All Virago/All August 2020

Well August is very nearly here. The time when some of us dedicate some or all of the month to reading VMC books. Over the years we have widened this to include Persephone books and more recently Dean Street Press books, as all being broadly 'our kind' of books. VMC authors in other editions also count.

#witmonth is also running during August as usual, so you could combine the two challenges with some VMC in translation.

Happy reading, whatever you choose, I am looking forward to hearing what everyone picks.

It was proposed that for AV/AA, we do a small group read of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story, The Yellow Wallpaper.

Could I please get an indication here of who would be interested in participating?

>2 lyzard: I'm interested!

>2 lyzard: I'd be up for that!

I’ll certainly have a go - it is very slim!!!!

May I join in?
I've read The Yellow Wallpaper before but I adore Charlotte Perkins Gilman's and I have a book of her short stories sitting on my Mt. TBR Project shelf that I am planning to read anyway - The Yellow Wallpaper is the first story in the collection.

>3 Majel-Susan:, >4 Sakerfalcon:. >5 kaggsy:, >6 BrokenTune:

Excellent! - we will certainly go ahead.

>6 BrokenTune:

Of course, you're very welcome. :)

Here's my list, which is also forming the August portion of my 20BooksOfSummer challenge AND one of them is for #WITmonth!

Dorothy Whipple – Young Anne - Persephone

Edith Ayrton Zangwill – The Call - Persephone

Elizabeth Eliot – Henry - Dean St Press

Catherine Carswell – The Camomile - Virago

Marianne Grabrucker – There’s A Good Girl (WIT) - Women's Press

Margaret Kennedy – The Ladies of Lyndon - Virago

Joan Aiken – The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories - Virago

I might also add in some Thirkells - I'm just waiting on my pre-order of some of her Virago reprint ones that fit in before ones I already have and they should arrive in August.

>8 LyzzyBee: You just reminded me to order the forthcoming Angela Thirkell titles!

Last August I read several Angela Thirkells and I think I might do the same this year, and I might read a few more Dean Street Press Furrowed Middlebrow titles. I'm finding I need fairly light stuff at the moment. I was pleased the get the next Viveca Sten recently - In the Name of Truth but despite enjoying all the previous books I found this one too dark for my current mood and have set it aside for now.

Right then, my planned reads for August:

Barbara Pym - Less Than Angels - Virago
Charlotte Perkins Gilman - The Yellow Wallpaper - Virago
Nina Bawden - A Woman of My Age - Virago

and possibly (if I don't get distracted by other books):

Jane Hervey - Vain Shadow - Persephone

>9 Sakerfalcon: delurking to inquire about forthcoming Angela Thirkell titles

Which ones are being released as VMCs, and when?

>2 lyzard: I was wondering where that went. I'm in too.

>13 SassyLassy:

Just losing track of the days, as so often. :)

>12 lauralkeet: Hi Laura - Peace Breaks Out, Growing Up, and Cheerfulness Breaks In are the Angela Thirkell for release.
According to Book Depository site, they are due for release on 6 August.
I find a very good way of keeping track of the new titles on B.D’s site is to google Virago Modern Classics in their search box and then use publications ‘new to old’ in the drop down menu.
Some of the older titles are also being re-released with more modern covers which (IMHO) do not catch the eye the same way the older issues did.

>15 mrspenny: Thank you! I've read all of those in the Moyer Bell editions which look very pretty on my shelves. I'm glad to see Virago reissuing some of them, though. Thirkell's novels make for great light entertainment, and I've turned to them often in recent months.

Also, thanks for the Book Depository searching tip!

>15 mrspenny:, >16 lauralkeet: Friends of mine read Angela Thirkell but I decided I wasn't going to start reading another such prolific author. Then Virago started reprinting them, The Book People had a set of the first three on sale, and the rest is history!

>17 Sakerfalcon: I received my first Thirkell as a Virago Secret Santa gift. Then I decided I needed to start with the first one. The new reprints came soon thereafter. I have the first three, maybe others? And I've now read about 17 of the 29 books.

>17 Sakerfalcon: >18 lauralkeet: - Thirkell’s novels are a great way to get through wet, cold and windy winter afternoons here at present.

>2 lyzard: I’ve got my book ready, Liz, and am looking forward to it.

