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Kate Macdonald

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Category: letters

Kerri Andrews, Wanderers. A History of Women Walkers

Where Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust is a theoretical and philosophical discussion of women and walking, Wanderers is a set of case studies from three hundred years of (mostly) British women walking and writing about it. It leans on Wanderlust, but it's a robust book on its own, with depth and range to keep a reader happy … Continue reading Kerri Andrews, Wanderers. A History of Women Walkers →

Kate 18thC, 19thC, 20thC, 21stC, biography, community life, diary, feminism, history, Kerri Andrews, letters, literary history, memoirs / diaries, nature, outdoor adventure, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, the life of the times, travelogue 8 Comments January 25, 2021January 25, 2021

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

Sarah Lonsdale, Rebel Women Between The Wars

I pre-ordered this book because I’ve been waiting for it for a very long time. Lonsdale has been researching women journalists and journalism in British fiction for much of her career as an academic at City University London, and before that was a journalist writing for a variety of papers and magazines. Rebel Women Between … Continue reading Sarah Lonsdale, Rebel Women Between The Wars →

Kate 20thC, baroque and dramatic, biography, community life, Edwardian, fashion history, feminism, getting published, history, letters, memoirs / diaries, outdoor adventure, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, Sarah Lonsdale, technology, the life of the times, the world of work, wartime 1 Comment November 7, 2020November 7, 2020

Michael Bloch, James Lees-Milne. The Life

I read the first volume of James Lees-Milne's edited diaries, Ancestral Voices, which cover the years 1942-43, and was both repelled by his spiky and judgemental personality, and intrigued by his account of social history and the Blitz experience. But the diaries were very edited, and JLM assumed that his readers would understand his allusions … Continue reading Michael Bloch, James Lees-Milne. The Life →

Kate 20thC, architecture, art, baroque and dramatic, biography, diary, fine art, history, James Lees-Milne, letters, memoirs / diaries, Michael Bloch, oneupmanship, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, publishing, terribly refined, the life of the times, the world of work 8 Comments May 19, 2020

Mary Beard, The Invention of Jane Harrison

This is an early book by Mary Beard, from 2002. It costs a LOT for a slow print on demand order from an online bookshop which doesn’t begin with A, ultimately from Harvard University Press. But it’s worth it, I think, and here are the reasons. If you’re interested in Jane Ellen Harrison, one of … Continue reading Mary Beard, The Invention of Jane Harrison →

Kate 21stC, archaeology, architecture, art, biography, diary, Eugenie Sellers, feminism, fine art, Hope Mirrlees, Jane Harrison, letters, literary history, memoirs / diaries, oneupmanship, outdoor adventure, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, the life of the times, the world of work, travelogue 3 Comments March 30, 2020

Mo Moulton, Mutual Admiration Society

The subtitle of this impressively large group biography makes a big claim: 'How Dorothy L Sayers and her Oxford Circle remade the world for women'. The publishers have latched onto the most obviously marketable aspect of the book - the selling power of Dorothy L Sayers' name and life - and thus skewed the reader's … Continue reading Mo Moulton, Mutual Admiration Society →

Kate 21stC, biography, community life, letters, literary history, middlebrow, Mo Moulton, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, the life of the times, the world of work, theatreland 3 Comments December 6, 2019

Bea Howe, A Galaxy of Governesses

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 →

Kate 20thC, Bea Howe, biography, community life, family saga, feminism, history, letters, memoirs / diaries, political / social commentary, sociology, Sylvia Townsend Warner, the life of the times, the world of work, travelogue 1 Comment May 22, 2019August 3, 2020

Ursula Buchan, Beyond The Thirty-Nine Steps

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 →

Kate 21stC, biography, history, John Buchan, letters, literary history, middlebrow studies, outdoor adventure, political / social commentary, the life of the times, the world of work, Ursula Buchan, wartime 8 Comments May 8, 2019

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

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

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