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I Pose – Stella Benson
I know some people are very keen to end a reading year on a high, but for me it is more important that the first book of a new year is good. Of course, I would love every book I read to be good, but...
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Hovel in the Hills – Elizabeth West
Last year I read, and very much enjoyed, The Egg & I by Betty Macdonald (and discovered that there is a thriving Betty Macdonald community out there). Although the very thought of going to run a...
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Re-reading
I’ve just finished re-reading The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson for my book group, and thus it will be filling my 1982 slot in A Century of Books, but I didn’t want to repeat myself by re-reviewing it...
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The Teleportation Accident – Ned Beauman
Can we be superficial for a moment? This cover is amazing. I love it so much. I’ve had a hunt through the paperback to try to work out who designed it, and failed, but kudos to him or her. I read...
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The Suburban Young Man – E.M. Delafield
Can we talk about how pleasingly this bookmark goes? I started reading The Suburban Young Man (1928) when Tanya was giving a paper on it at a conference we both attended – that link will take you to...
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The Misinterpretation of Tara Jupp by Eva Rice
I was lucky enough to be sent a copy of Eva Rice’s The Misinterpretation of Tara Jupp (2013), alongside which was included a lovely note from the author herself, hoping I’d enjoy it. Well, I did – it...
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Here Be Dragons – Stella Gibbons
I’ve been very excited about Vintage Books reprinting Stella Gibbons’ lesser-known novels (perhaps following the lead Virago started with Nightingale Wood, which I still haven’t read) and I have been...
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Abbie – Dane Chandos
A friend from my book group kindly lent me Abbie (1947) by Dane Chandos about a million years ago, and I’ve somehow only recently got around to reading it. I think it looked almost too inviting – it...
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The Fifth Child – Doris Lessing
Whenever I’ve mentioned to people that my book group is reading The Fifth Child (1988) by Doris Lessing, they have shuddered and told me that I’d better make sure I don’t read it late at night or when...
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Patricia Brent, Spinster – Herbert Jenkins
Although I love all the books on my 50 Books You Must Read list, I freely admit that some are better than others, as regards literary merit. Some are simply on there because they are incredibly fun...
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Tea By The Nursery Fire – Noel Streatfeild
Picture nabbed from Hayley’s review… I seem to be on a little run of lovely books at the moment, although Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century (1976) by Noel...
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Mr. Fox by Barbara Comyns
One of the many lovely things about being at home in Somerset is that most of my books are down here. Although I have several hundred unread books in Oxford, I have many more in Somerset that I don’t...
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Mr. Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood
This is another one where I’m sending you off to Vulpes Libris! We’ve inaugurated Shelf of Shame week, where five of us pick an author or book we’ve been meaning to read for ages, and see how we find...
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Blood on the Dining-Room Floor by Gertrude Stein
If Swallows and Amazons is a great book to be reading while the brain is a bit confuzzled, then Blood on the Dining-Room Floor (1948) probably isn’t. But it came to mind the other day when Dorothy...
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Shirley Jackson – The Sundial, Hangsaman, and The Bird’s Nest
Oh, this has been a difficult bunch of books to keep quiet about. And I haven’t really managed it, looking back, but I could have been much less restrained. Now that Shiny New Books is unveiled, I...
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As For Me And My House – Sinclair Ross
Well, I hope you’ll still be having a wander around Shiny New Books, but that won’t (of course) stop me writing reviews here on Stuck-in-a-Book – although they may quieten down a bit when Issue 2...
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Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West
Thank you for all your lovely birthday greetings! I will do the prize draw soon, and today bought the book I’m intending to send… it’s very good, by one of my favourite authors, and not all that easy...
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Tove Jansson
You probably know that one of my very favourite authors is Tove Jansson – but I didn’t know very much about her beyond what she’d put of herself in her fiction. So I was thrilled to learn that a...
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The Pumpkin Eater – Penelope Mortimer
Sorry to disappear suddenly – I went off to Somerset for an Easter weekend (the most dramatic moment: Sherpa getting stuck on the roof; eventually I pulled her through the bathroom window, with Our...
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Letters from England – Karel Čapek
When Claire recommended Letters from England (1924, translated by Paul Selver 1925) by Karel Čapek it was one of those very welcome recommendations – being for a book that I already had on my shelves....
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