I know we're not into August for another two days but I started early because I had nothing else to read. I just finished Emmeline by Judith Rossner. I expected to find it worthy and boring, plus I have not enjoyed some of her other books, but Emmeline was excellent. Absolutely fascinating from a historical perspective; I mean who knew the cotton mills were so damned interesting. And Emmeline's personal story kept me on the edge of my seat until the end. Highly recommended.

>21 romain: I enjoyed Emmeline when I read it last year. I think because it was written in the ?1960s, rather than at the time it is set, that saves it from being worthy and dull. Emmeline is a great character and I too found life in the cotton mills fascinating.

I started Dorothy Whipple's High Wages last night. Dripping with warm fuzzies and stereotypes but - of course - easy to read and very enjoyable. Should be done with it by the end of the weekend.

>2 lyzard: way back to this, I would enjoy a group read of The Yellow Wallpaper.

I will also try to get to my one unread Persephone title, Still Missing by Beth Gutcheon.

I don't know if anyone is still looking for books for women in translation reading but I note that Chitambo by Hagar Olsson (1933) was finally published in an English translation this year by Norvik Press and it sounds as close to a VMC as one is likely to find in translation. It's a classic bildungsroman by a well-known Swedish-Finnish author about a middle class girl who rebels against both the conventionalities and eccentricities of her upbringing. There don't seem to be any reviews in English on LT yet but this one is interesting:

https://shinynewbooks.co.uk/chitambo-by-hagar-olsson

(Sorry to anyone who thinks this is swerving off topic.)

>25 spiralsheep: LOL! That’s my review! It’s a marvellous book - highly recommended!

>20 Matke:. >24 japaul22:

Lovely! I'm thinking maybe a weekend in the middle of the month?

>27 lyzard: any time works for me!

>27 lyzard: Whenever you decide! It's so blessedly short I should be able to fit it in any time! ;D

I finished The Orlando trilogy and even though I read most of it in July I'm counting towards my AV/AA total. This was a fantastic read which really absorbed me in the lives of its characters. The trilogy is based on the Oedipus plays by Sophocles with Orlando and his daughter Agatha taking the central roles of Oedipus and Antigone. This works surprisingly well when transferred to 1930s - 1950s Britain. I'm very glad that Daunt Books has reprinted it and I hope the book finds a new and appreciative audience.

I've made my pile of books for the rest of the month. I don't expect to read them all but I will be choosing from:
A jest of god by Margaret Laurence (VMC)
The judge by Rebecca West (VMC)
The incomer by Margaret Elphinstone (Women's Press SF)
The revolution of Saint Jone by Lorna Mitchell (Women's Press SF)
Star rider by Doris Piserchia (Women's Press SF)
Spam tomorrow by Verily Anderson (Dean Street Press)
Table two by Marjorie Wilenski (Dean Street Press)
Henry by Elizabeth Eliot (Dean Street Press)

>30 Sakerfalcon: what a great list - several there I have read including The Judge A Jest of God and a couple of those DSP. Happy reading.

>23 romain: High Wages is lovely. I loved all the Dorothy Whipple books though.

I started early because of blogging, and wanting to have things ready to review.

I have already read

Deborah by Esther Kreitman - VMC (review on my blog tomorrow 3/8)
A House in the Country by Ruth Adam - DSP
A Fine of two hundred francs by Elsa Triolet - VMC

Yes Ali - It was of course lovely. And so easy to read.

I've just begun Heat Lightning by Helen Hull. Another Persephone.

I thought your House in the Country was the Jocelyn Playfair one from the Persephone list (also a lovely book) but quite a different one when I looked at Jane's review. I LOVE books about houses.

I've started Northbridge Rectory, which is lovely. I'm struggling with my book group book, Where the Crawdads Sing, so I reward/comfort myself with Angela Thirkell at regular intervals.

I've finally picked up a book for the month - English Climate by Sylvia Townsend Warner, from Persephone, and so far it's absolutely marvellous! :D

Oh good Kaggsy! I have that on my list too!!!

I have just finished Pym's Less Than Angels. This was my second book by Pym and I now know that Pym is not for me.

This is Barbara (Romain) Hey everyone. Have no clue what I did on my computer but I have to reset all my passwords etc. LT has changed my user name to my old password ??? Can anyone tell me how to get back to being Romain?

>38 BrokenTune: I wasn't a fan of that one either, and Pym is one of my favorite authors. What was the other one you read?

