Category: Bookends

  • October 2021

    I have read that Jane Austen thought one should only write about one’s own life experiences, hence the microcosms we find within Mansfield Park and Sense and Sensibility. Jane writes exquisitely about life within the upper middle class of the provincial gentry, both its luxury and its occasional and accidental penury. However, if we extrapolate […]

  • November 2021

    I have had a reading crisis. It doesn’t happen very often but when it does it throws me somewhat. I started reading ‘Shuggie Bain’ by Douglas Stuart which is the recent winner of the Booker prize. The novel has a very autobiographical basis, is exceedingly well written and the description is intense and powerful, but […]

  • December 2021

    You will be relieved to know that I have survived my reading crisis*. (see last month’s Bookends.) I have found some feel-good books and I want to tell you about them. The first is ‘Sweet Sorrow’ by David Nicholls. This is for me the antithesis of Sally Rooney writing about young love. It is highly […]

  • January 2022

    On one idle afternoon in lockdown (can’t remember which one!) I decided to count my books. It took some time and I rather lost interest by the time I reached 2,500. This isn’t counting books belonging to other members of the family. I then badly needed a cup of tea. And, rather on the back […]

  • February 2022

    I am reading Mary Wesley. On my bookshelves there are the 10 novels written by this author in the 1980s and 90s, written by her and published late in life. Having just worked my way through Penelope Fitzgerald, it occurred to me that there are many writers who were not published until at least middle […]

  • March 2022

    There are many reviewers and writers who have said that a good book is just that, a good book and it really doesn’t matter if the agents and publishers put the book out there as a children’s book or one for adults. I agree with that point of view and indeed have several ‘children’s’ books […]

  • April 2022

    How much Greek did your secondary school teach? At my small, country, grammar school we did plenty of Latin but definitely no Greek. However, I was fortunate in that my English teacher obviously had a penchant for Greek myths and we spent many hours becoming familiar with the relationships and activities of a whole variety […]

  • May 2022

    ‘Trollopian’. Do you ever use that word? I wondered whether maybe I had made it up but no it is indeed a bona fide word. When I employ this term it is usually when commenting on happenings in churches, or more frequently cathedrals. I am meaning that the situation is reminiscent of something in Anthony […]

  • June 2022

    As a child, one thinks of truth as a completely black and white concept. Something is either true or it isn’t. As one gets older everything becomes more complicated and the black and white merge to very many shades of grey, more than 57, more even than on a Farrow and Ball paint card. The […]

  • July 2022

    Many times I have been taught that a well written short story is the pinnacle of literary achievement. On an intellectual level I can understand this. To structure a story with introduction, conflict, resolution and conclusion, and to do this within a few pages whilst also having a well conceived plot and some depth of […]