As the older thread was getting long, here's a new one!

I just finished A Pin to See the Peepshow (wonderful - 4.5/5 stars!) and am now starting A Favourite of the Gods by Sybille Bedford.

Not a virgao, but a virago author - I'm reading F Tennyson Jesse's contributions to Famous Trials - the Rattenbury/Stoner and Madeline Smith cases.

Started Novel on Yellow Paper by Stevie Smith. Only one review left hanging over my head but I'll do it manana.

I'm reading Antonia White's The Lost Traveller and very much enjoying it, but it's quite dense so it's taking me a while to read.

I'm liking the Novel on Yellow Paper so far. What a quirky little book this is, with a quirky writing style.

It took me a bit to get into Novel on Yellow Paper, but once I did, I really liked it. But then I love Barbara Comyns and Emily Holmes Coleman, so no great surprise there.

Started Seven for a Secret on a train journey yesterday- so far, it's quite easy to see why Stella Gibbons felt the need to parody Mary Webb, but I'm nevertheless quite enjoying it.

I loved Novel on Yellow Paper I was only sad that it had taken me this long to find Stevie Smith. Quirky is a good word for her.

Finished, loved and reviewed Novel on Yellow Paper and am now reading Crewe Train by Rose Macaulay (my first Macaulay!) and am really liking it too.

I'm giving Violet Trefusis a try. I've had pretty good luck with Viragos this month and hope the trend will continue with Hunt the Slipper.

I currently have Pilgrimage I, Christopher and Columbus and Mary Lavelle on the go, depending on my location and/or mood. I also got a copy of the Collected Stories Stories of Katherine Anne Porter today, so had a bit of a dip into that on my lunch break. Clearly I have the attention span of a gnat!

I started I'm not Complaining last night -- chosen because I vaguely recall conversations about it in this group. However I didn't get far as I was rather sleepy !

I have just finished A Jest of God, and I'm awed. Margaret Laurence is a wonderful, perfect writer, and I can't wait for my copies of her other Manawaka books to arrive. I probably won't review it - I don't have time to think about it well enough this week - but it deserves thought and I know that it will continue to resonate in my mind and heart.
Now I can enjoy deciding on something to read next. A normal person would choose one of the batch from which *JoG* came, but I'm leaning toward Crossriggs or The Weather in the Streets or something totally unplanned like Winter Sonata or Saraband. I'll read a little of each and see which grabs me. Aren't we fortunate to have such a wealth of choices at hand just for having been attracted to lovely covers? (I love VMC's!!!)

Please may I bore everyone again with my Margaret Storm Jameson A Life by Jennifer Birkett? It is an excellent tome and so extremely interesting. All the context of the life of this amazing women is being painted for me and I am living alongside her as she moves through the 20th Century. Those women were something special.

Getting a very late start on Virago August, but I am now reading Jenny Wren. Got quite caught up in it in a hurry.

And my winner is ---- The Happy Foreigner. I like to tell you because I enjoy the brief comments from those who are reading ahead of me.
>15 Julie, far from being bored, I think most of us are envious of your already having the book and look forward to hearing more about it.

>13, Laura, I loved that book. Once I got started I had a hard time putting it down. Her characters were so real to me, and while there were elements of the story that she could have easily become "preachy" about, she didn't lecture the reader.

>18: I agree. I'm enjoying the book. I've been reading a lot of contemporary fiction lately, so after a few pages I found I had to stop and reflect on the time period, and the underlying social messages especially regarding woman's role in society. I went through some of the previous LT conversations about this book and found a link to Rob's review which was excellent context-setting.

Julie,

Quit tempting me!!! I am itching to buy the Birkett book. Stop the temptation now before I send you to the Virago Naughty Room.

I started Crossriggs this morning. The Miss Findlaters have been waiting patiently for about 20 years now, so it's more than time. It will be good to take a break from the English for a bit.

>15 Julie, I have that bio on Jameson, and it looks excellent! I think I'll start it after I finish my current non-fiction (a bio on Dodie Smith). How far along into it are you?

