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Kate Macdonald

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Tag: satire

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 4 Comments November 12, 2022November 16, 2022

H G Wells does Lovecraft

The Croquet Player (1936) by H G Wells is set in an alternative universe where croquet and archery have the same exalted sporting status as tennis. It's a novella of serious frivolity, and seems to be most highly regarded now for its apparent foreshadowing of the Second World War. Given its publication date, after six … Continue reading H G Wells does Lovecraft →

Kate 20thC, animals, archaeology, community life, fantasy, H G Wells, H P Lovecraft, passion and secrets, political / social commentary, science fiction, thriller, wartime 2 Comments July 24, 2017July 24, 2017

The 1938 Club! Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop

This special podcast scripts recap from Why I Really like This Book, is on Scoop, Evelyn Waugh's magnificent satire about newspaper journalism. Scoop is also a member of The 1938 Club, a week of book reviews and blog posts about the reading of 1938, that's taking place between 11 and 17 April 2016. British journalism changed radically at … Continue reading The 1938 Club! Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop →

Kate Dornford Yates, Evelyn Waugh, humour, memoirs / diaries, Ngaio Marsh, outdoor adventure, parody, political / social commentary, the life of the times, the world of work, Why I Really Like This Book 2 Comments April 11, 2016April 10, 2016

Karel Čapek’s War With the Newts

I needed to read Karel Čapek’s RUR, his 1920 play in which he invents the robot, so I bought it in the SF Masterworks edition. The other half of this edition is an extraordinary novel called War With the Newts, which was an unexpected pleasure. It was almost the last thing Čapek published, in 1936, … Continue reading Karel Čapek’s War With the Newts →

Kate 20thC, Anita Loos, baroque and dramatic, fantasy, Joseph Conrad, Karel Čapek, outdoor adventure, political / social commentary, science fiction, technology, vaguely horror 2 Comments August 26, 2015August 27, 2015

A G Macdonell and England, Their England

Today’s letter in the Really Like This Book's podcast script rerun is M. A G Macdonell’s England, Their England, from 1933, is a satirical novel about English society, and has long had a grip on my understanding of the English. I was (am) a hybrid Anglo-Scot, never quite accepted by my Scottish school-friends or my English cousins … Continue reading A G Macdonell and England, Their England →

Kate 20thC, A G Macdonell, Angela Thirkell, E F Benson, humour, literary history, middlebrow, Nancy Mitford, Noel Coward, P G Wodehouse, political / social commentary, Rose Macaulay, Rudyard Kipling, Siegfried Sassoon, the life of the times, the world of work, theatreland, Why I Really Like This Book, Wilfred Owen 8 Comments August 24, 2015

Rose Macaulay’s Potterism

I wrote this podcast for Why I Really Like This Book for a miniseries called Fictions about Newspapers. Journalism is something I’ve dabbled in enough to know that I’m no good at it. I can write reviews, but I have no nous when it comes to news, and I am not hard-boiled. But I do … Continue reading Rose Macaulay’s Potterism →

Kate 20thC, Rose Macaulay, the world of work 8 Comments January 8, 2015
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Top Posts & Pages

  • Women in Translation: Colette’s Gigi, and The Cat
    Women in Translation: Colette’s Gigi, and The Cat
  • 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
  • H G Wells: Mr Britling Sees it Through
    H G Wells: Mr Britling Sees it Through
  • George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier
    George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier
  • The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser
    The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser
  • Ernest Hemingway's Islands in the Stream
    Ernest Hemingway's Islands in the Stream
  • Neil Gaiman’s The Sleeper and the Spindle
    Neil Gaiman’s The Sleeper and the Spindle
  • Vita Sackville-West, Saint Joan of Arc
    Vita Sackville-West, Saint Joan of Arc
  • John Wyndham's Trouble with Lichen
    John Wyndham's Trouble with Lichen
  • Breathlessly whirling with Georgette Heyer's Cotillion
    Breathlessly whirling with Georgette Heyer's Cotillion

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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