Sybille Bedford, A Legacy

Sybille Bedford is a glorious writer. She's alluringly readable, and the two novels I have read by her were instantly absorbing. Her prose exudes authority and intelligence, her novels charm, intrigue, persuade and convince. She is magnificent, and I don't understand why she has received so much less attention than, say, Elizabeth Bowen or Elizabeth … Continue reading Sybille Bedford, A Legacy →

Three good books

For a change, here are three books I've read recently that I liked a lot. They are all satisfying, well-crafted reads, and I'm going to keep them all, but I don't have vast amounts to say about them other than 'they're good'. Mary Stewart, Thornyhold Mary Stewart writes about magic so convincingly that there must … Continue reading Three good books →

Dorothy Richardson’s Pointed Roofs

Pointed Roofs is the first novel in Dorothy Richardson’s 13-volume sequence Pilgrimage, published between 1915 and (posthumously) 1967. I knew there were 13 novels, but when I was bought the 1938 Cresset Press edition in Brussels’ loveliest antiquarian bookshop, Het Ivoren Aapje, two months ago, I realised that my 4-volume edition only includes the first … Continue reading Dorothy Richardson’s Pointed Roofs →

Now posting on Vulpes Libris: Jenny Erpenbeck, The End of Days

I read a delicate, poetic, gripping and depressing novel about German lives during the persecution of the Jews before and after the First World War, the starvation of the German population between the wars, and the appalling administrative tortures of Stalinism, and reviewed it over on Vulpes Libris. Yes, I didn't like The End of … Continue reading Now posting on Vulpes Libris: Jenny Erpenbeck, The End of Days →

Erskine Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands

The Riddle of the Sands was published in May 1903, and it has probably sold more than two million copies in its lifetime. Its author Erskine Childers was infuriated when it was described as fiction, because for him the issue of a probable German invasion by sea was real and the danger obvious. Many reviewers at … Continue reading Erskine Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands →

George Eliot with the gloves off: Patricia Duncker’s Sophie and the Sibyl

Expect energetic storytelling in this excellent novel about the manipulative life and marital sufferings of George Eliot. It’s also a gently funny love story between Max Duncker, a vain and very young dilettante publisher and the thunderingly hearty Sophie, a German countess who never glides gracefully when she can pound across a ballroom. Other pleasing details in … Continue reading George Eliot with the gloves off: Patricia Duncker’s Sophie and the Sibyl →