Lissa Evans is that rare thing: a contemporary author of beautifully written, tightly plotted novels that don't feel they need to tick any boxes but allow the sharply delineated characters to be themselves and the story to come through. V for Victory completes her WW2 trilogy that began with Old Baggage (also wonderful, as is the second one, Crooked Heart), in which gawky, eccentric orphan Noel and his initially reluctant adoptive 'aunt' Vee Sedge fight for economic survival in a bombed out London. Clever, engaging, intriguing, historically fascinating, written by a master storyteller who can switch from comedy to heart-wrenching poignancy on a sixpence.
This is a memoir published in 1948 by someone I'd never heard of. From the title I didn't expect much. That changed when it transpired that it referred to the author's extraordinary 'can-do' approach to earning a living after escaping penniless to England from her feckless Anglo-Irish family at the age of 18. She begins by becoming an assistant to a brace of eccentric aunts, one of which, kind but utterly bonkers Aurelia, generates scenes of high comedy when she insists on joining her niece at the Slade art school and comes up against the legendary artist and teacher, Henry Tonks. 'Bricks' come into play, not metaphorically, as I imagined, but literally: Everett discovers a facility for running building projects and becomes a building contractor, designing and overseeing the structure of several family houses in the south of England, still lived in today. Female building contractors are not exactly common nowadays, but this was before the First World War. Naturally Everett designed gardens as well, hence the 'Flowers'. A well-written, well-paced, exciting and frequently hilarious memoir by a woman whose ground-breaking work in traditionally male spheres alone should make her much better known today than she is.
Originally published in 1949, this extraordinary memoir tells of the author's difficult upbringing in an Irish big house, where her mother brought her up on the Peerage and Anglo-Catholic theology. She was eventually rescued by an aunt and brought to England, where she studied art. Her subsequent career largely involved gardening and building, mainly in England, but also in San Martino and in a large house outside Dublin during the Irish Civil War. This book also contains fascinating descriptions of some of Everett's many friends and acquaintances, including Oscar Wilde, George Moore, Augustus John, and Rodin. Everett was somewhat nomadic,…
A wonderful, thoroughly researched and wide-ranging overview of children's literature, from early beginnings in the 17th century right up to J K Rowling and Philip Pullman today. I loved meeting many old childhood 'friends' while discovering books and authors I'd somehow missed. My only niggle is that Leith consciously omitted most (not all, so inconsistent) American authors, whose contribution to childhood literature is monumental. Think Little Women, What Katy Did and The Phantom Tollbooth, to name but a few. But overall this is a hugely enjoyable read.
*A Sunday Times, Irish Times, Financial Times, Independent, Daily Mail, TLS, Economist, Prospect, Evening Standard and New Statesman Book of the Year 2024*
Can you remember the first time you fell in love with a book?
The stories we read as children matter. The best ones are indelible in our memories; reaching far beyond our childhoods, they are a window into our deepest hopes, joys and anxieties. They reveal our past - collective and individual, remembered and imagined - and invite us to dream up different futures.
In a pioneering history of the children's literary canon, The Haunted Wood reveals…
Desperate to escape her past, 11 year-old Eleanor is sent away to a spooky school run by a mysterious great-aunt she has never met. There she’s followed around by a strange, awkward little boy who - to her horror - knows all about her. Unravelling the mystery awakens a long-buried family tragedy, drawing her into deadly danger.
