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
Category: 16thC
The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser
In this week's Really Like This book podcast scripts catch-up, I’m in the English Renaissance, pricking across the plain with the Red-Crosse Knight, in Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. This is the biggest and most elaborate courtly flattery ever written, and it’s not even complete. Edmund Spenser was a subject of Queen Elizabeth, the first of that … Continue reading The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser
Now posting on Vulpes Libris: Laila Lalami’s The Moor’s Account
Last week, I had the pleasure of reading a book before it was announced as a Man Booker longlistee: that doesn't often happen! I do not have a high opinion of past winners of the Booker. Those that I've tried have been severely disappointing, dreary or plain irritating. I obviously don't read what the judges think I … Continue reading Now posting on Vulpes Libris: Laila Lalami’s The Moor’s Account
Kate Macdonald 