Clik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Wandering with Wordsworth, Dorothy, that is
I can’t remember when or how biographies came to be a major meal in my reading menu, but I know that I love them. I acknowledge that behind every biography there lurks a nosey parker but at the same...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Have Book. Can Travel.
Here I am off to the wonderful ROME for a few days of bloggy holiday and some quality time with Dorothy Whipple'sSomeone at a Distance. What could be nicer?
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Spring is sprung (I think); and this blog is back!
Good morning folks. I have had a bit of a break from blogging recently, basically due to being buried in work, and I can honestly say that I have missed it dreadfully. So here is a celebratory picture...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Someone at a distance: the book that nearly broke my heart
I started reading this book on the district line in snatched moments; I took it to Rome with me and read a bit there and on the plane. I am not sure when it was that this book started to grip me. At...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Not so meek: the People’s Act of Love
The People’s Act of Love by James Meek is one of those books that I have been carting about, unread for years. Well, those years were wasted years, because it is brilliant. Although, it has to be said...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Vivia Ibiza! (and Formentera...)
I wish I could say that the reason my blog has been a bit of a wasteland recently is because I have been in Ibiza in manner of hippy ex-pat. Sadly, this is not true, but I have been there for a week,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The return of the weekly portrait: Christina Stead
I am enjoying Cotter's England so much, there is simply nothing else for it. Here is a picture of its author, Christina Stead. More of it and her later ...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Don't say "what", say "pardon" darling, and do as the Provincial Lady tells...
Finally reading E. M. Delafield’sDiary of a Provincial Lady has been a proper homey sort of pleasure, and not just because I am now able to fully understand Simon at Stuck in a Book’s shorthand …. It...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The hand that first held mine: am I the last person here to read this book?
Mystery, family secrets and bohemian London are three of my favourite things and I am fairly well chuffed to have discovered them, in combination in Maggie O’Farrell’sThe Hand that First Held Mine. I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Hare with Amber Eyes: a world where only the smallest survive
It would be nice to think that when I finally get around to chasing down my family history, that it will be pan-global rags to riches to rags tale of glamorous balls, old master acquisition and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
I am glad that I don't live in Cotter's England
I am sitting here of a sunny September morning wondering what on earth to make of Christina Stead’s 1966 novel, Cotter’s England. On one level reading it was a bloody awful experience. In fact,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A visit to Cookham
When he was s student at the Slade, the visionary painter Stanley Spencer, who regular readers of this blog will know is one of my all time favourites, was known by the name of his home village, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
And they all rolled over and one fell out: Wait for Me!
When I first read that Deborah Devonshire AKA the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire; Deborah Mitford; Debo; Stubby; Stublow etc was publishing memoirs my first thought was how can the world possibly need...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mostly being modern and romantic
I have discovered this week, just as I am closing the back cover on Alexandra Harris’ Romantic Moderns, that she has now published another book – this time on Virginia Woolf. It is better to come to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Slightly below the Whipple line
I have been on trains a lot recently, and apart from explorations with my new iphone (how did I not realise that I needed one before?), I have mostly been reading The Priory by Dorothy Whipple. I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Made in Chelsea circa. 1930
I ordered Chelsea Child by Rose Gamble from Amazon and, to be honest, I was a bit surprised when it turned up. It had been recommended by a friend but I didn’t know anything about it. I do however live...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Good morning, Mexico City
OK - so I am not actually there now, and this picture is about 3 weeks old. Still cool though...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Norwegian Wood: too much sex, not enough cats
Last year a truly lovely Japanese lady, who I now miss very much, introduced me to the work of Haruki Murakami. She recommended Kafka on the Shore which I read slowly but with great enjoyment. It is...
View Article
