wyndham's Trouble with Lichen
    John Wyndham's Trouble with Lichen
  • Breathlessly whirling with Georgette Heyer's Cotillion
    Breathlessly whirling with Georgette Heyer's Cotillion

this is what I write about

1920s 1930s 1950s 1960s aliens Angela Thirkell archaeology architecture Barbara Pym biography birds Cambridge detection Dornford Yates Dorothy Richardson drinking duds family life fantasy farming feminism fiction First World War France gender Germany Harry Potter H G Wells history Ireland Japan John Buchan John Lehmann journalism King Arthur literary history London magic memoir middlebrow murder music myth Naomi Mitchison nature newspapers 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's history women's lives

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