Fountain Inn (1939) by the prolific and almost forgotten Victor Canning (1911-1986)

Review by John Higgins. Victor Canning (1911-1986) wrote at an extraordinary rate at the start of his career. Fountain Inn was his twelfth book, and it appeared only five years after his first, the hugely successful Mr. Finchley Discovers his England published in 1934. If you include the short stories he was also writing at … Continue reading →

WW1 as a Holy Crusade? Ernest Raymond’s best-seller ‘Tell England’ (1922)

Review by Reading Group member First, a plot summary: Initially the narrator describes the public school life of himself and his two close friends.  Training to ‘rule the waves’ involves the internalisation of key English characteristics, viz. reserve, restraint, resilience. The teaching of such cultural values is reinforced by caning, ridicule and isolation. Counterpointing this … Continue reading →

Two women in one: Rose Macaulay’s ‘Keeping Up Appearances’ (1928)

*Warning! Contains spoilers!* Review by Helen C: I enjoyed this unusual book, carried along by the author’s enthusiasm, wit and convincing characterisation.  She clearly revels in words, and in some descriptions, heaps them up in piles, in a crescendo of extravagance (I came across at least 6 that I did not know and had to … Continue reading →

‘The Fashion in Shrouds’ (1938) by Margery Allingham

For the reading groups so far I’ve been picking out novels which share a subject, such as last month’s World War I fiction; this month I thought it would be interesting to read a particular genre. Detective fiction was the obvious choice – it was such a popular genre in the period (indeed you could … Continue reading →

Read detective stories along with us

This month we are reading Detective Stories. (After last month’s World War I fiction I thought some light relief was called for.) I pulled out a selection of the many detective novels we hold in the collection. Reading Group members chose books by well-known writers Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham (I am reading … Continue reading →

‘Carrying On – After The First Hundred Thousand’ by Ian Hay (1917)

Review by Syvlvia D: Carrying On is a matter of fact account of life in the trenches in Flanders seen through the eyes of the men of one regiment known as the “Hairy Jocks”, undoubtedly based on the experiences of the author who was an officer in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. It is a … Continue reading →

A War Book, but not a novel: All Our Yesterdays by H. M. Tomlinson (1930)

All Our Yesterdays is a strange novel; or rather, it is not really a novel at all. At first I was flummoxed by the structure – we seemed to move from scene to scene and from character to character with no guiding narrative. We start with an unnamed first person narrator – who remains unnamed … Continue reading →