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Category: 19thC

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 →

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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

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

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 →

Kate 19thC, 20thC, biography, Edwardian, family saga, history, memoirs / diaries, Meriel Buxton, nature, political / social commentary, the life of the times, the world of work 1 Comment December 25, 2021December 26, 2021

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 →

Kate 18thC, 19thC, 20thC, 21stC, biography, community life, diary, feminism, history, Kerri Andrews, letters, literary history, memoirs / diaries, nature, outdoor adventure, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, the life of the times, travelogue 9 Comments January 25, 2021January 25, 2021

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 →

Kate 18thC, 19thC, 20thC, 21stC, community life, family saga, Farah Mendlesohn, historical romance, history, literary history, myth, outdoor adventure, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, teenage romance, the life of the times, wartime 4 Comments November 14, 2020November 14, 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

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 →

Kate 19thC, 20thC, animals, architecture, autobiography, biography, Colette, community life, essays, family saga, fashion history, history, humour, literary history, memoirs / diaries, nature, outdoor adventure, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, short stories, the life of the times 6 Comments July 6, 2019

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 →

Kate 19thC, 21stC, community life, fantasy, George Eliot, Joanne Harris, nature, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, Rosamund Young, the life of the times, the world of work 5 Comments October 15, 2018October 12, 2018

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 →

Kate 19thC, 20thC, 21stC, Aliette de Bodard, community life, dystopia, fantasy, Georgette Heyer, history, Malcolm Saville, Naomi Mitchison, nature, outdoor adventure, passion and secrets, Penelope Lively, Peter S Beagle, political / social commentary, Richard Jeffries, the life of the times, William Golding 4 Comments January 12, 2018January 12, 2018

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 →

Kate 19thC, baroque and dramatic, community life, family saga, history, letters, Madame de L Tour du Pin, nature, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, the life of the times 2 Comments January 8, 2018January 6, 2018

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Top Posts & Pages

  • Ruth Pavey, Deeper into the Wood
    Ruth Pavey, Deeper into the Wood
  • The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser
    The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser
  • Margaret Irwin’s Elizabeth novels
    Margaret Irwin’s Elizabeth novels
  • The magnificent Modesty Blaise
    The magnificent Modesty Blaise
  • Epic Poems You've Never Read 3: John Milton's Paradise Lost
    Epic Poems You've Never Read 3: John Milton's Paradise Lost
  • Working is good for you: Louisa May Alcott's An Old-Fashioned Girl
    Working is good for you: Louisa May Alcott's An Old-Fashioned Girl
  • Road-testing Palgrave Pivot
    Road-testing Palgrave Pivot
  • Interview with Laila Lalami, author of The Moor's Account
    Interview with Laila Lalami, author of The Moor's Account
  • Kerri Andrews, Wanderers. A History of Women Walkers
    Kerri Andrews, Wanderers. A History of Women Walkers
  • From merely annoying to utter tosh
    From merely annoying to utter tosh

this is what I write about

1920s 1930s 1950s 1960s aliens Angela Thirkell archaeology architecture Barbara Pym biography birds Cambridge detection Dornford Yates Dorothy Richardson drinking duds family life fantasy farming feminism fiction First World War France gender Germany Harry Potter H G Wells history Ireland Japan John Buchan John Lehmann journalism King Arthur literary history London magic memoir middlebrow murder music myth Naomi Mitchison nature newspapers Paris Penguin New Writing poetry politics post-war poverty publishing Rivers of London romance satire science science fiction Scotland Second World War servants small-town America space opera Sylvia Townsend Warner Terry Pratchett translation travel village life Vulpes Libris Wales wartime witchcraft witches women's history women's lives

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