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Category: political / social commentary

Margaret Irwin’s Elizabeth novels

I bought a nice Reprint Society copy of Margaret Irwin’s Elizabeth, Captive Princess (1948) on my last trip to Hay on Wye, wanting to read it again after forty years or so. It’s very good, if a little expositional: she dumps information skilfully into the narrative through character dialogue, which means she sometimes moves her … Continue reading Margaret Irwin’s Elizabeth novels →

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Kate 16thC, 20thC, baroque and dramatic, biography, family saga, historical romance, history, Margaret Irwin, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, teenage romance, the life of the times 3 Comments March 15, 2023

Harold Nicolson, Public Faces

Serendipity strikes again. I've been editing a book Handheld will be publishing in September 2023, about Hilda Matheson, who was among many other things a lover of Vita Sackville-West, and the Director of Talks for the BBC from 1926 to 1931, for whom Vita and Harold Nicolson, her husband, did online live broadcasts. BBC Director-General … Continue reading Harold Nicolson, Public Faces →

Kate 20thC, H G Wells, Harold Nicolson, humour, oneupmanship, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, science fiction, technology, the life of the times, the world of work, thriller, Vita Sackville-West 3 Comments February 19, 2023

Books I Want To Keep

I have read so many duds and books recently that I gave up on because their meh factor was way too high. These are the pearls in a bit of a swamp, the ones I actually finished. Bea Howe, Lady With The Green Fingers. The Life of Jane Loudon I rather unfairly only think of … Continue reading Books I Want To Keep →

Kate 17thC, 19thC, 20thC, 21stC, Alan Garner, Amy Chavez, Amy Stanley, animals, Anne Hill, Bea Howe, biography, community life, Evelyn Waugh, family saga, fashion history, Heywood Hill, history, letters, nature, Pauline Innis, political / social commentary, sociology, the life of the times, the world of work, travelogue, wartime 5 Comments November 12, 2022November 16, 2022

Becky Chambers, The Galaxy, and the Ground Within

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, which I found completely delightful, is the fourth of Becky Chambers’ Wayfarer novels. The first novel in the group, The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet (2014), initially funded by a Kickstarter campaign, was nominated for six literary prizes, including the Arthur C Clarke Award and the Women’s … Continue reading Becky Chambers, The Galaxy, and the Ground Within →

Kate 21stC, Becky Chambers, community life, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, science fiction, space opera, the life of the times Leave a comment October 8, 2022

More good books

Books that have shone out during my recent long run of duds as being really splendid reads, giving me faith that good books are out there if you keep at it long enough. Gossamer Years This is the revised translation by Edward Seidensticker from 1960 of a nameless 10th-century Japanese noblewoman’s complaints about her very … Continue reading More good books →

Kate 10thC, 20thC, 21stC, Alvaro Cunqueiro, art, baroque and dramatic, Ben McGrath, bildungsroman, biography, community life, Edward Seidensticker, fantasy, feminism, fine art, Henry James, history, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Kaouther Adimi, letters, magical realism, myth, nature, outdoor adventure, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, sea stories, teenage romance, terribly refined, the life of the times, the world of work, translation, travelogue, wartime 4 Comments July 31, 2022November 16, 2022

I Have Doubts

More sour remarks about books I tried and found wanting. Hugh Walpole, Portrait of a Man with Red Hair This 1925 novel pops up regularly in lists about the supernatural canon as a gem of twentieth-century Gothic horror. It is certainly horrifying, but it’s a novella stretched out painfully beyond the natural length of its … Continue reading I Have Doubts →

Kate 20thC, 21stC, Andrew Ziminski, Ann Leckie, archaeology, architecture, art, autobiography, fantasy, history, Hugh Walpole, nature, Nevil Shute, outdoor adventure, political / social commentary, T J Klune, the world of work 1 Comment May 2, 2022

Daughter of the Desert, by Georgina Howell

This biography of Gertrude Bell begins slowly, rockets up to high speed, but goes a bit flumph at the end. As the Guardian's review back in 2006 noted, Howell seems to regard Bell's thwarted love affair with a married man as the central moment of her subject's life, and is not interested enough in the … Continue reading Daughter of the Desert, by Georgina Howell →

Kate 19thC, 20thC, animals, archaeology, architecture, biography, Georgina Howell, history, letters, nature, outdoor adventure, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, the life of the times, the world of work, translation, travelogue, wartime 3 Comments April 20, 2022April 20, 2022

J D Beresford, A World of Women

I reviewed the new MIT press edition of J D Beresford's Goslings (US title: A World of Women) for Strange Horizons. It's good!

Kate 20thC, community life, dystopia, Edwardian, feminism, getting published, J D Beresford, nature, political / social commentary, science fiction, the life of the times, the world of work, thriller, vaguely horror Leave a comment February 23, 2022

Judith Mackrell, Bloomsbury Ballerina

I lived outside the UK from 2001 to 2016, so I missed a lot of new books I would otherwise have gobbled up on their first publication. (There were good English bookshops where we lived, but I still missed things.) I only realised that this exceptional biography of Lydia Lopokova existed because I met a … Continue reading Judith Mackrell, Bloomsbury Ballerina →

Kate 21stC, ballet, baroque and dramatic, biography, community life, history, Judith Mackrell, letters, literary history, political / social commentary, the life of the times, the world of work, theatreland, wartime 5 Comments February 17, 2022

Read With Pleasure

I did enjoy reading these, but I haven’t got a whole blogpost’s worth to say about each of them. Please accept these brief paras in the spirit of strong recommendation. Una McCormack, The Greatest Story Ever Told I bought this from NewCon Press, one of a trilogy of themed novels about a populated Mars, with … Continue reading Read With Pleasure →

Kate 20thC, 21stC, Colm Tóibín, community life, Edwardian, essays, Harold Nicolson, historical romance, humour, Lawrence Durrell, letters, literary history, nature, passion and secrets, Patrick Campbell, political / social commentary, R A Dick, science fiction, sea stories, the life of the times, Thomas Hardy, travelogue, Una McCormack, wartime 7 Comments February 4, 2022

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Top Posts & Pages

  • About
    About
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    A mixed bag
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    Peter O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise
  • Margaret Irwin’s Elizabeth novels
    Margaret Irwin’s Elizabeth novels
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    Ernest Hemingway's Islands in the Stream
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    Penguin New Writing 35: The sound of idols smashing
  • Barbara Pym's A Glass of Blessings
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    How to Read Churches: A crash course in Christian architecture

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