The prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
A year or so ago I caught The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie starring Maggie Smith on the telly. It was a very good film, I’d...
8 August 2020
T. H. White : a biography by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Back in 2017 I read and loved H is for hawk by Helen Macdonald. In that book she talks about T. H. White and his book...
18 February 2019
Ip man dir. by Wilson Yip
It is 1935, and everyone in Foshan, China lives a wonderful life. Martial arts schools are everywhere, and Foshan has some of the best. But one...
3 September 2018
The unwomanly face of war by Svetlana Alexievich
translated into English by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky When I saw this mentioned in some magazine or other I had to order it. I was...
7 February 2018
The high mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel
This book. I just. Okay, to start with I wasn’t sure I was even going to finish it. Tomás and his fridged wife and his walking...
25 November 2017
The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein
Back in 2012 I read and loved Code Name Verity, so when I saw that this was a prequel to that story I had to read...
9 September 2017
The diaries of Nella Last : writing in war & peace by Nella Last
This collection brings together into a single volume the best of Nella Last’s prolific outpourings, including a great deal of new, unpublished material from the war...
28 May 2017
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows, Mary Ann Shaffer
January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could...
1 April 2017
Dark Matter by Michelle Paver
January 1937. Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely, and desperate to change his life, so when...
7 December 2016
To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee
I would guess that almost everyone reading this blog is familiar, to some degree, with Harper Lee’s To kill a mockingbird. The classic story of a...
4 November 2015
Black Dove, White Raven by Elizabeth Wein
Emilia and Teo live as though they were brother and sister. Teo’s mother Delia died when a bird hits the plane is flying, but Emilia’s mother,...
14 April 2015