Six of the Best

I've been busy, and haven't felt the oomph factor when reading books lately to hurl me into writing about them at length. But here are six good books I recommend, fresh entries from my reading diary. Catherine Nixey, The Darkening Age For all you pagans out there, this is a compelling assemblage of the horrific … Continue reading Six of the Best →

Li Juan, Distant Sunflower Fields

‘Li Juan … may be as far outside the system as Chinese writers are able to get and still publish … Her literary career has taken what she calls “the wild path”’ – The New York Times Distant Sunflower Fields is not a novel, but for readers unfamiliar with life in Xinjiang, in the far … Continue reading Li Juan, Distant Sunflower Fields →

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 →

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 →

Rupert Hart-Davis, Hugh Walpole

This biography took forever to read. It's dense, in the leisured style of the 1950s (reissued unrevised in the 1980s), and it is very odd to read such a long study of a life that is pretty nearly forgotten now. None of Walpole's novels are in print now, as far as I can see, though … Continue reading Rupert Hart-Davis, Hugh Walpole →

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 →

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 →

Laura Knight, Oil Paint and Grease Paint

I went to the Royal Academy's tiny one-room exhibition of Laura Knight a few weeks ago, and was alerted to the fact that she had written a couple of autobiographies, Oil Paint and Grease Paint (1936) and The Magic of a Line (1965). Laura Knight was made a Dame in 1929, and was the first … Continue reading Laura Knight, Oil Paint and Grease Paint →

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 →

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 →