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 →

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 →

The Flying Duchess

Mary Russell is a complicated subject. She was a Victorian archdeacon's daughter, and married Lord Herbrand Russell, the second son of the 9th Duke of Bedford, in 1888 in India where he was an aide-de camp to the Viceroy. Her brother-in-law died a few years after he succeeded to the title, and so Mary, a … Continue reading The Flying Duchess →

Kerri Andrews, Wanderers. A History of Women Walkers

Where Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust is a theoretical and philosophical discussion of women and walking, Wanderers is a set of case studies from three hundred years of (mostly) British women walking and writing about it. It leans on Wanderlust, but it's a robust book on its own, with depth and range to keep a reader happy … Continue reading Kerri Andrews, Wanderers. A History of Women Walkers →

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 →

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 →

Colette, My Mother’s House

I love Colette's writing, though I've not yet managed to read her most scandalous novels about Claudine. Nor have I yet seen the Keira Knightley biopic; undoubtedly I'll get around to them. My Colette collection consists of her two Chéri novels, Julie de Carneilhan, Chance Acquaintances, The Other Woman, The Vagabond, Gigi and The Cat: all short works … Continue reading Colette, My Mother’s House →

A small pile of duds

Another episode in an occasional series in which I grumble about books I have not enjoyed. Links to earlier episodes are at the end. Runemarks by Joanne Harris I bought this on the strength of her The Book of Loki, which I really enjoyed. But Runemarks is dull, and so perfunctorily written, I’m boggled as … Continue reading A small pile of duds →

These I have quite liked

Here are short reviews of books I’ve liked recently, for your consideration. Georgette Heyer, Royal Escape (1938) This is not a Regency romance, and it’s possibly the weakest of her historical reconstructions, but I liked it enough to keep reading, simply because I don’t know the history of Charles II's escape from the Battle of … Continue reading These I have quite liked →

The Memoirs of Madame de La Tour du Pin

I bought this imposing Harvill Press hardback on impulse while looking for something entirely different, and it held me enthralled for five evenings of reading. Before this, I didn't know much about the French Revolution, and I knew nothing about the years between the Terror and Napoleon's coronation. Madame de La Tour du Pin's memoirs … Continue reading The Memoirs of Madame de La Tour du Pin →