Coming of Age novels
I’ve recently read two novels which fit into this category. Giorgio Bassani’s THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS and Olive Anne Burns’ COLD SASSY TREE. In other ways they could hardly be more different. Bassani’s novel, published in 1962, is elegaic. lyrical,and poignant. It is set in Ferrara in the 1930s and we know from the […]
The Other Elizabeth Taylor
I was eager to read Nicola Beauman’s biography of the wonderful novelist and short story writer, Elizabeth Taylor. I’ve admired since quite by chance I picked up an old Penguin copy of A VIEW OF THE HARBOUR about twenty-five years ago in Austin’s second-hard furniture emporium in Peckham (long closed, alas). I was actually looking […]
Well, I’m back …
…and it’s been so long that I have almost forgotten how to blog. No sooner was I recovering from the car crash – plaster off and walking on crutches – than I caught swine flu -and so did my daughter. There have been other problems too which I can’t write about, because they involve someone […]