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
Category: family saga
The Flying Duchess
Mary Russell is a complicated subject. She was a Victorian archdeacon's daughter, and married Lord Herbrand Russell, the second son of the 9th Duke of Bedford, in 1888 in India where he was an aide-de camp to the Viceroy. Her brother-in-law died a few years after he succeeded to the title, and so Mary, a … Continue reading The Flying Duchess
Liz Williams, Comet Weather
Comet Weather scooped me up and ran away with me. I was up two nights in a row reading it until I was too tired, or I'd reached the end. It's a meaty read, not a slithering skinny thing, but a proper novel, filled with delight and tension and fascinating things. I thoroughly enjoyed it, … Continue reading Liz Williams, Comet Weather
Hadley Freeman, House of Glass
I will read anything Hadley Freeman writes as a journalist, as she is witty, sensible, has a piercing eye for the unnoticed-but-telling observation, and is always entertaining. Her House of Glass is probably the best biography / memoir I've read all year so far. It's the story of Freeman's Jewish grandmother and her family, emigrating/escaping … Continue reading Hadley Freeman, House of Glass
Li Juan, Distant Sunflower Fields
‘Li Juan … may be as far outside the system as Chinese writers are able to get and still publish … Her literary career has taken what she calls “the wild path”’ – The New York Times Distant Sunflower Fields is not a novel, but for readers unfamiliar with life in Xinjiang, in the far … Continue reading Li Juan, Distant Sunflower Fields
Farah Mendlesohn, Creating Memory
Farah Mendlesohn has a new book out, and it is a dense deep dive into how the history of the English Civil Wars has been written for children, and therefore for everyone, and what this says about how our understanding of seventeenth-century history has been shaped by its teaching. Mendlesohn is a scholar in the … Continue reading Farah Mendlesohn, Creating Memory
Penelope Lively, A House Unlocked
Once again, I am delighted and impressed by Penelope Lively's effortless skill in winding me into her story. In this case, it really is her story. A House Unlocked is her ruminative ramble through British (and Russian) history, prompted by objects, plants and memories of her grandmother's house in rural Somerset, where Lively spent much … Continue reading Penelope Lively, A House Unlocked
Rónán Hession, Leonard and Hungry Paul
Thirty-four pages into this excellent Irish novel, I was cackling with laughter for the third time. I was also being paused in my happy reading by moments of piercing empathy. They sat alongside the bursts of humour, deepening the reader’s feelings about the characters and their patient, ordinary lives. The cover shows us a sunfish, … Continue reading Rónán Hession, Leonard and Hungry Paul
Laura Knight, Oil Paint and Grease Paint
I went to the Royal Academy's tiny one-room exhibition of Laura Knight a few weeks ago, and was alerted to the fact that she had written a couple of autobiographies, Oil Paint and Grease Paint (1936) and The Magic of a Line (1965). Laura Knight was made a Dame in 1929, and was the first … Continue reading Laura Knight, Oil Paint and Grease Paint
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 Macdonald 