Skin-Deep (1927) by Naomi Royde-Smith

Book Review by George S: Naomi Royde-Smith is probably best-remembered for her career as a literary journalist, first on the Westminster Gazette (where she ran the celebrated competition pages) and later on Time and Tide, but she also wrote twenty-six novels. These gained respectful reviews, but were not hugely successful at the time, and have … Continue reading →

Impromptu in Moribundia (1939) by Patrick Hamilton

Book review by George S: Patrick Hamilton is well known as the chronicler of the seedier side of London – the run-down boarding houses and the dubious pubs. It’s a surprise, then, to find him writing the story of a journey to another planet – a book that at first promises to be Science Fiction. … Continue reading →

The Bulpington of Blup (1932) by H.G. Wells

Book Review by George S: 1932 is a long time after H.G. Wells’s brilliant scientific fables of the 1890s, and over the intervening period he had developed into a pretty bad novelist. But of The Bulpington of Blup, one can say that, while it is indeed not a good novel, it is not as dreary … Continue reading →

The History of Mr Polly (1910) by H G Wells

Book Review by Sylvia D: The last time the Reading Group considered books by H G Wells, I read Ann Veronica which, with the exception of the frustrating dénouement, I enjoyed. I was hoping Mr Polly would be equally entertaining, but was disappointed. We first meet Mr Polly when he is 37 and a half … Continue reading →

Cold Comfort Farm (1932) by Stella Gibbons

Book Review by Jane V. Stella Gibbons trained as a journalist but thought of herself as a poet. She wrote many other novels but Cold Comfort Farm was her first and by far the most successful. She can in fact ‘do’ any style including the overblown stuff favoured by writers like Ethel M. Dell. Stella … Continue reading →

Poor Caroline (1931) by Winifred Holtby

Book review by Sylvia D:  Poor Caroline is a satire in which Holtby pokes fun at the worlds of philanthropy and religion but also introduces other themes: the loneliness and frustrations of old age, the position of women in interwar society, and the lingering impact of the First World War on those who fought in … Continue reading →

Ripeness is All by Eric Linklater (1935)

Review by Thecla W: The novel opens with the funeral of Major John Gander. We are introduced to various Gander relatives: his half-sister, Hilary; his nephews, Arthur and Stephen; his nieces Katherine and Jane. Other prominent characters are the vicar and Mr Peabody, the lawyer. There is also a long-lost nephew, George, believed to be … Continue reading →

The Merry Muse, by Eric Linklater (1959)

Review by Val H ‘Eric Linklater’s Latest!’ proclaims my copy of The Merry Muse (Jonathan Cape, 1959) in large letters.  Bloomsbury, which publishes it as an e-book, says it is: “part farce, part satire on manners and social attitudes [sparkling] from beginning to end…the work of a master…at the height of his powers”. Two contemporary … Continue reading →

Tory Heaven or Thunder on the Right by Marghanita Laski (1948)

We had a very good reading group on Marghanita Laski. She began her novel-writing career with comic political satires, first Love on the Supertax, and then this novel, Tory Heaven. Copies of this novel may be harder to come by than Love on the Supertax, as I haven’t seen it reviewed elsewhere. Review by Thecla … Continue reading →

The Major’s Candlesticks by George A. Birmingham (1929)

Review by Kath R: George A. Birmingham is the pseudonym of James Owen Hannay. Major Kent’s Irish country house is burned down during the Irish War of Independence in 1921 by a member of his staff. He was warned it was to happen so he takes with him a set of valuable candlesticks which he … Continue reading →