I'm glad this is happening again. It's been awhile since I participated in any of the monthly reads.

I'm reading A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr and Marcovaldo by Italo Calvino right now, but once I'm done, maybe I will try:

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

I'd love to read Dorothy Whipple, but no nearby libraries have her and I can't find cheap used copies either.

>39 lippincote: Don't know how to get yourself back, but probably somebody here does: https://www.librarything.com/contact

>39 lippincote: Holy MOLY, Barbara! I have no idea how to fix it, but I trust that somebody can manage for you. (Meanwhile, "Lippincote" is a pretty good user name for a Viragoite.) Hope it happens quickly!
I am reading The King of a Rainy Country and liking it so far. The French (when a non-English speaker moved in with them for a bit) is about my level, so that was fun.

Chiming in late! >39 lippincote: I have to agree that 'lippincote' is an excellent name for a Viragoite - but I also know how frustrating it is trying to fix something like that. Like 'no signposts in the sea' kind of thing.

I've been bogged down - well, not really bogged because it's pretty good - but I'm reading the mammoth-sized Eighth Life by Nino Haratischwili for WITMonth. I've got A Fine of Two Francs lined up next for AV/AA. Like many of us, I find myself too distracted to sit and read for a length of time.

>40 surtsey: The other Pym I read was Excellent Women. I just don't think Pym is for me even tho I can see that she was a skilled writer.

What are you making of A Month in the Country so far? I noted the tone of the book to be quite different from the film and have always wondered if someone else thought the same.

Both Death Comes for the Archbishop and The House of Mirth are still on my TBR, so I hope you'll share thoughts on those. :)

My dear neighbour, who manages our village free library (in a disused red phonebox), was inundated with books that people couldn't get rid of any other way during lockdown so she accosted me and politely demanded I re-home some from the boxes cluttering the summerhouse in her back garden. I found three VMCs I've never read before, because they're not quite my sort, and a Rose Macauley that I've read but don't remember much about. So my reading plans have altered.

I read Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady by Florence King which is a witty confessional memoir, a bildungsroman set in "the South" of the US in the 1950s (provided your definition of "the South" is more of a culture than a place as it's actually mostly set in Washington DC). I recommend skipping the intro by Sandi Toksvig as it's an unedifying performance of trying to position a fave as The First Woman Who Did X by erasing all the other women who also did X, in this case apparently neither Dorothy Parker nor Mae West, for example, were ever truly funny writers. Sigh.

King on viragoes: "A virago is a woman of great stature, strength and courage who is not feminine in the conventional ways."

I also dug into my TBR pile and completed Extra(Ordinary) People by Joanna Russ, published by The Women's Press, which is science fiction similar to the VMCs The Left Hand of Darkness in theme and Lolly Willowes in humour but more literary in style.

>33 Heaven-Ali: Ali, I took a BB for A House in the Country. I really like R. Adam, and this one is now safely on my Kindle for reading soon. Thanks! (I think somebody else was talking about it somewhere?)

Romain here. Thanks Kathy. I'll write to them as soon as I finish here. Thx to everyone else for the support. I wanted to be Lippincote right from the beginning but someone else on LT already had the name. I guess their membership lapsed and I got it.

We had a power outage for 5 hours last night but it was a lovely sunny early evening and I finished Heat Lightning by Helen Hull. Not really feeling this one. Set in the early days of the Depression in Lansing, Michigan, it was just rich people's problems. Like, only being able to afford the nurse for the new baby for 6 weeks because of the economy. And fighting over the inheritance money.

The same plot in a British novel would've engaged me fully but the whole Mid West thing didn't do it for me.

>47 lippincote: Congratulations on your nominal rebirth.

I've just finished Northbridge Rectory - a lovely wallow through the past, but not to be taken seriuosly - and have now started Young Anne, my first Dorothy Whipple, despite owning all her Persephone editions.

I finished A jest of god and thoroughly enjoyed - if that is the right word - the read. It's not an easy book to read, as the reader is immersed in Rachel's self-doubting, awkward consciousness as she lives her life as the spinster schoolteacher in a small Manitoba town. Rachel is the daughter who stayed home and lives with her mother, while her older sister got away and rarely visits from Vancouver. The mother is a nightmare - coy, genteel and totally manipulative "Of course you don't have to tell me what time you'll be home, but I won't fall asleep until you come in. But do enjoy yourself ..." Rachel's life starts to look up when a male acquaintance from her childhood comes back to town and seems interested in starting a relationship with Rachel. But his intentions are very different to hers. As well as being a detailed character study of Rachel, it is also a portrait of the small town and its mores and customs. This is the fourth of Laurence's Manawaka books that I've read and all of them have been superb.

