Category: Literature

The Invention of Memory

I was given The Invention of Memory for Christmas three years ago by Alan Higgs. It is by Simon Loftus and traces the story of his family from their arrival in Ireland in 1560 until Mount Loftus burned down in 1934.

In Translation

I am reading, in translation, Joseph Roth’s novella, The Legend of the Holy Drinker, translated and introduced by Wykehamist, Michael Hofmann.

A Drop of Irish

Marigold Armitage is perched on the top shelf of my fiction section between Martin Amis and Daisy Ashford. If you don’t know her books you will certainly be aware of her genre.

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Categorised as Literature

Daytime TV

You don’t watch daytime TV do you? That would be Pointless and show you up as an Egghead. Allow me to digress …

The Flemish Panel

In April this year I wrote about Spanish author, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, and his novels. What better place to pick one up than in Valencia.

Max Beerbohm

So many posts start like this, but here I go again – more than forty years ago … I was given as a birthday present a novel, actually the only one he wrote, by Max Beerbohm. The donor was a university friend, we are still friends and I still have Zuleika Dobson.

In Three Words

Charles Moore writing in The Spectator last week drew my attention to an 80th anniversary that had passed me by.

Tumbril Talk – Part One

Six political parties in the UK are led by women (pedantically five 1/2); none so far as I know in the US. However, there have been women who have carried considerable influence in American politics and none more so than Alice Roosevelt Longworth.

Comfort Reading

In the autumn of 1972 I was invited to stay with Baron and Baroness von V-S on their estate in Germany. A Mercedes was at the station to meet me driven by a tweedy type who spoke no English. It dawned on me that this was not the Baron but his chauffeur. A parp on… Continue reading Comfort Reading

For Starters

There are two great American novels narrated through the eyes of children – both girls, as it happens. One is To Kill a Mockingbird and the other? Here’s how it starts.