Christina! Julie! Stop it!!!!!! I am green with envy. I shall presently explode.

Instead of exploding, go ahead and buy it!

No!!!! I am just sending everyone to the Virago Naughty Room!!!

What's in the Virago Naughty Room? Ayn Rand, Jackie Collins, Barbara Cartland?

Noooooo!!! They are not worthy!!!!!!!

Okay, evidently I have no idea what the VNR is. I thought one was sent there as punishment.

Yes, it is a punishment, but not as hard as that!!!!!

Got it. So my version would be more like the Virago Wannabe Chamber of Horrors.

YES!!!!
:-))))

I do like the idea of Ayn Rand thrown in with Jackie Collins and Barbara Cartland, though. Visions of Ayn and Jackie cirling each other while Barbara huddles in pink terror in the corner.

^ This would be the place for a "rolling on the floor laughing out loud" smilie. That made my evening. "Barbara huddles in pink terror in the corner." Clutching her poodle and lorgnette close, no doubt. Beautifully put. Thank you.

If all of you aren't careful I shall turn Paola into Ayn Rand, Julie into Barbara Cartland, and aguntherc into Jackie Collins. And tiffin - how do you feel about Nora Roberts?

Oh no ---- anyone but Barbara Cartland!!!

Christina - I have just arrived at the middle of Part 2 in which we hear of London in the 1934-1936 years and how the trilogy (originally it was going to be five or six volumes) had been finished in 1934. The links of her life, her friends and acquaintances make for fascinating reading. As a consequence, can't remember if I told you, but I am reading Company Parade alongside as the Jennifer Birkett book refers to so many of her books and mercifully I had that one with me (here in the Pyrenees that is).

In 1934 jameson was about to stand for the PEN committee, she had mercifully met her second husband, the first one was a complete waste of space. she is just beginning to develop a taste for Europe with a trip to Tossa in NE Spain. Strangely enough, not a million miles away from where we are at present. She begins to meet Catalns but does not make connections until later in her life. Within two months they were off to Norway - to Holmsburg a small island south of Oslo.

For this book I have reverted to my multi coloured stick its so that I may easily access notes, bibliography etc. I think that I am beginning to want, or should I say neeeeed to own my own copy. Mary - you will have your revenge - but please anything but the VNR with Babs!!

The only good thing, if you turn me into Ayn Rand, is that I would speak Russian fluently and could read Chekhov and Co. in the original language!

Oh dear I am picturing our lovely members with massive 1980s hair and soft-focus book jacket glamour covers- well perhaps not Ayn Rand.

Just finished Affinity by Sarah Waters. Really good book weaving the stories of Selena, a spiritual medium imprisoned for fraud and Margaret a 'lady' who is a prison visitor. Recommended.

Having finished The Life and Death of Harriett Frean and Travel Light yesterday, I am now deep into Jonah's Gourd Vine and enjoying it tremendously thus far.
belva

I got through a few while holidaying in Hay - A Pin to See the Peepshow and The Little Disturbances of Man were both absolutely excellent - the former definitely ranks amongst the best books I've read in the past few years. Also read The Rector and the Doctor's Family (strictly a VC rather than a VMC), which was also pretty good, though not on a level with the other two. Now started on Rhapsody - very different to anything I've read before, but I'm enjoying it a lot.

Congrats to Rob for his hot review of Crossriggs!

I'm appalled that the first three hot reviews are Stephanie Meyer's 'Twilight' series. Blech!

I am still on my Barbara Pym thing. Finished Crampton Hodnet over the weekend and have begun Jane and Prudence. Not VMCs, of course, but she is a Virago author.

Message edited by its author, Aug 30, 2009, 9:28pm.

Mrs Miniver fell off the bookshelf (she's ok) so I'm reading her while I dry my hair in the mornings and wait outside school. It's perfect for interrupted reading - 3 page columns from the Times during WW2 about life as an upper class family. I do wish I had a garage hand to drive my car up to the house in the mornings...

