Back in 1987 I watched with pleasure a BBC TV series called The Fortunes of War. It starred Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, who met during the filming and got married afterwards. I'd never read the books it was based on, so when I was offered a NetGalley version of the first novel in what b...

Its Sylvia Townsend Warner Week at a gallimaufry. It's only two years since I discovered STW but on the strength of what I've read of her so far I have no hesitation in saying she's become one of my all time favourite authors. I've reviewed everything I've read of hers and I'll put some links ...

I was very late in the day in discovering the novels of Tana French. I'd tried her first novel, In the Woods, some years ago and for some reason didn't take to it. Then, less than a year ago, I read her standalone novel The Wych Elm, and was totally blown away. Since then I've devoured five of...

Back in 1987 I watched with pleasure a BBC TV series called The Fortunes of War. It starred Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, who met during the filming and got married afterwards. I'd never read the books it was based on, so when I was offered a NetGalley version of the first novel in what b...

Back in 1987 I watched with pleasure a BBC TV series called The Fortunes of War. It starred Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, who met during the filming and got married afterwards. I'd never read the books it was based on, so when I was offered a NetGalley version of the first novel in what b...

I was very late in the day in discovering the novels of Tana French. I'd tried her first novel, In the Woods, some years ago and for some reason didn't take to it. Then, less than a year ago, I read her standalone novel The Wych Elm, and was totally blown away. Since then I've devoured five of...

This is 'Lady with Cat' by the amazing Japanese artist Hokusai (1760-1849). Thanks to Dark Puss for sending this. Bonus: If you've got a few minutes to waste and want to laugh, here's a link to a series of people recreating famous paintings. Brilliant.

'Cat,1966' by the Japanese artist Rinjirō Hasegawa (1904-1988) Info below from the site where I found it: Apparently it took 6 years to complete this painting. The artist did not paint the subject unless he was actually looking at the target…. In “Memories of Tallow” by Jirojiro, he wrote that...

'Cat,1966' by the Japanese artist Rinjirō Hasegawa (1904-1988) Info below from the site where I found it: Apparently it took 6 years to complete this painting. The artist did not paint the subject unless he was actually looking at the target…. In “Memories of Tallow” by Jirojiro, he wrote that...

Its Sylvia Townsend Warner Week at a gallimaufry. It's only two years since I discovered STW but on the strength of what I've read of her so far I have no hesitation in saying she's become one of my all time favourite authors. I've reviewed everything I've read of hers and I'll put some links ...

Its Sylvia Townsend Warner Week at a gallimaufry. It's only two years since I discovered STW but on the strength of what I've read of her so far I have no hesitation in saying she's become one of my all time favourite authors. I've reviewed everything I've read of hers and I'll put some links ...

Its Sylvia Townsend Warner Week at a gallimaufry. It's only two years since I discovered STW but on the strength of what I've read of her so far I have no hesitation in saying she's become one of my all time favourite authors. I've reviewed everything I've read of hers and I'll put some links ...

For Sylvia Townsend Warner Reading Week last year, I read her Diaries, and they were wonderful. Then lethe wrote that her letters were even better. And I know that Simon of Stuck in a Book is also a great fan of STW’s letters. So – what could I do? I want to write about as many facets of STW’s...

Its Sylvia Townsend Warner Week at a gallimaufry. It's only two years since I discovered STW but on the strength of what I've read of her so far I have no hesitation in saying she's become one of my all time favourite authors. I've reviewed everything I've read of hers and I'll put some links ...

Hello and a very warm welcome to Sylvia Townsend Warner Reading Week 2020! Ahem. The purpose of this Reading Week is to encourage as many people as possible to (re)discover and enjoy the marvellous writings of Sylva Townsend Warner. Of course, every week is Sylvia Townsend Warner Reading Week r...

Dedicated to Valentine Ackland, Summer Will Show was the first novel Sylvia Townsend Warner wrote after the two women had met and fallen in love. It is a sort-of historical novel, although – as in the two other historical novels of hers I have read, After the Death of Don Juan and The Corner Tha...

(Edmund Dulac, Circe, the Enchantress, 1911; from here) Following on from yesterday’s post about some of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s fantastical stories, a quick look at some of her fantastical poetry. In last year’s Sylvia Townsend Warner Reading Week I wrote about the Selected Poems published b...

Hello and a very warm welcome to Sylvia Townsend Warner Reading Week 2020! Ahem. The purpose of this Reading Week is to encourage as many people as possible to (re)discover and enjoy the marvellous writings of Sylva Townsend Warner. Of course, every week is Sylvia Townsend Warner Reading Week r...

This very pretty collection of stories was published earlier this year by Handheld Press (who also publish a companion collection, Kingdoms of Elfin) and it’s the book I’ve chosen to start off 2020’s Sylvia Townsend Warner Reading Week. It’s made up of two parts: the first is hitherto-unpublish...

'Vanessa Stockard was born in 1975 in Sydney and spent her formative years in a small country town in the Mid North Coast of New South Wales. At 12 she returned to Sydney and after graduating from the College of Fine Arts (COFA) Sydney in 1998 with a BFA, Stockard launched head first into the ...

I'm not sure how I came to miss this when it came out in January. When I spotted it recently on Kindle I snapped it up - who doesn't love Jane Austen, and this book promised to solve one of the great mysteries that have bothered academics for years - why did her older sister Cassandra burn mos...

'Vanessa Stockard was born in 1975 in Sydney and spent her formative years in a small country town in the Mid North Coast of New South Wales. At 12 she returned to Sydney and after graduating from the College of Fine Arts (COFA) Sydney in 1998 with a BFA, Stockard launched head first into the ...

I'm not sure how I came to miss this when it came out in January. When I spotted it recently on Kindle I snapped it up - who doesn't love Jane Austen, and this book promised to solve one of the great mysteries that have bothered academics for years - why did her older sister Cassandra burn mos...

I'm not sure how I came to miss this when it came out in January. When I spotted it recently on Kindle I snapped it up - who doesn't love Jane Austen, and this book promised to solve one of the great mysteries that have bothered academics for years - why did her older sister Cassandra burn mos...

Here's a book you really need to read. I have quite a history with EH Young's brilliant novel. I've reviewed it twice on here, in 2010 and 2016 (though the second one, posted for Simon and Kaggsy's 1947 Club, was pretty much a rehash of the first). In fact my love affair with Young (let's call...