100 Books Like Vulcana

I find this a compelling biography of a 20th-century theatrical legend who was also a compassionate, progressive woman. I’m deeply impressed by Sybil Thorndike’s skill and stamina. Her performances covered a staggering 65 years, encompassing more than 300 parts.

She magnetized those who saw her on stage, from London’s West End and the mining valleys of South Wales to war-torn Europe, America, and Australia. Bernard Shaw wrote ‘Saint Joan’ for this actress who took Shakespeare and Euripides to the people. Jonathan Croall’s biography is thoroughly researched, yet he wears his scholarship lightly in this eminently readable book.

No biography of Richard Burton succeeds like these diaries in giving us a sense of what it meant to be a truly global star, a consummate actor, a father, and a lover. We glimpse, too, the pressures on a man whose often troubled private life was presumed to be public property.

Burton’s surviving, voluminous diaries were meticulously edited by the historian Chris Williams, providing just the right amount of background and explanatory material to enlighten yet not bombard readers. From the early 1939-40 diary of the schoolboy Richard Jenkins, to the detailed diaries of the 1960s in particular, we can also discern the actor’s literary ambitions. I treasure these personal diaries: rich, revealing, and infinitely fascinating.

At last, a book about Elizabeth Taylor that takes her acting skills seriously, analyses her prodigious output, and is neither sensational nor trivial. I was entranced. Like Sybil Thorndike, Taylor’s career lasted 65 years. Kennedy puts it in context, refreshingly focusing on her professional rather than personal life.

Commenting on Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, he remarks: ‘At some point we have to reject the idea we’re watching the Burtons air their dirty laundry and embrace the possibility we’re watching them act. Brilliantly’. This readable, thoughtful book examines Taylor’s 56 movies and includes television, theatre, and special appearances such as a play reading in 2007, part of her remarkable fund-raising for AIDS.

These 21 pen-portraits of Shakespearian characters were designed for actors, but they are invaluable for all. This is the book I turn to before I watch any play by Shakespeare. It is the product of the author’s experiences as a lifelong inspirational teacher in Wales, lecturer to New York drama students, and consummate performer of sparkling lecture-recitals across the United States.

Published in 1970, these carefully selected characters (7 from the Histories and 7 apiece from the Comedies and Tragedies) leap from the page to amuse, shock, frighten, and enchant. Philip Burton was a firm believer in Shakespeare’s wizardry, and in these brilliant sketches, he imparts more than a little magic of his own.

This exquisite book tells the story of the one family in the remote Maesglasau valley in Wales, and the ferocious changes that the twentieth century brings to their traditional rural way of life.

Originally written in the Welsh language and beautifully translated into lyrical English, this is a poignant and unforgettable story. I love how the language is simple, but it delicately renders the lives of the family members, giving them dignity and beauty despite sorrow and hardships. It feels old-fashioned yet also timeless.

I saw Cathy Ace speak at a crime writers’ conference, and she was such a bundle of energy and a joy to listen to that I was already hooked before I read this book.

And I loved her collection of WISE women working together as a detective agency: one from Wales, one from Ireland, one from Scotland, and one from England. (I would never have spotted the opportunity those four initials provide.)

Four ordinary women, from different backgrounds, and with different experiences (and accents) learning to live together, work together, and solve crimes together. This is at the cosy end of the crime spectrum, but that’s why I like it so much. The crimes are real, but there’s not too much grit, and there’s bags of humour.

When Pamela Petro traveled to Lampeter, Wales for the first time to enroll in a year-long master’s degree program, she had no idea that the open vista of sheep pastures and low hills around the town would strike a chord in her—she found herself nodding as if she was in agreement with the landscape—or that she would spend the rest of her life returning to Wales from the various American cities where she made a life as a writer and a teacher. The Long Field takes us on a journey through time and ideas as well as of places. 

The book masterfully weaves together the accounts of various trips to Wales and elsewhere, the childhood spent in suburban New Jersey where, in spite of the family she loved and was loved by, Ms. Petro was overcome by a desire not to stay in one place, and most important of all,… show more.

I came upon this 1937 bestseller novel recently and was instantly engrossed by the tale of Dr Andrew Manson, a young general practitioner in a Welsh mining town. Medicine might have changed since 1937, but people’s behavior has not changed so much!

Largely autobiographical, full of derring-do and righteous youthful indignation, this book remains an enjoyable, propulsive read. Due to its exposure to the inequities in access to health care in 1930s Britain, this novel is often cited as a major influence in the introduction of the National Health Scheme in 1948. Cronin was a general practitioner who retired in his mid-thirties to write full-time.

Rees Davies was one of the first historians to seek to explore the histories of Britain and Ireland as both unique and intertwined narratives. Although this book focuses on the Welsh revolt of the early 15th century it shows the author’s formidable understanding of the relationship between England and Wales in the century after the Edwardian conquest. An object lesson in academic history written with the general reader in mind.

This is another historical novel set in my favourite time period AD 600’s, this time in Powys. The main character is Heledd – a peace-weaver bride, she is human, flawed, compelling, and courageous. The background detail is vivid and well researched, but what I love most about this book is the lyrical style of writing, which may almost give the reader the sense that the story is being sung,  reflecting with feeling and humanity, the real Anglo-Saxon poetry that has come down to us. Here is a powerful sense of sadness, regret, and gathering doom, lifted by moments of pure joy – a true lament!