I also read the last two Kate Fansler mysteries that I own, Sweet death, kind death and A trap for fools. This is a series that has improved distinctly as it went along, and I really enjoyed both these books. I love the academic setting and rivalries between different departments and characters.

Now I'm reading The revolution of Saint Jone, one of the Women's Press SF titles. I'm enjoying it quite a lot so far.

>50 Sakerfalcon: I'm looking forward to hearing your opinion on the Saint Jone (one of two vintage Women's Press SF books referencing St Joan in the title).

VMC: I read and to my surprise also enjoyed Mae West's She Done Him Wrong, which is the 1932 book of the film of the 1928 play, set on the Bowery in New York during the decadent decade of the 1890s. The novel centres around a character called Diamond Lil, apparently based more on West's experience of life as a music hall entertainer than on eponymous real historical women such as Honora "Diamond Tooth Lil" Ornstein. The writing is pulp fiction style and it's plotted as a crime novel. Think of this story as the femme fatale ancestress of the later Damon Runyon short stories that became Guys and Dolls.

The Women's Press: I also read Jane Dandi Palmer's The Watcher, which is a 1986 science fiction novel with this author's usual flights of imagination.

I am working my way through Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins. This is a true crime 'novel' (like A Pin to See the Peepshow) but with none of Peepshow's passion. The cast of Harriet is motivated by greed and contempt and it is proving a very grim read.

I have started reading The Last of Summer by Kate O'Brien not far into it yet, but good so far.

I forgot I read Dorothy Whipple's Young Anne and very much enjoyed it - review here https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2020/08/07/book-review-dorothy-whipple-young... - I have somehow Fallen Behind in both my AV/AA and 20 Books of Summer for which it's forming the last 7 books, because of a lot of work on and two big NF review books to read, hope I can drag it all back from the brink now work's settled down a bit ...

For those of you who expressed interest in discussing Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper:

As this is only a short work, the group read will be conducted a bit differently.

Those participating should aim to read the story by the end of next week. Among other sources, including Virago, it is available as a free ebook at Project Gutenberg and other sites.

On Friday, I will set up a thread and provide some background information. Those who have finished will then be able to add their comments, and hopefully we will get some good discussion going.

Hopefully that framework / timing suits? Please let me know if there is any problem.

>56 lyzard: That sounds great, thank you for organising us!

>52 spiralsheep: I enjoyed Saint Jone quite a bit. Although the "Krischans" are secular in their beliefs, for reasons that are explained in the book they have adopted the structures, vocabulary and methods of organised religion to spread their doctrines of rationality around the world. Thus Jone is part of a Mission to convert the "ethnics" of Embra (Edinburgh) from their backward ways, by a variety of techniques based on the carrot and the stick - usually more stick than carrot. Jone herself is a protestant, member of a more progressive faction who believe that the orthodox methods of the traditionalists are no longer fit for purpose, but as a junior saint she has to try and conform to the way things are done in Embra. Like many organised religions, there is a loathing of sexuality and ostensibly the Krischans aim to eliminate gender essentialism and sex roles because all that is irrational. However we are shown that in actually fact gender bias in favour of men is still very much present. This is an odd but enjoyable book, thought provoking and often quite amusing.

I also read Alice by Elizabeth Eliot. I didn't expect to fly through this so quickly as I have other books on the go at the same time, but I was immediately hooked by Margaret's narrative voice as she tells the story of her friend Alice and the girls' entry into society. The blurb makes comparisons with Barbara Comyns' sly humour, which I thought was very apt, and with Rachel Ferguson's portrayal of the darker aspects of women's lives in high society. This was my first read from Dean Street Press and it's set the bar very high.

I really liked The Last of Summer Ali, but then I'm a big fan of O'Brien.

I finished Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins. This is a Persephone, but The Tortoise and the Hare by the same author is one of my favorite VMCs. This was excellent, highly recommended, but it was not a nice book. In fact, it was downright horrible - testament to what some people will do for money.

