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
Category: middlebrow
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
Raging aggravations
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
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
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
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
Recovery research and publishing
Several years ago, I was interviewed about my practice as a print culture researcher. I've updated my Q&A preparation notes, as a reintroduction to why I read the way I do, and why I spent so many years as an academic researching a particular kind of book. What do you do and why? I was … Continue reading Recovery research and publishing
