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Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden
This excellent, beautifully observed novel about identity, friendship and private vs public selves is my first experience of Deirdre Madden’s work; but on the strength of its quiet, unshowy prose and...
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Making Modernism – Royal Academy of Arts Exhibition Catalogue
Something a little different from me today, a few notes about this gorgeous exhibition catalogue from the Royal Academy’s Making Modernism Exhibition, which ran from November 2022 to February 2023....
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The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White (filmed by Hitchcock as ‘The Lady Vanishes’)
It’s always a pleasure when a new reissue from the British Library Crime Classics series drops through the door, and Ethel Lina White’s wonderfully suspenseful novel The Wheel Spins proved no...
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An Unsuitable Attachment by Barbara Pym
Many of you will know about my fondness for Barbara Pym’s novels, populated as they are by ‘excellent’, well-meaning women, idiosyncratic Anglican clergymen and somewhat fusty academics. It’s a place...
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Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata (tr. Edward G. Seidensticker)
The Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata is perhaps best known for Snow Country, the story of a doomed love affair between a wealthy city-based man and an innocent young geisha who lives in a remote area...
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Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence by Avril Horner
Barbara Comyns is something of a marvel – a highly imaginative writer with an utterly unique voice. Her novels have a strange, somewhat off-kilter feel, frequently blending surreal imagery and touches...
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Neighbors and Other Stories by Diane Oliver
The black American writer Diane Oliver had a promising career ahead of her when she died in a motorcycle accident in 1966 at the age of twenty-two. A graduate student at the University of Iowa...
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Her Side of the Story by Alba de Céspedes (tr. Jill Foulston)
Last year, the Italian-Cuban writer Alba de Céspedes secured a spot in my books-of-year with Forbidden Notebook – a candid, exquisitely written novel in which a middle-aged woman in post-war Rome...
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The #1937Club – some reading recommendations for next week
It’s early April, so it must be almost time for another of Karen and Simon’s ‘Club’ weeks! On Monday 15th, the #1937Club will begin – a week-long celebration of books first published in 1937. These...
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The Garrick Year by Margaret Drabble
First published in 1964, The Garrick Year was Margaret Drabble’s second novel, nicely placed between her debut A Summer Bird-Cage (which I loved) and The Millstone (which I have in my TBR). It’s a...
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