Well, bye for now, dear Governess, Quint, Miss Jessel, Miles, Flora and company! It's been nice meeting you, but all things must come to their end, including the series of The Turn of the Screw posts in this blog! (I can almost hear a huge sigh of relief from whoever has been reading them, lol.) On a serious note, it has indeed been a fine ( Read more... )

The Wind Off the Small Isles (1968) is rather a novella than a novel. It is very short and to the point ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Spanish historical fiction has been unfamiliar to me - until recently. I have found La Diamantista de la Emperatriz (2008) by Pilar de Arístegui. An interesting read!

( A curious fact about the author )

In our practical times, I've heard people question the necessity of literary criticism. To such folks, I would recommend books like Deborah Epstein Nord's Gypsies and the British Imagination, 1807-1930. It is as exciting as any popular blockbuster, but gives you much food for thought.

The politically correct word is Romany, but the author uses the ( Read more... )

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield is such a famous book that I feel absolutely no need to report it. Yet this spring I re-read it in the original language, and I've got some ramblings and favourite quotes that I want to put here.

There is a thrilling plot, of course. Margaret Lea comes to the house of Vida Winter, a celebrated bestseller ( Read more... )

Sitting at home and being ill has at least one positive effect: I’ve finally read The Death of Arthur. When in my teens, I disliked King Arthur and his company. Somehow it all seemed so gloomy and dark, with unsavoury stuff like betrayal, adultery, incest… Depressing! I was supposed to study it at the university of course, but I cheated and read an ( Read more... )

This week, when I went to the reading rooms, I passed a 'Christmas exhibition'. The book that made me stop was Tosca's Christmas.

'And down went Tosca'... (sounds so tragic!)

... and down went the Christmas tree. "Get out, Tosca! You naughty cat!"

It's an illustrated children's book about a kitty's Christmas. The artist is Anne Mortimer. The kitty is ( Read more... )

The prolific historical fiction author, Jean Plaidy, wrote three books about Henry VIII’s first wife, Katharine of Aragon. They are sometimes published under one cover, but in my case they were separate books:

1) Katharine, the Virgin Widow
2) The Shadow of the Pomegranate
3) The King’s Secret Matter

The first book covers the events from the moment ( Read more... )