Wednesday, the 30th of August, and time for Shelf Control once again! Shelf Control is a weekly feature created by Lisa at Bookshelf Fantasies, and celebrates the books waiting to be read on your TBR piles/mountains. Since early January 2023, Shelf Control has moved base here to Literary Potpourri. To participate, simply pick a book…
Book Review: A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays (1840) by Percy Bysshe Shelley
While I’ve only read a couple of Shelley’s poems in the past (which truth be told, I wasn’t sure I interpreted correctly), I was keen on exploring his essays, particularly after coming across a Human Rights Charter which he wrote and of which he apparently used to make copies which were stuffed in bottles and…
Book Review: Umberto’s Circus (1951) by Eduard Bass #15BooksofSummer
First published in Czech in 1941 (as far as I can tell), and in translation in English in 1951, Umberto’s Circus is, as its name indicates, a book centred on a circus, the titular Umberto’s Circus which from humble beginnings has grown into a magnificent and opulent show, and on a family of two, Czech…
Some Favourite Fictional Dogs from my Childhood #InternationalDogDay
It's 26 August 2023--International Dog Day and so time for a doggie special post! Today's post is a bit of trip back to the past, thinking back to some favourite canine characters from fiction whom I loved as a child. As regular visitors to the blog would know, a large part of my childhood reading…
Shelf Control #242: The Murder Mystery by Alice Castle
Wednesday, the 23rd of August 2023, and time for Shelf Control once again! Shelf Control is a weekly feature created by Lisa at Bookshelf Fantasies, and celebrates the books waiting to be read on your TBR piles/mountains. Since early January 2023, Shelf Control has moved base here to Literary Potpourri. To participate, all you do…
Book Review: Mary Barton (1848) by Elizabeth Gaskell
Interweaving social commentary with a love story and some of the drama of a sensation novel, Elizabeth Gaskell’s first novel Mary Barton (1848) takes us in to the same setting and explores similar themes as her better-known later work, North and South—among them the difficulties faced by labour or the working class and the tensions…
Book Review: An Academic Question (1986) by Barbara Pym
Light-hearted and delightful, yet with that tiny stand of melancholy (not as pronounced as in some of her others) that one finds in her books, An Academic Question by Barbara Pym was published posthumously in 1986, with Pym’s literary executor (and novelist in her own right) Hazel Holt actually putting the book together from an…
Author Profile: Henry Cecil
My pile of Henry Cecil Books I first came across Henry Cecil, or Henry Cecil Leon, as his full name is, in a bookshop I used to shop at some years ago, when I laid my eyes on what seemed like really fun covers (sort of like Wodehouse books). When I asked about them, I…
Shelf Control #241: Murder at School by James Hilton
Wednesday, the 16th of August 2023, and time for Shelf Control once again! Shelf Control is a weekly feature created by Lisa at Bookshelf Fantasies, and celebrates the books waiting to be read on your TBR piles/mountains. Since early January 2023, Shelf Control has moved base here to Literary Potpourri. To participate, all you do…
Book Review: Before the Coffee Gets Cold (2015) by Toshikazu Kawaguchi and translated by Geoffrey Trousselot
First published in 2015, Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi is a book that has certainly got mixed reactions, but my own, now that I finally got to it, was quite favourable, in that these (mostly) bittersweet tales set around a strange café in Tokyo, which allows one to time travel but with…
Literary Potpourri 