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Kate Macdonald

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Category: myth

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 →

Kate 18thC, 19thC, 20thC, 21stC, community life, family saga, Farah Mendlesohn, historical romance, history, literary history, myth, outdoor adventure, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, teenage romance, the life of the times, wartime 4 Comments November 14, 2020November 14, 2020

Philip Pullman, The Secret Commonwealth

I finally finished this immensely thick paperback last night, after six nights of reading. I’m not a slow reader, but the time I took to get through this novel - volume two in The Book of Dust trilogy - was down to its interminability. It is 719 pages long, and concludes nothing in itself, setting … Continue reading Philip Pullman, The Secret Commonwealth →

Kate 21stC, community life, dystopia, fantasy, myth, outdoor adventure, passion and secrets, Philip Pullman, political / social commentary, thriller, travelogue 5 Comments October 29, 2020

Liz Williams, Miracles of Our Own Making: A History of Paganism

Liz Williams is a very well respected science fiction and fantasy author, and (until very recently) the co-proprietor of a witchcraft shop in Glastonbury (the shop may re-open after the pandemic has been brought under control). I have professional delaings with her, in that in February she spoke on a panel on women in sff … Continue reading Liz Williams, Miracles of Our Own Making: A History of Paganism →

Kate 21stC, animals, archaeology, community life, Liz Williams, myth, nature, political / social commentary, sociology, the life of the times, vaguely horror 2 Comments April 19, 2020

Where are The Women? A Guide to an Imagined Scotland

Poised as I was to fly to Scotland for a pre-Christmas visit, this was an excellent guidebook to dip into. Sara Sheridan decided that a new guide to Scotland was needed, that included all the women who have not been celebrated as they should have been. She was inspired by Rebecca Solnit's map of the … Continue reading Where are The Women? A Guide to an Imagined Scotland →

Kate 21stC, archaeology, architecture, art, biography, community life, feminism, history, literary history, myth, outdoor adventure, political / social commentary, Sara Sheridan, the life of the times, travelogue 2 Comments December 26, 2019December 21, 2019

Enjoyed, with caveats

M C Bolitho, A Victorian Lady in the Himalayas, edited by Jean Burnett Jean Burnett is part of Writers Unchained, a collective of writers from Bristol, and has published novels with Little, Brown about the adventures of Lydia Bennett. She has edited the diary of Maria Bolitho, a Victorian Englishwoman who travelled across the Himalayas … Continue reading Enjoyed, with caveats →

Kate 20thC, 21stC, archaeology, architecture, biography, community life, cultural commentary, Gladys Huntingdon, Graham Robb, history, knitting instruction, Lynn Abrams, M C Bolitho, memoirs / diaries, myth, nature, outdoor adventure, political / social commentary, Robert Nathan, sea stories, teenage romance, the life of the times, the world of work, travelogue, Uncategorized 2 Comments August 4, 2019

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 →

Kate 21stC, biography, community life, D J Taylor, Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough, feminism, getting published, history, literary history, memoirs / diaries, middlebrow, middlebrow studies, myth, outdoor adventure, political / social commentary, S I Viehl, science fiction, space opera, the life of the times, the world of work 1 Comment July 12, 2019July 12, 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

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

Madeline Miller’s Circe

I pre-ordered Madeline Miller's Circe on learning its publication date, and then couldn't bear to read it for months in case it turned out to be not as good as I wanted it to be. I loved loved loved her The Song of Achilles, so I was hoping for great things of this second novel, more … Continue reading Madeline Miller’s Circe →

Kate 21stC, baroque and dramatic, family saga, fantasy, feminism, historical romance, Madeline Miller, memoirs / diaries, myth, nature, outdoor adventure, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, sea stories, the life of the times, travelogue, vaguely horror 3 Comments August 6, 2018August 5, 2018

Maureen Duffy, The Erotic World of Faery

The blurb on the back on the Panther edition promises titillation in rather 1970s Observer fashion: 'Perhaps you'd better find out what those fairies are up to at the bottom of your garden ...', assuming (a) that you have a garden, and (b) supervision of it is something you will be held to account for. … Continue reading Maureen Duffy, The Erotic World of Faery →

Kate 20thC, Angela Carter, art, baroque and dramatic, feminism, literary history, Maureen Duffy, myth, political / social commentary, science fiction, Sylvia Townsend Warner 7 Comments July 16, 2018July 16, 2018

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  • I vent my spleen on duds
    I vent my spleen on duds
  • Ernest Hemingway's Islands in the Stream
    Ernest Hemingway's Islands in the Stream
  • Ngaio Marsh's Death in a White Tie
    Ngaio Marsh's Death in a White Tie
  • Woman causes Oxford mayhem: Max Beerbohm's Zuleika Dobson
    Woman causes Oxford mayhem: Max Beerbohm's Zuleika Dobson
  • The magnificent Modesty Blaise
    The magnificent Modesty Blaise
  • About
    About
  • 2020: The good books
    2020: The good books
  • The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser
    The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser
  • T H White's Darkness at Pemberley
    T H White's Darkness at Pemberley
  • Letters to and from Sylvia Townsend Warner
    Letters to and from Sylvia Townsend Warner

this is what I write about

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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