feather_ghyll

Clouds Among the Stars: Victoria Clayton. Harper Collins 2004

The opening of this book, and it’s a cracker, is, ‘The day my father was arrested for murder started promisingly.’

I thought I knew what to expect from Clayton, having read a few of her books before: ( Read more... )

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... )

Holiday Adventure: Norah Mylrea. Warne.

I’m mainly posting about this because the title is an actual tag. It’s not very good. ( Read more... )

The Yellow Wallpaper: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Virago 1993

It so happened that this volume, containing the above short story and an afterword, was the next on my ‘to be read’ pile, and I’m sure ‘Singled Out’ influenced my reading of this classic. ( Read more... )

The Mystery of Midway Mill: Irene Byers. Hutchinson. Inscribed 1961

I got the sense that this book was very much influenced by Enid Blyton, ( Read more... )

A Company of Swans: Eva Ibbotson

This was the first Eva Ibbotson book I read and it was published third, after ‘A Countess Below Stairs’ and ‘Magic Flutes’. ( Read more... )

Earlier this week, I finished Sheridan Morley's biography of Katharine Hepburn. I must have started it in December. I'd nearly finished it but didn't take it with me on Christmas holidays (and then I couldn't find where I'd left my copy.)

There are probably more in-depth biographies, because if I had to summarise it in one word, it would be 'breezy'. Still, it was interesting to learn how her career developed, to see how she prevailed through critical disapproval and popular lack of interest,

The Winter Garden Mystery: Carola Dunn Robinson 2009

It’s been a while, almost a year and a half, since I read the first Daisy Dalrymple book – click on the author’s tag for the review – and taken longer than I’d have liked to read this one.

The Hon. Daisy Dalrymple is off again, ( Read more... )

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The first time I saw the advert for Wimbeldon, it was quite charming, but not so much the second. I fear that it'll get on my nerves over the next few days.

Also over the weekend, I read Fun Next Door by Freda M. Hunt, and it was quite fun. I felt as if it was a sequel (but the book didn't have those useful footnotes children's series have referring you to the title). Ann is living with strict and older relatives in the charmingly named village of Duckpuddle because her mother is sick. Fortunately for her, their neighbours, the Dakers, have children her age and run a school. At Pinetops, Ann does have the aforementioned fun (picnics turn into explorations and Ann becomes a budding ornithologist and also a cat-owner). What was most interesting is that one of the children living next door is Apple (short for Applegard!) the son of a famous Negro singer. The writer emphasises his Americaness more than his skin colour. My copy is from 1958 and it was first published in April 1953.

I know it's been a while, perhaps this post will explain why. Having just finished her Touch Not the Cat, I was looking forward to reading Mary Stewart’s A Walk in Wolf Wood, but it took me about a week and a half to do so – this is odd for me, as I was reminded when I devoured the nest book that I read in two sittings, interrupted only by a night’s sleep. I didn’t have the same desire to read on with Wolf Wood. I’d force myself to read a chapter and put the book down, and although I was busy and tired from being busy since I begun the book, I had little compulsion to pick it up and read it until I was on a train and had finished my other reading material (newspaper, magazine). Now, I’ve read and reread (or would lapped up be more apt?) all of Stewart’s suspense novels for adults over the years – not the Arthurian novels though. Off the top of my head The Moon-Spinners and Nine Coaches Waiting would be my favourite. So, when I saw that she’d written a book for children, I was intrigued and bought it. I decided to read it having enjoyed rereading Touch Not the Cat (and there’s a whole other enjoyment in rereading it and not wondering who ‘Ashley’ is – I was puzzled and misdirected in the first read.

But having finished Wolf Wood, I won’t be going out of my way to purchase any more Stewarts for children.

( Read more... )

I also managed to tear the dust jacket a little carting this book about when I wasn’t reading it.

In better news, after a bout of rummaging at my parents', I now have got hold of all my Dorothy L. Sayers and Annes and Emilys (so I can reread them) and found Toby of Tibbs Cross, which I knew I had bought and read, but had slipped beneath a bookcase that was itself blocked by boxes. I didn't whoop with joy, but I was grinning for quite a while.