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Kate Macdonald

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Category: humour

Letters to and from Sylvia Townsend Warner

I've spent the sixteen days since Christmas reading the letters that Sylvia Townsend Warner wrote to and received from two of her most constant and articulate correspondents, David Garnett and William Maxwell. Both books were presents, and shoved aside all other claims from the reading pile. Sylvia and David knew each other in the 1920s, … Continue reading Letters to and from Sylvia Townsend Warner →

Kate 20thC, animals, autobiography, biography, community life, David Garnett, diary, getting published, humour, letters, literary history, memoirs / diaries, nature, passion and secrets, poetry, political / social commentary, short stories, Sylvia Townsend Warner, the life of the times, the world of work, William Maxwell 4 Comments January 11, 2021January 10, 2021

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 →

Kate 21stC, bildungsroman, community life, family saga, humour, political / social commentary, publishing, Rónán Hession, the life of the times 9 Comments July 4, 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

Colette, My Mother’s House

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 →

Kate 19thC, 20thC, animals, architecture, autobiography, biography, Colette, community life, essays, family saga, fashion history, history, humour, literary history, memoirs / diaries, nature, outdoor adventure, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, short stories, the life of the times 6 Comments July 6, 2019

Avengers: Endgame.

HERE BE SPOILERS. Avengers: Endgame is not a film you can talk about in detail without spoiling it for those who haven't seen it, so please don't read on if you get upset by spoilers. I MEAN IT. I don't yet know if I liked the whole film or not. I was very bored in … Continue reading Avengers: Endgame. →

Kate 21stC, action and explosions, comic strip caper, community life, fantasy, graphic novel, humour, myth, outdoor adventure, political / social commentary, science fiction, space opera, technology, the world of work, thriller, thriller, time travel, vaguely horror, wartime, western 5 Comments April 26, 2019

Barbara Pym, Less Than Angels

I don't think I've ever read this Barbara Pym before, yet it's been sitting in my bookselves for at least nine years, because I know when I bought it. I call that irresponsible book-buying. It is a very good one, one of her 1950s London office worker novels with added anthropology. It's also about selfish … Continue reading Barbara Pym, Less Than Angels →

Kate 20thC, Barbara Pym, community life, humour, middlebrow, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, sociology, the life of the times, the world of work 2 Comments March 11, 2019March 8, 2019

Barbara Pym, An Unsuitable Attachment

An Unsuitable Attachment is Barbara Pym's seventh novel. She sent it to her usual publisher, Jonathan Cape, in February 1963, and to her embarrassment and distress they rejected it, and her, as being too behind the times, no longer likely to sell. Her confidant Philip Larkin was as annoyed as she was, but she wouldn't … Continue reading Barbara Pym, An Unsuitable Attachment →

Kate 20thC, Barbara Pym, community life, humour, middlebrow, middlebrow studies, oneupmanship, political / social commentary, sociology, terribly refined, the life of the times, the world of work 4 Comments March 4, 2019February 28, 2019

Achachlacher, by Emma L Menzies

If you like the gentle narratives about English rural life in the early part of the twentieth century by 'Miss Read', you'll like Achachlacher. It's an epistolary novel about life in the Inner Hebrides, so gentle as to be barely there, and contains hardly anything said in anger, or that might cause controversy. Emma L … Continue reading Achachlacher, by Emma L Menzies →

Kate 20thC, community life, Emma L Menzies, family saga, history, humour, Kailyard, letters, memoirs / diaries, middlebrow, middlebrow studies, Miss Read, nature, political / social commentary, sociology 2 Comments February 6, 2019February 16, 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

Business as Usual: Selfridges in the 1930s

Business as Usual, a very enjoyable novel of 1933 by Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford, is about a world of working women in London in the early 1930s, with the breadline looming very close, and the terror of knowing that one week's salary lies between you and the street. Pennies are counted, stockings are darned, … Continue reading Business as Usual: Selfridges in the 1930s →

Kate 20thC, Ann Stafford, community life, fashion history, feminism, humour, Jane Oliver, letters, middlebrow, middlebrow studies, political / social commentary, sociology, the life of the times, the world of work 7 Comments October 3, 2018April 12, 2019

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Top Posts & Pages

  • I vent my spleen on duds
    I vent my spleen on duds
  • Ngaio Marsh's Death in a White Tie
    Ngaio Marsh's Death in a White Tie
  • Ernest Hemingway's Islands in the Stream
    Ernest Hemingway's Islands in the Stream
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    The magnificent Modesty Blaise
  • Woman causes Oxford mayhem: Max Beerbohm's Zuleika Dobson
    Woman causes Oxford mayhem: Max Beerbohm's Zuleika Dobson
  • About
    About
  • Re-reading Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising
    Re-reading Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising
  • Glorious snobbery at village scale: E F Benson's Queen Lucia
    Glorious snobbery at village scale: E F Benson's Queen Lucia
  • Letters to and from Sylvia Townsend Warner
    Letters to and from Sylvia Townsend Warner
  • Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes
    Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes

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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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