>56 lyzard: Sounds great - thank you! Off to dig out my copy...

>57 Sakerfalcon: Thank you. Sounds interesting, and amusing rarely hurts.

> I read Crewe Train by Rose Macaulay, which is well-written, as one would expect from this author, with an interesting use of embedded narrative as a plot device later in the story. The plot is basically a bildungsroman except the protagonist is in her twenties and doesn't want to settle down to upper middle class English life.

It includes an amusing rant of the Christmas is Too Commercialised variety (1926): "Every year, in the deep mid-winter, there descends upon this world a terrible fortnight. A fortnight, or ten days, or a week, when citizens can not get about the streets of their cities for the surging pressure of persons who walk therein; when every shop is a choked mass of humanity, and purchases, at the very time when purchases are most numerously ordained to be made, are only possible at the cost of bitter hours of travail; a time when nerves are jangled and frayed, purses emptied to no purpose, all amusements and all occupations suspended in favour of frightful businesses with brown paper, string, letters, cards, stamps, and crammed post offices. This period is doubtless a foretaste of whatever purgatory lies in store for human creatures."

>60 spiralsheep: Lol! Not much changes then!

>61 kaggsy: Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Especially as the subsequent paragraph elucidates why certain types of people actually enjoy the whole rigmarole. Remaining very much to the point nearly a century later!

>60 spiralsheep: I loved Crewe Train, especially where poor Denham tries to make conversation at dinner parties - "she had some success with "what is your favourite pudding?"" The rant about Christmas is perfect, except these days it seems to go on for three months!

I've just started The judge by Rebecca West.

>63 Sakerfalcon: Not only have I earnestly discussed non-foodie food at parties but I have also had whole conversations about dog/horse facts, lol. I might have over-identified with Denham at a few points, but that's Rose Macaulay's genius for creating unattractive characters who're relatable people.

I have just really enjoyed Macaulay's Dangerous Ages although it didn't form part of my AVAA as I left review books out (why o why etc) of the 20 books of summer project it forms part of.

I'm half-way through The Call at the moment which I am absolutely loving and wouldn't put down at all if it wasn't for work and having a big non-fic to review for Shiny New Books! A Persephone but is part of 20 books / AVAA.

>65 LyzzyBee: I note for anyone interested that Dangerous Ages is available on Project Gutenberg, and probably the most readable Rose Macaulay on PG (although some of the novels on offer have merits other than readability).

I read a Virago that isn't a VMC although this novel has been kept in print by Virago since 1986, which is a sign of quality imo: Whole of a Morning Sky by Grace Nichols. Full review on linked LT page.

Just finished English Climate by VMC author Sylvia Townsend Warner, but in an Persephone edition. This is a collection of her WW2 short stories. A mixed bag in my view. I really didn't enjoy the first few stories but then the book took off in a big way - some lovely stuff, beautifully written - before falling away again at the end.

I've really enjoyed The Call - review to come at the weekend. But that was published 1924 and is about the last days of the Edwardian age, really, and the two VMCs I've got on my list are The Camomile and The Ladies of Lyndon published in 1922 and 1923 or thereabouts, the latter really being about the last days of the Edwardians. I'm not sure this won't be too samey! I'm starting There's a Good Girl today for a change and then I have a feeling I might have to swap out one of these two VMCs for Cheerfulness Breaks In published in 1940, the earliest of the Angela Thirkell Virago reprints that are arriving tomorrow. Then I have a book of children's short novels to see me out so that will be OK. More complicated than one thinks, this business, isn't it!

Which one would you swap out out of The Camomile and The Ladies of Lyndon?

>69 LyzzyBee: That's a difficult choice, I enjoyed both. The camomile seems to be less well known so maybe read that one?

I'm just over half way through The judge and it is good, but the prose is vey dense in parts, not helped by the typeface also being dense!

I succumbed to LyzzyBee's recommendation and read Dangerous Ages by Rose Macaulay, 1921. The story revolves around four generations of upper middle class English women in one family and the main theme is ageing, especially into middle and old age. Think of it as a coming-of-middle-age tale. Rose Macaulay, who was about 39 when she wrote this, clearly understood her subject and communicates that understanding with skill and insight. She raises pertinent questions and even manages to provide answers for one or two of them, albeit answers that not everyone would find comforting.

