Category: Literature

Batsford

It is sometimes instructive to judge a book by its cover. Nobody could mistake the E Phillips Oppenheim cover in yesterday’s post for a treatise on bee keeping, unless the protagonists are being stung.

Good Crap

PG Wodehouse was prolific and successful but there was another genre in the first half of the last century – between the wars – and those authors made more money. Edgar Wallace and Somerset Maugham rivalled our subject today in popularity and earnings.

Farewell to the President

“Gossip and politics, hock and seagulls’ eggs” writes Chips Channon and that encapsulates the tone of his dairies. Two entries though are worth quoting in the light of my recent reading about President Roosevelt.

Strange Stories of the Chase

The Countess of Feversham cut a dashing figure in the hunting field in a red coat and a top hat, as Millais’ portrait would bring out if I could find a colour version.

Waugh Diaries

It’s been years since I read The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh. I’m looking at them again because of an email from a reader that sent me down a rabbit hole into a labyrinthine warren.

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Categorised as Literature

Meet the Bins

I wonder how can I make my posts more interesting? Blog readers like something seasonal, so how about mistletoe at Cranford Park instead of mulled wine?

Slightly Foxed

I’ve succumbed to temptation and taken out a subscription to Slightly Foxed, The Real Reader’s Quarterly. I used to read it in the library at my club but newspapers and magazines are too toxic for members to handle these days.

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Categorised as Literature