My thanks to Parthian Books for a review copy of this book via NetGalley. Sugar and Slate, originally published in 2002, and now being republished by Parthian Books is academic and author Charlotte Williams’ memoir exploring her search for identity, belonging and home. Born to a White, Welsh mother, and Black Guyanese father, her mixed…
Book Review: Dickens and Travel: The Start of Modern Travel Writing by Lucinda Hawksley
My thanks to Pen & Sword for a review copy of this book via NetGalley. Perhaps the most famous of Victorian writers, Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812–1870) was known for not only for the novels he wrote but also for the many wonderful, whimsical, inimitable and memorable characters he created, the love for Christmas he…
Book Review: Hedy Lamarr by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara and illustrated by Maggie Cole
My thanks to Francis Lincoln Books for a review copy of this book via Edelweiss! Hedy Lamarr is another entry in the Little People, Big Dreams series, and one I was keen to read for two reasons; one because I have been seeing reviews of different books in the series and find them a great…
Book Review: A Chelsea Concerto by Frances Faviell #DeanStreetDecember
Light-hearted and humorous but also poignant and harrowing, A Chelsea Concerto (1959) is Frances Faviell’s (or Olivia Faviell Lucas’) memoir of the London Blitz. At this time, Faviell, who was an artist (having studied at the Slade School of Art) lived in Chelsea and served as a Red Cross volunteer in various capacities, experiencing both…
Book Review: Ti Amo by Hanne Ørstavik and translated by Martin Aitken #NovNov
My thanks to Archipelago/Steerforth Press for a review copy of this book via Edelweiss. Ti Amo (2022) is a raw, honest, beautiful, heart-breaking, autobiographical account of a woman whose husband is suffering terminal cancer. Written originally in Norwegian by author Hanne Ørstavik, the version I read is translated brilliantly by Martin Aitken. In Ti Amo,…
Book Review: Montaigne by Stefan Zweig and translated by Will Stone #NovNov #NonfictionNovember #GermanLitMonth
In such epochs where the highest values of life—our peace, our independence, our basic rights, all that makes our existence more pure, more beautiful, all that justifies it—are sacrificed to the demon inhabiting a dozen fanatics and ideologues, all the problems of the man who fears for his humanity come down to the same question:…
Book Review: The Improbable Adventures of Miss Emily Soldene: Actress, Writer and Rebel Victorian by Helen Batten
My thanks to Allison and Busby and NetGalley for a review copy of this book. The Improbable Adventures of Emily Soldene: Actress, Writer and Rebel Victorian is an entertaining and very readable biography of a rather extraordinary woman—Emily Soldene who was a singer, actress, director, writer and much much more—a woman who wanted fame but…
Book Review: The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym by Paula Byrne
My thanks to NetGalley and William Collins for a review copy of this book. I first came across Barbara Pym I think may be ten years ago through an online book group on Shelfari, and I remember the first time I read her (now I really don’t remember which of her books it was I…
Book Review: Peel Me a Lotus by Charmian Clift
My thanks to Muswell Press and NetGalley for a review copy of this one. This is the second volume of memoirs by Australian writer Charmian Clift of the time she and her family spent in Greece (they lived there 14 or more years). The first, Mermaid Singing, was of their time on the island of…
Book Review: Mermaid Singing by Charmian Clift
My thanks to Muswell Press and NetGalley for a review copy of this one. In the 1950s, Australian writer Charmian Clift and her husband George Johnston (with whom she also jointly wrote books) decided to leave grey, dreary London (where George was working on Fleet Street) to move to a Greek Island with their children…
Literary Potpourri 