This, I think, does count as actual rediscovery of a neglected, if not entirely forgotten, author of the 60s/70s: Lost Beneath the Waves of Time: Jane Gaskell in/and the ’60s (and reading that I realise that she was a lacuna in those studies of Angry Young/Rebel Women Writers of the same period, but probably she was just too Out There and In Genre ( Read more... )

Somehow I feel this is not going to be The Egg and I for the C21st, for lo, it does not sound like an entire barrel of laughs (I did not even know that 'backyard chickens' constituted a movement):
Review of Gina G. Warren. Hatched: Dispatches from the Backyard Chicken Movement. If you are interested in learning about a burgeoning and complex ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished The Giant Dark which was okay without really pinging my buttons - and I did want rather more sense of her as a creative artist, it seemed a bit assumed? that she was this not exactly voice of a generation but of a particular niche group, almost mediumistic?
Lisa Berne, The Redemption of Philip Thane (The Penhallow Dynasty, #6) ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished Pure Juliet, also, but not immediately following, re-read of The Yellow Houses, the other posthumously published Stella Gibbons. And perhaps one does see why they might not have been publishable at the time (simply because there is a feeling of disjuncture between her and the period in and of which she was writing), but they ( Read more... )

What I read
Frances Bingham, Valentine Ackland: A Transgressive Life (2021), which was very good, even if one's heart does still ache somewhat for Sylvia Townsend Warner. I made some comments in this post yesterday. I did think it gave a more positive picture of Ackland than The Akeing Heart, and in general a clearer story all round.
Finished ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished Hallie Lieberman Buzz: The Stimulating History of the Sex Toy, discussed in detail elsewhere.
Re-read of KJ Charles, The Gentle Art of Fortune-Hunting.
Ann Paris (pseud. of Orania Papazoglou/Jane Haddam), Graven Image (1987). I guess this would count as romantic suspense/romantic thriller? anyway that genre in which our protag ( Read more... )

What I read
Had a vague recollection that I had heard fairly well of Heyer's Frederica (1965), and I will give it points for being able to see the Alpha Hero growing and changing under the impact of the older and sensible heroine (and her brothers), but even so, there were rather annoying aspects, like again, She Is Not Like Other Women, who are ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished March Sisters, which was quite good in that personal-essays-about-books mode. But a thing I noticed with this, and with the Tatar book below, is that they seem not to have read the later sequels? In which Jo as 'Mother Bhaer' does actually get back to being a writer, and there is that scene with the excruciatingly awful ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished Grumpy Fake Boyfriend - a bit on the slight side.
Somehow found myself diverted into a re-read of Tony Fennelly's Matt Sinclair mysteries (he was the gay proprietor of a posh furniture store in New Orleans, scion of a family with deep roots in the region, and also at one time legally qualified): The Glory Hole Murders (1985), ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished A Civil Campaign and honestly, would we really recommend that she marries him? really?
However, I did then re-read The Flowers of Vashnoi (2018) and the short story 'Winterfair Gifts' (2004) to round off the binge.
On Thursday subscribers to KJ Charles' newsletter got a freebie short story tying up threads from Think of England ( Read more... )