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What To Read When You’re Sick
‘The Convalescent’ by Gwen John (1924) My apologies for the scarcity of blog posts recently. I do have an excuse – I’ve been sick. This has been No Fun. On the positive side, after months of dragging...
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The Mapp and Lucia Novels by E. F. Benson
These books provided a delightful distraction during my recent lengthy convalescence, so I feel obliged to gush about them here, even though you’re probably already familiar with them. Actually, why...
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‘Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith’ by Valerie Grove
I picked up this biography with great enthusiasm, but found, on the very first page, this description of Valerie Grove, the biographer, reading I Capture the Castle: “Like so many readers before me, I...
View ArticleMiscellaneous Memoranda
- YA author Simmone Howell, who recently taught a course on writing for young readers, has written a series of blog posts about aspects such as character, structure, voice and place, and why you...
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What I’ve Been Reading
I loved The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, a murder mystery in which a police detective solves a four-hundred-year-old crime while lying immobile in a hospital bed. Alan Grant, with the...
View ArticleWhy Science Book Titles Are The Best Book Titles
Browsing the science shelves at my local library yesterday, I found the following books: How to Fossilise Your Hamster and Other Amazing Experiments for the Armchair Scientist Dunk Your Biscuit...
View ArticleLois Lowry on Book Banning
“By and large, the people who challenge and ban books are not the most intelligent people in the world. I’ll probably regret being quoted on that. But they are somewhat shallow in their reactions,...
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Adventures in Research: Class in Post-War England
Having ‘finished’ a new book1, I’m now thinking about writing a series set in 1960s England, so I’ve started doing some research. At this stage, my reading is fairly broad-ranging, but I do have a few...
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Doris Lessing on Reading
“There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag –...
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Adventures in Research: Americans in Post-War England
The cover of my edition of ‘Smith’s London Journal’ is very boring, so here is the poster from the 1951 film of ‘Rhubarb’My apologies for the lack of blog posts recently, but I’ve been reading ALL THE...
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Helene Hanff on Books
“I houseclean my books every spring and throw out those I’m never going to read again like I throw out clothes I’m never going to wear again. It shocks everybody. My friends are peculiar about books....
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Adventures in Research: Some Books about the 1950s and 1960s
I’ve been plodding on through the 1950s and 1960s, which has included reading books written about the period in more recent times. (This, by the way, did not involve much adventure. I just borrowed all...
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My Favourite Books of 2014
I know there’s still more than a week until the end of the year, but here are the books I’ve read in 2014 (so far) that I loved the most. But first – some statistics! I finished reading 84 books this...
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Adventures in Research: Secrets and Spies During the Cold War
As part of my research into 1960s England, I decided I needed to learn more about British intelligence agencies, and in particular, MI5. Firstly, though, I had to figure out the difference between MI5...
View ArticleBook Recommendations, Please
I know the people who regularly visit this blog are widely read, highly intelligent and have excellent taste, so could you please recommend me some books? But not just any books. I am looking for some...
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‘The Leopard’ by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
I feel slightly foolish rhapsodising about this novel. It’s rather like saying, “I saw this great play last night! You should see it! It’s called Hamlet!” because apparently, The Leopard (or Il...
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Dated Books, Part Nine: Friday’s Tunnel
A note for the benefit of those new to this series: ‘dated’ means ‘of its time, not ours’. ‘Dated’ books can be horribly offensive to modern sensibilities, or they can be charmingly nostalgic, or they...
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What I’ve Been Reading: The Elizabeth Edition
Well, I’ve mostly been reading 1960s non-fiction (currently David Kynaston’s Modernity Britain, which is excellent), but I’ve also read some other interesting books, all Elizabeth-related. The first of...
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Lady Chatterley’s Lover: The Obscenity Trial
I’ve just been reading about D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which was banned in Britain for more than thirty years. In 1960, Penguin attempted to publish a mass-paperback, uncensored edition...
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Adventures in Research: Schoolgirls in the 1950s and 1960s
Generally my Adventures in Research are not all that adventurous, given that they tend to involve nothing more arduous than a fifteen-minute stroll to my local library or second-hand book store and...
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