On generation gaps: 'And there they were; they talked at cross purposes, these two, across the gulf of twenty years, and with the best will in the world could not hope to understand, either of them, what the other was really at. And now here was Gerda, in Mrs. Hilary's bedroom, looking across a gulf of forty years and saying nothing at all, for she knew it would be of no manner of use, since words don't carry as far as that.
So all she said was "Tea's ready, Grandmother." '

On Freudians: 'Psycho-analysts adored sex; they made an idol of it. They communed with it, as devotees with their God. They couldn't really enjoy, with their whole minds, anything else, Mrs. Hilary sometimes vaguely felt. But as, like the gods of the other devotees, it was to them immanent, everywhere and in everything; they could be always happy.'

>69 LyzzyBee: I’d hang onto The Camomile, Liz!

>71 spiralsheep: Those quotes are fabulous!

>73 BrokenTune: Rose Macaulay is endlessly quotable for either truth or humour.

The thread is up for the discussion of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper:

Here

Hope to see a bunch of you there! :)

I'm now reading Growing Up by Angela Thirkell. I can be a bit hit and miss with her, but it is kind of what I'm in the mood for.

>69 LyzzyBee: Liz, not read The Camomile, though read another by that author which I enjoyed.

I've reviewed The Call https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2020/08/22/book-review-edith-ayrton-zangwill... and read but not yet reviewed There's a Good Girl published by Women's Press, and I'm now on Thirkell's Cheerfulness Breaks In. I decided to keep The Ladies of Lyndon on the list as The Camomile seemed too similar in its one woman rebelling against convention, but I will read it soon!

I read The Constant Sinner by Mae West, the tale of prohibition era anti-heroine Babe Gordon who climbs the New York social ladder wrong by wrong.

Disappointingly this wasn't nearly as well written as She Done Him Wrong, even by pulp fiction standards.

My review of There's a Good Girl, a The Women's Press book https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2020/08/24/book-review-marianne-grabrucker-t... Almost finished Cheerfulness Breaks in but realised The Serial Garden is short stories rather than collected novels so will have to read the whole book by the end of next Monday (as well as The Ladies of Lyndon. I can do it, right?

Finished The judge and found it an admirable book but not an easy read. We meet Ellen, a 17 year old suffragette, in Edinburgh where she works in an office. She has no interest in romance, but falls for Richard Yaverland who comes to the office as a client. Following the death of her mother, with whom Ellen was very close, she moves to Essex to stay with Richard's mother, a very different woman. Richard is her illegitimate but adored son by the local squire; Marion was shamed and shunned for her "crime" and so developed an obsessively close relationship to Richard. She has a younger son by the man she married for convenience, but due partly to the circumstances of his conception she loathes him, although she strives to hide this. Needless to say, her relationship with Ellen is not smooth, although once you know her backstory she's not the stereotypical evil mother-in-law either. The melodramatic ending came somewhat out of nowhere, and took me by surprise - its very difference from the rest of the book. It's a good read but the prose is very dense in places which makes some passages a bit of a slog. However, the depictions of Edinburgh and the Essex marshes are very good.

Now I've started Cheerfulness breaks in for some light relief. It's very enjoyable so far.

>80 Sakerfalcon: snap! I'm trying to work out whether to interleave Northbridge Rectory and The Headmistress so I get them all read in order now I've picked up the three newest ones, so I do all the war in one go, or to skip them. I think I read them both a while ago. I've already seen a spoiler for Cheerfulness on the back of one of the others, so don't look!

>81 LyzzyBee: Thanks for the warning! If it's about Noel and Lydia that was already spoiled for me, but I won't look just in case it's not that.

It is that, so you're safe!

>83 LyzzyBee: Oh good!

>81 LyzzyBee: She was running out of main cast characters to marry off by that point so it's maybe not a wholly unexpected spoiler. ;-)

> I've begun reading Northanger Abbey, which I doubt if I'll finish by the end of the month but I wanted to note that the Virago edition possesses that rarest of bonuses... an introduction actually worth reading! Unsurprisingly in this case, I suppose, because it's by Margaret Drabble. Although the usual caveat about reading intros last applies for people who prefer that method.

Trying to figure out one more book to read before the end of the month.

I have finished Growing Up by Angela Thirkell - I enjoyed it, very snobby as per - but nothing really offensive in this one - and I got thoroughly involved in the story. I think I must be reading them out of order - the last one I read was Before Lunch and I read The Headmistress before that. Not sure what order they are supposed to go in.

