Category: Literature

Literary Lions

You may not agree but I reckon the three greatest living British novelists are, in ascending order of age, Sebastian Faulks (69), William Boyd (70) and Julian Barnes (76).

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Categorised as Literature

Wulff

I read a review of this last year and didn’t want to read what sounded like a shabby little shocker about Benjamin Britten seducing a teenage German boy in 1938.

Tommasino

This Gainsborough portrait is far from his most famous and you may wonder why it was the coda of a recent post, Sudbury’s Son.

A Place in the Rain

”Baroness Caterina de Renzis and her late husband, Baron Alessandro de Renzis Sonnino, first saw Castello Sonnino … in 1988. The estate with its 16th century villa had just been left to Alessandro by a childless uncle; in its 500 years of existence, it had been variously inhabited by Frescobaldis, Machiavellis and Strozzis, as well… Continue reading A Place in the Rain

Dry Up

At this time of year there used to be John Julius Norwich’s Christmas Cracker to anticipate.

I Fear for this Boy

I have been taking a rest from writing and it’s been hard to get back in the saddle – laziness really.

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Categorised as Literature

The Way We Were

I hope Mary Kenny will not mind if I mention that she is ten years older than me within a day.