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Category: sociology

Inaka. Portraits of Life in Rural Japan

A mention of this book popped up on Twitter, and I went straight to the Camphor Press website and bought it. I've never been to Japan, but two family members have, one for a year, and she's been trying to get back there ever since. Japanese books are stacked up in her bedroom, not just … Continue reading Inaka. Portraits of Life in Rural Japan →

Kate 21stC, animals, architecture, autobiography, community life, essays, myth, nature, outdoor adventure, political / social commentary, sociology, the life of the times, travelogue Leave a comment February 20, 2021February 20, 2021

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

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

Alice Jolly: Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile

If the sign of a good book is that, while partway through it, you buy your own copy and take the library copy back, wondering whether to slide a post-it note inside urging the next borrower to do the same; and that you are mentally raking through the names of friends and family who would … Continue reading Alice Jolly: Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile →

Kate 19thC, 21stC, Alice Jolly, baroque and dramatic, community life, family saga, feminism, medicine, memoirs / diaries, nature, outdoor adventure, political / social commentary, science, sociology, the life of the times, the world of work, thriller 3 Comments December 20, 2019

Isabella Tree’s Wilding and Tim Flannery’s Europe

These two books about European natural processes are curiously connected, though I had no suspicion of this when I bought them. I was obviously in the mood for a sustained period of browsing on ancient species ecology and the prospects for reversing the mass extinctions caused by people. Looking for hope in the face of … Continue reading Isabella Tree’s Wilding and Tim Flannery’s Europe →

Kate 21stC, baroque and dramatic, community life, Isabella Tree, memoirs / diaries, nature, outdoor adventure, political / social commentary, science, sociology, the life of the times, Tim Flannery, time travel Leave a comment November 27, 2019

Mary Kelly, The Spoilt Kill

This is a tremendous crime thriller from 1961, that won the Crime Writers' Association Critics' Award for that year. Mary Kelly went on to write more detective novels, but somehow her name has disappeared from sight. Crime fiction historian Martin Edwards says that she stopped writing fiction in her forties, because she chose when and what … Continue reading Mary Kelly, The Spoilt Kill →

Kate 20thC, community life, detective, family saga, fine art, Mary Kelly, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, sociology, the life of the times, the world of work, thriller 4 Comments September 8, 2019

Christina Dalcher, Vox

Update: Vox won the Goldsboro Glass Bell Award on 16 September 2019! The title of this very good thriller is a little misleading: the word 'Vox' (Latin for the voice of, as in 'vox populi', the voice of the people), doesn't appear anywhere in the novel. I was hoping for some time that it would … Continue reading Christina Dalcher, Vox →

Kate 21stC, Christina Dalcher, dystopia, Margaret Atwood, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, science, science fiction, sociology, technology, the life of the times, thriller, vaguely horror Leave a comment August 11, 2019September 17, 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

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

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

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