Let it snow . . .
I don’t usually blog about the weather, but it is the dominating fact of our lives at the moment. The snow arrived last Friday night and the threat of more stopped us going away at the week-end. It wasn’t too bad yesterday: my husband got his car out and our daughter got to school. But […]
My Father’s Fortune
I hadn’t read anything by Michael Frayn until I read this memoir, though a few years ago I did go to see his play, NOISES OFF, which was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in the theatre. Judging by MY FATHER’S FORTUNE, I’ve been missing something. Although it does encompass the author’s childhood, […]
William Maxwell
‘In order to pay off an old debt that someone else had contacted, Austin King had said yes when he knew that he ought to have said no, and now at five o’clock of a July afternoon he saw the grinning face of trouble everywhere he turned. The house was full of strangers from Mississippi; […]
Holiday Reading
It’s always hard to know which books to pack when space is at a premium. Recent holidays have been spent in Northern France so it has just been a matter of slinging a bag of books in the boot of the car. But this time we were going to China so there was a real […]
I’ve never read Ulysses
I’ve just read Susan Hill’s HOWARD’S END IS ON THE LANDING about the year she spent reading from her own collection of books. I enjoyed it and agreed with her about a lot. Like her I think that THE RECTOR’S DAUGHTER is a masterpiece. Like her I have a high regard for Trollope and Dickens […]
‘Have you always wanted to write?’
My friend, Martin Edwards, has an entertaining blog with the splendid title ‘Do you write under your own name?’ I have been asked this too at parties, usually in a hopeful tone after the speaker has ascertained that they have never heard of me or my novels. I never hold that against them. I don’t […]
The Rector’s Daughter Revisited
Two or three months ago I blogged about THE RECTOR’S DAUGHTER by F. M. Mayor and wondered if it was time to revisit it. Well, soon after this I offered it as one of the choices for my reading group and it was the one they picked. So I have reread it and what an […]
Elizabeth Jenkins
Elizabeth Jenkins died a few days ago at the age of 104. She’s a writer I’ve long admired. She was a distinguished biographer – Jane Austen, Elizabeth I – and a fine novelist. There are two works that I go back to regularly. One is her 1954 novel, THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE. The story […]
The Rabbi and Others
During the fortnight since I wrote about Harry Kemelman I have been reading my way contentedly through FRIDAY THE RABBI SLEPT LATE, SUNDAY THE RABBI STAYED HOME, TUESDAY THE RABBI SAW RED, WEDNESDAY THE RABBI GOT WET, THURSDAY THE RABBI WALKED OUT and have got MONDAY THE RABBI TOOK OFF on my reading pile. At […]