literary hoohah
'Tis the season for all things Christmas, but I for one am still thinking about Halloween and all things Gothic... partly because I love Halloween, but also because I recently did two things that have made the Gothic stick in my mind: attending the Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination exhibition at The British Library,… Continue reading Fancy A Little Gothic With Your Christmas?
So opens The Visionist by Rachel Urquhart. Life is simple when it is only one thing, when it is all that we know. It is only when our world is broken that life becomes complicated. The simplicity of Polly's life comes through fear of her father, Silas. He is her daily torment and she has… Continue reading “It is not uncommon, when one is young, to think that life is simple.”
There was buzz around this novel a long time before publication. I started seeing the #thisbeautiful hashtag on Twitter in I think May, a full five months before the publication date. Promotion seems to be starting earlier and earlier for books these days! As long as we keep it up and don't forget the books… Continue reading #thisbeautiful : Growing Up in the 1970s
Like most people, I think, I saw the film version of Breakfast at Tiffany's before I read the book. The film itself is so famous, so remembered for the iconic images of Audrey Hepburn with her pearls, and her sunglasses, and her cigarette in its holder, that I think sometimes the details of the story… Continue reading Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote (Part of the Capote Readathon)
What makes a book a 'classic'? What makes it last, what makes publishers choose to reprint it for years? Popularity is certainly a huge factor; but what about 'cult classics' or those that are a little under the radar? Take for instance The Collector by John Fowles - what made Vintage reprint it in 2004… Continue reading The Collector by John Fowles
For those of you who have been following the Summer Capote Readathon that I've been doing with Kirsty of The Literary Sisters, you'll know that we are reading from The Capote Reader - a sort of compilation of his best short work, including twelve short stories. We wrote about the first six of these at… Continue reading Capote Readathon: Short Stories (Part Two)
Well, well, well... hello again Sarah. We have all missed you. I don't remember when I first decided I loved Sarah Waters. We studied Affinity for a course about the modern novel at university, so maybe it was then. I've since read all of her novels except one, which I plan to read very soon, and though… Continue reading The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
I must say that reading Man at the Helm was quite a departure for me. As my boyfriend and, I'm sure, my readers will testify, I usually read sad/serious books. Apparently someone always dies and/or cries. There's a fair bit of crying in Man at the Helm, and a small amount of death, but on… Continue reading Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe
This post is part of the Summer Capote Readathon with The Literary Sisters. Have you read Summer Crossing?I'm glad I've never had to be in the position of Alan Schwartz, Truman Capote's friend and lawyer. In his Afterword to Summer Crossing he explains that in his will Capote "left everything including his literary properties to a… Continue reading Summer Crossing by Truman Capote (Part of the Capote Readathon)
This post is part of the official blog tour for Hild. As a rule I like historical fiction, and when I think about it a lot of the historical fiction I've read has been set either in the early 20th century (including several things set during World War II), or only slight before that, i.e. the… Continue reading Adventures in the 7th Century: Hild by Nicola Griffith
These Little Words 