Another in an irregular series of reviews of books I have not enjoyed. Links to earlier episodes are at the end. Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough, Beyond the Northlands. Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas This book, bought at the British Museum’s bookshop, was so promising, with such a good pedigree: an exciting young(ish) scholar; a … Continue reading Raging aggravations
I love Colette's writing, though I've not yet managed to read her most scandalous novels about Claudine. Nor have I yet seen the Keira Knightley biopic; undoubtedly I'll get around to them. My Colette collection consists of her two Chéri novels, Julie de Carneilhan, Chance Acquaintances, The Other Woman, The Vagabond, Gigi and The Cat: all short works … Continue reading Colette, My Mother’s House
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
Bea Howe was the dedicatee for Sylvia Townsend Warner's immortal first novel, Lolly Willowes in 1926, and in 1954 she published A Galaxy of Governesses, thanking Sylvia for her support in the acknowledgements. She and Sylvia spent Sylvia's last birthday together, her 84th, in 1977. That's a long and fruitful friendship. Bea published some novels … Continue reading Bea Howe, A Galaxy of Governesses
Does the world need a new biography of John Buchan? There have been three so far: a very thin and respectful one written a few years after his 1940 death, in an atmosphere of sincere grief and hagiography. Then there was Janet Adam Smith's 1965 biography, invited and facilitated by the family, which was the … Continue reading Ursula Buchan, Beyond The Thirty-Nine Steps
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
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
