Book Review by George S: The Razor’s Edge was written during the Second World War, but its story begins at the end of the First one. In 1919 Larry Darrell is in Paris. He is an airman who after the Armistice is behaving oddly. As a character says: The war did something to Larry. He … Continue reading
Posted by George Simmers …
The Shuttle (1907) by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Book review by George Simmers: When my daughter was young I used to read to her regularly, and when she was ten or eleven we both greatly enjoyed the children’s books of Frances Hodgson Burnet. The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Editha’s Burglar. Wonderful stories. Frances Hodgson Burnet. was born in Manchester, … Continue reading
The Heat of the Day (1948) by Elizabeth Bowen
Book Review by George Simmers: The Heat of the Day is a novel set in 1942. The central character is Stella, whose lover, Robert had been wounded at Dunkirk. He now seems to be working in Whitehall. One day a mysterious man called Harrison comes to Stella’s flat and tells her that Robert is passing … Continue reading
Beau Brocade (1907) by Baroness Orczy
Book review by George Simmers. This month we are looking at books and writers connected with Derbyshire and Yorkshire, and this novel, despite being written by the Hungarian, Baroness Orczy, qualifies on both counts. It is set on the moors of Derbyshire, and Baroness Orczy, having married her theatrical collaborator, Montagu Barstow, lived with him … Continue reading
The Luck of the Bodkins (1935) by P.G. Wodehouse
Book Review by George Simmers: July was Herbert Jenkins month at the Sheffield Hallam 1900-1950 Reading Group, and so I gave myself a treat by reading a Wodehouse. Before 1918 P.G. Wodehouse had a variety of British publishers, but in 1918 Picadilly Jim was taken on by Herbert Jenkins, and Wodehouse liked the way that … Continue reading
Giant’s Bread by Mary Westmacott (1930)
Book review by George S: This is the first of the novels that Agatha Christie published under the name of Mary Westmacott. It is an odd book, though an interesting one. (Warning: The review contains spoilers.) It begins with a prologue, the opening night of a new opera, The Giant, by an unknown Russian composer. … Continue reading
Absent In the Spring (1944) by Mary Westmacott
Book Review by France Soar: When Agatha Christie, already renowned for her detective fiction, chose to write certain novels under the pen-name Mary Westmacott, she was presumably seeking to avoid any preconceptions on the part of her readers. By the time I came to read Absent in the Spring, in the spring of 2022, anonymity … Continue reading
Tales of Pirates and Blue Water (1922) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Book Review by George S: This 1922 volume contains stories written by Doyle over a long period, and the most striking are the four about the evil pirate Sharkey, set mostly in the Caribbean during the early eighteenth century. In the course of them, Doyle presents a potted history of the Caribbean. He depicts it … Continue reading
We Are Not Alone (1937) by James Hilton
Book review by George S: James Hilton wrote this novel after he had moved to Hollywood, and it reads rather like a movie treatment. We begin with opening shots of a cosy English cathedral town. A house is being demolished to make room for a department store, and people are reminiscing nostalgically: ‘That was where … Continue reading
Lolly Willowes (1926) by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Book review by Sue R: Sylvia Townsend Warner was a poet, short story writer, novelist and musicologist. She wrote non- fiction works including a biography of T.H. White, and a translation of Proust. She and her partner Valentine Ackland, a poet, were both active in the Communist Party; they worked for Red Cross during the … Continue reading
Reading 1900-1950 