Now reading an VMC author in a non VMC book - Dangerous Ages by Rose Macaulay

Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire series in order
High Rising (1933)
The Demon in the House (1934)
Wild Strawberries (1934)
August Folly (1936)
Summer Half (1937)
Pomfret Towers (1938)
Before Lunch (1939)
The Brandons (1939)
Cheerfulness Breaks In (1940)
Northbridge Rectory (1941)
Marling Hall (1942)
Growing Up (1943)
The Headmistress (1944)
Miss Bunting (1945)
Peace Breaks Out (1946)
Etc.

Edited to add: like most Thirkell readers I acknowledge that the later books bring most readers diminishing returns, although there are different views on where it's best to give up on the series.

Virago have published up to Peace Breaks Out now but the set they've just done are Cheerfulness, Growing up and Peace, so they're publishing them out of order, slightly annoyingly!.

>89 LyzzyBee: Hmm, looks as if they might've prioritised the books with marginally better literary reputations (not really a useful way to approach an author best known for middle-brow satirical humour in domestic/romance novels imo). To be fair, later on in the series Thirkell did mess up the timelines of her own characters so there is an authorial precedent, lol. Reading the wartime novels, which were published in real time without the benefits of hindsight, out of order removes the possibility of seeing Thirkell in her best morale-boosting and worst fascist-sympathising contexts though.

My review of The Last of Summer by Kate O'Brien is on my blog now.

https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2020/08/26/the-last-of-summer-kate-obrien-1943/

I'm 100 pages into A Lady and her Husband.

I put Cheerfulness breaks in aside while I moved the furniture in my flat this weekend, and forgot I'd started it, so began Table Two instead! Actually, the two books make good companions. TT is set in 1940 in London as the Blitz starts and follows a group of women who work at a government Ministry translating documents. The main characters are Elsie, a clever middle aged lady whose hardships have made her bitter, and Anne, a young girl from the gentry whose family has fallen on hard times and now needs to support herself. Their experiences make an interesting comparison to those of Barchester in Thirkell's book, which is set in rural England in 1939 as children are evacuated from inner cities and those residents who haven't been called up are finding ways to volunteer.

Finally managed to get a book read and reviewed for this - not a Virago but a Persephone, the new Sylvia Townsend Warner collection which I loved! My review is here:

https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2020/08/28/stories-from-the-home-f...

>93 Sakerfalcon: That one's on my wishlist as it looks excellent
>90 spiralsheep: It doesn't make much sense so I'm bringing out the ones I've read already, I'd saved the others when I realised what was happening, making a nice pile and reading the whole set in order over the rest of the year, I think.

And I've reviewed The Ladies of Lyndon this morning on my blog https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2020/08/28/book-review-margaret-kennedy-the-... and am part way through The Serial Garden. I substituted Cheerfulness Breaks In for The Camomile and have otherwise stuck to my list above; I might start another Thirkell but doubt it will be finished by the end of Monday, as I'm working (freelancers who work with overseas clients and other freelancers don't tend to get bank holidays!).

I just finished my one VMC for August (alas!), The King of a Rainy Country. It's an exemplar of what a mid-century VMC should be, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, I see that Ali gave it five stars to my four, so I may have to upgrade. Brophy does capture the period without a misstep, so that's certainly worth a half star. I recommend it enthusiastically as a person who had not read her before.
Now I may read Susan Adam's A House in the Country, which made its way onto my Kindle when somebody here mentioned it. Thank you, mentioner. I'm not going to go back to find you for a real acknowledgement right now.

To my surprise I did have time to finish Northanger Abbey, which I appreciate as an adult reader despite having been put off it at school by inexplicably being forced to read it at the age of 11 when I had no interest in romance and most gothic fiction I'd consumed consisted of Scooby Doo cartoons.

Next, but definitely not before the end of the month, my usual range of books from foreign parts plus one non-VMC each by VMC authors Ada Leverson and Katherine Mansfield, possibly a VMC by Dorothy M. Richardson if my brain feels agile enough for her prose, and one or two short novels by Stella Benson who is not a VMC author although I'm sure many of you have read her work.

