Does the world need a new biography of John Buchan? There have been three so far: a very thin and respectful one written a few years after his 1940 death, in an atmosphere of sincere grief and hagiography. Then there was Janet Adam Smith's 1965 biography, invited and facilitated by the family, which was the … Continue reading Ursula Buchan, Beyond The Thirty-Nine Steps
Alice thrust this novel into my hands as I began running for my train, since we'd spent too long talking in a café after meeting up in person again after almost eight years. We had become friends in Brussels fifteen years ago or so, where I was an editor and she was a novelist, and … Continue reading Alice Jolly, Between the Regions of Kindness
Inez Holden was a journalist, and a friend or a colleague of most of the literary giants of the middle of the twentieth century, as well as a former lover of George Orwell. I’ve been reading her Second World War writing, and have been thoroughly intrigued by her novel There’s No Story There (1944), which … Continue reading Inez Holden, There’s No Story There
I've been having trouble with Penelope Lively lately. I love most of her adult novels that I've tried, with the glaring, embarrassing, exception of Booker-winning Moon Tiger which I found dull. I now have two theories as to why Moon Tiger is in all the charity shops, but few of her other novels are. The … Continue reading The trouble with Penelope Lively: Oleander, Jacaranda
There is a good novel buried in this sprawling, self-indulgent fantasy of irony and class consciousness. Rachel Ferguson wrote A Footman for the Peacock (1940) right at the beginning of the Second World War: it was her eighth novel and fourteenth book. Comparing it to its immediate predecessor, Alas Poor Lady (1937), one can only assume … Continue reading Rachel Ferguson’s A Footman for the Peacock: a hatchet job
I was persuaded by the excellent word of mouth praise for A Notable Woman: The Romantic Journals of Jean Lucey Pratt, which is an unlikely-sounding smash hit. I was delighted. Also appalled by its weight and size: this is NOT a book for taking on holiday unless you do the ebook thing. A very absorbing, moving … Continue reading Now posting on Vulpes Libris: A Notable Woman: The Romantic Journals of Jean Lucey Pratt
Today's letter in the Really Like This Book podcast series script catch-up is T, so it has to be Angela Thirkell. I've spent several years writing about Thirkell, so I need to remind myself that although she used to be really famous, now she is hardly known at all, unless you're in the Angela Thirkell … Continue reading The outbreak of war: Angela Thirkell’s Cheerfulness Breaks In
