Category: 20thC
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We Have Always Lived in the Castle
This is another of those ‘the ones that got away’ posts’ This time I’m catching up Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which I raved about here when I was halfway through, because I was so surprised to discover how brilliant she is, and how much I liked this novel. I didn’t…
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The Wedding Group
Oops! I had a brainstorm when I mentioned the 1968 Club and forgot to say that I’d also read The Wedding Group, by Elizabeth Taylor, so I’m writing about it now, and will try to squeeze Muriel Spark in before the week ends. Taylor’s writing, like many of her characters, tends to be understated, restrained…
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Another Part of the Wood
Right. It’s 1968 so I can party along with everyone else at the ‘club’ organised by Simon over at Stuck in a Book, and Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings. The dedicated duo have been working their way through the decades, celebrating books issued in 1924, 1938, 1947 and 1951, and for each of those years…
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Radio, Comedy and Cold Comfort!
Talking of marathons (Persephone in the last post), Radio 4 Extra has been re-running the BBC’s 1981 edition of Stella Gibbons Cold Comfort Farm, and the four one-hour episodes are still available – you can catch them here, but you need to be quick, because there’s just one day left to hear the first episode,…
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In Which I Find the Virago Apple Isn’t Always a Mark of Excellence!
The blurb on the back of Hilary Bailey’s Hannie Richards or The Intrepid Adventures of a Restless Wife describes it as a ‘pastiche’ of John Buchan, and I suppose that’s right to some extent, because the connection is clearly visible in our heroine’s name – Hannie Richards/Richard Hannay. And the author subverts the male world…
The Book Trunk 