In the last few days of August, I'm reading August Folly by Angela Thirkell

... and the last one on my list, Joan Aiken's The Serial Garden however I'm half-way through a re-read of Northbridge Rectory and hooray, the cliffhanger at the end of Cheerfulness Breaks in has been resolved, so I might get one more done by the end of tomorrow, you never know!

https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2020/08/30/book-review-joan-aiken-the-serial...

I finished A Lady and her Husband this afternoon. It started off as a warm fuzzy Dorothy Whipple novel and ended with a bang. From page 239-245 one of the women characters goes into a feminist rant that blew my socks off.

I was, therefore, disappointed to read in the Preface (which I looked at only after finishing the book) that Reeves was yet another of H G Wells' women. I mean, who didn't he have an affair with? Those he did included Reeves, Dorothy Richardson, Elizabeth Von Arnim, Rebecca West, and a 26 year old Martha Gellhorn (when Wells was 68.) I look at photos of him and I just don't get it :))

OK I can report back that I did this against my aims ...

Dorothy Whipple – Young Anne - Persephone - read

Edith Ayrton Zangwill – The Call - Persephone - read

Elizabeth Eliot – Henry - Dean St Press - read

Catherine Carswell – The Camomile - Virago - swapped out for Angela Thirkell's Cheerfulness Breaks in

Marianne Grabrucker – There’s A Good Girl (WIT) - Women's Press - read

Margaret Kennedy – The Ladies of Lyndon - Virago - read

Joan Aiken – The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories - Virago - read

Angela Thirkell - Northbridge Rectory - added and almost read, should be finished by the end of today

I've very much enjoyed getting through all of these in everyone's company!

>101 lippincote: I live in George Bernard Shaw territory and so am regularly confronted by historical photos of him, at various ages, surrounded by adoring younger women. I can only assume both Shaw and Wells were unusually charismatic in person.

/off topic

>103 spiralsheep: I think some women are just attracted by brainy men...

Charisma goes a long way, Spiral! As do brains, Karen. But at least our era's 'Don Juan of the Intelligentsia', Martin Amis, is a short version of Jagger! But, yes, it's all subjective...

Here's the list of what I read this month.

Emmeline - Judith Rossner
High Wages - Dorothy Whipple
Heat Lightning - Helen Hull
Harriet - Elizabeth Jenkins
English Climate - Sylvia Townsend Warner
A Lady and Her Husband - Amber Reeves

All Persephones. I now have only 24 Persephones left to read.

This month I finished:

Northbridge Rectory
Miss Plum and Miss Penny
Marling Hall
Much Dithering
Growing Up
The Headmistress
Miss Bunting
Peace Breaks Out

and I'm more than halfway through Young Anne.

That's five Viragos, two Furrowed Middlebrow and part of a Persephone. I think I OD'd on Angela Thirkell and she is getting in to her extreme phase so this is probably a good place to stop.

>98 spiralsheep: My mother had to read Northanger Abbey at school with a teacher who never explained that the book was a parody of the Gothic movement. So my mum despised it because the characters behaved so stupidly, and she's never grown to like it since. Which is a shame, because it's one of my favourites.

I managed to read:
The Orlando trilogy
A jest of god
The revolution of Saint Jone
Alice
The judge
The incomer
Cheerfulness breaks in
Table two
Northbridge Rectory.

I couldn't read any Persephones this year as they are all in the loft!

>108 Sakerfalcon: I was lucky enough to have an excellent English teacher who couldn't have explained her subjects better, but if a story or character isn't relatable then it's not relatable for whatever reason. I expect most of us returned later in life to re-read the stories that appealed to us.

> I did manage to slip The Twelfth Hour by Oscar Wilde's friend Ada Leverson under the wire last night but I couldn't recommend it.

Wow, all through the war, well done! I'm going to stop at Peace Breaks Out, too.

Well, missed August but read a group of Virago authors in September:

--Plagued by the Nightingale, Kay Boyle -- did not enjoy this book, although it was written well. Too tense, claustrophobic.
--One Fine Day, Mollie Panter-Downes -- it's 1946 and this is one day in the life of the married heroine, in an almost stream of consciousness. Very good--but need to read it again to really appreciate, I think.
--The Doctor's Family and Other Stories, Margaret Oliphant. Not the Virago edition. Includes the first 2 stories and novella in the Carlingford series. Oliphant develops her ability to get inside her characters' heads.
--Elizabeth and her German Garden, Elizabeth von Arnim -- delightful and funny, and relatively short.