feather_ghyll

A few weeks ago after I heard a little of Charles Spencer’s book about the physical and sexual, not to mention emotional, abuse he suffered after having been sent to a boarding school at eight, as a result of which there has been a debate about the damage sending mainly upper class children away from home to such institutions can and does cause. ( My views )

All that was in the background as I read Mary Todd’s Last Term by Frances Greenwood, the first boarding school story I’ve read in a while. ( Read more... )

I saw this elsewhere on the internet.

( Read more... )

And now I'll go look at what was going to be the next review I posted.

Eight Cousins: Louisa M. Alcott, Rupert Hart-Davies, 1965.

Alcott is most famous for ‘Little Women’ and the series that followed. I read those classics as a child, but not only did I first read this book as an adult, I have a feeling that I read it after its sequel. ‘Rose in Bloom’. I hope to reread that next - in fact, that’s my bribe to get myself to read a realist literary novel - after being charmed by my reunion with Rose, her seven boy cousins and, indeed, all her family.

( Read more... )

I managed only four and a half rereads during the month of February, and I still haven’t completed the fractional! I intended to read more, but there you go. I needed something to drive me to reach for the ‘to reread’ pile, and this ventured did that. I reread and reconsidered a couple of books.

I also treated myself by rereading ‘The Blue Castle’ by L.M. Montgomery, which I love, although that didn’t blind me to some weaknesses. ( Read more... )

So, I don’t think Rereading February was a worthless exercise, and if I don’t reread more books, I’ll probably set aside another month like that in future. It was weird, though, to continue buying new books – as if I’d walk past a charity shop or second-hand bookshop and not browse! – whilst having to admit to myself that I wouldn’t be reading the book I’d purchased forthwith. It’s rare that I do, but normally there’s the possibility I might, so there was that change in perspective.

Three Towers in Tuscany: Malcolm Saville. Heineman, 1967

It seems as if everyone has been doing a Something Month, if not Dry January, Veganuary or Digital Detox January, then something this month, including blogging themes. This inspired me to do Rereading February. Don’t get too excited, my aspiration is to get my numbers of books read up from ‘abysmally poor’ to ‘relatively poor’. I have a pile of ‘books to reread’ that’s been ignored for a while. My reasoning was that a month of rereading books only might help me make a dent in it and even give some of them away. I have tended to be swayed by novelty into buying book after book and being slow to read them too. The sweetener was that I could turn to comfort books.

This book doesn’t fit into either category. As I now have ‘The Purple Valley’, the second Marston Baines mystery, I thought I should reread ‘Three Towers’, ( Read more... )

Number of books reread this month: 1.

Here is a round-up of some things I posted about last year. ( Read more... )

The Chalet School Does It Again: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer. Armada, 1990

I am excruciatingly slowly completing my Chalet School collection, and yes, with the aid of abridged Armada publications.

The title of this story always ( Read more... )

I’ll post an overview of a few books I’ve read over the holidays eventually, but this post is a look back at 2015, following a tradition started by my first post of 2015 when I said I looked forward to the next adventures of Wells and Wong. Well, Arsenic for Tea by Robin Stevens (in which the 1930s schoolgirls investigate another mystery, this time in Daisy Wells’s country house home) lived up to my expectations. I enjoyed Kate Saunders’s Beswitched, originally published a few years ago, but taking the reader back to a 1930s boarding school, a fraction more, even. I loved reading Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery and Gail Carriger’s Etiquette & Espionage.

Turning to hadrbacks, I enjoyed The Little Betty Wilkinson by Evelyn Smith, even though I think she’s written better books. I did read a book each by the ‘big four’: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer’s Chudleigh Hold, Sally’s Summer Term by Dorita Fairlie Bruce, Tomboys at the Abbey by Elsie J. Oxenham, which I didn’t review, and For the School Colours by Angela Brazil.

(In the first paragraph, I build up to my favourite and do the opposite in the second.)

Perhaps the best book I read this year was ‘Rose Under Fire’ by Elizabeth Wein, which is wonderful and harrowing, and I feel incapable of writing about it. I also really loved Helena McEwen’s Invisible River.

I reread Katherine L. Oldmeadow’s The Fortunes of Jacky, which stands the test of time, and now I have no more Oldmeadows to reread. I am, obviously, looking out for more by her in all the shops that sell second-hand books! I hope to read the next case Hazel Wong writes up and the second in the Finishing School series, but I expect to read EBD's 'Fardingales' as I have a copy in the depths of my 'to read' pile.