I'm on the final stretch of Crossriggs; I might have finished this evening but I went through all the boxes and pulled out every last unread Virago so they'll all be on hand as potential successors. Nothing like an overabundance of choice. (Or, as Mae West once said, "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.")

I finished A Woman on Friday and The Tortoise and the Hare this morning.
I think I need a break from disastrous marriages.

Tonight I shall be starting The Camomile by Catherine Carswell.

Also about to start Frenchman's Creek by Daphne Du Maurier for the Monthly Author Group.

Edited to add info.

Message edited by its author, Sep 1, 2009, 5:15am.

I've been on a VMC jag lately ... moved from I'm not Complaining to Jenny Wren, which I finished last night. Enjoyed it so much I decided to read the sequel, The Curate's Wife, next and slipped in a few chapters before bedtime.

Read The Camomile by Catherine Carswell. Written in the form of a journal, by Ellen Carstairs to her friend Ruby. I enjoyed this book about a young women who needs to decide whether or not marriage will thwart her ambitions to be a writer.

Just started The Roaring Nineties by Katharine Susannah Prichard.

>49 - Ooh, I've just got that trilogy - let me know how it goes!

Reading The Parasites by Daphne Du Maurier.

Finished The Parasites by Daphne Du Maurier. I enjoyed this story of three siblings coping with their lives.

I finished The Curate's Wife today, which I enjoyed even more than Jenny Wren. These books work very well together and I'm glad I read them back-to-back.

Not a VMC, but a Virago author: The Spoilt City by Olivia Manning. I've got a couple of unfinished trilogies/series in the TBR stack and I'm not in the right frame of mind for The Little Ottleys right now. (Although I enjoyed the first book tremendously and am happy to see that Dodo Press has reprinted Leverson's Bird of Paradise.)

Message edited by its author, Sep 6, 2009, 12:51am.

Now reading The House on the Strand by Daphne Du Maurier.

I've just finished The Happy Foreigner and am on to Miss Mole, I think, since I need to get away from very young women for awhile.
I also note that our Laura's review of The Curate's Wife is now HOT!

Just finished My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier. Enjoyable, but a bit too similar to Rebecca.

Just finished Dessa Rose which I started in August and had to put aside because I was too busy to finish it. I started off loving the book and continued loving it through to about page 150. Story of a slave revolt in 1829 and it was both compelling and easy to read. Well researched as well. Then it suddenly turned preposterous. The author could not resist putting her own 1980's politics into the mouths of her characters and towards the end of the book she lost all restraint and, IMO, lost all historical credibility. From page 150 onwards I was like, 'Oh, puh-leaze!'

About to start The Rendezvous and Other Stories by Daphne Du Maurier for Monthly Author Read Group.

Ohhhhhh, I've not read any of her short stories. I'll bet they are wonderful!~! I really like everything I have ever read by her. I will look forward to your comments on this one.
hugs,
belva

Belva, I have read already read Du Maurier's Not After Midnight and Other stories. The first two were very good and the other three quite good. Will let you know about Rendezvous when I finish it.

Thank you, my kind and gentle friend.
big warm hug,
belva

Started Rumour of Heaven by Beatrix Lehmann, and it's reminding me a bit of The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier thus far.

I've started Belinda by Rhoda Broughton. Trying to get used to the entire thing being written in the present tense, which must have been unusual for a novel published in 1883.

Just started Gone to Earth by Mary Webb.

The trilogies continue. Finished The Spoilt City this morning, back to Viragos proper with Company Parade this evening. I really liked Women against Men, so I have high hopes for this one.

Message edited by its author, Sep 15, 2009, 10:54am.

Finished Who was changed and who was dead this morning. I'm still chuckling to myself.

Early days yet, but I'm adding Company Parade to the list of winners. A "good crowded book" indeed.

Yesterday I was ill and spent the day in bed reading All God's Children Need Travelling Shoes (yes, she actually put 2 ls in traveling) by Maya Angelou. I quite enjoyed it and for some reason that surprised me. I am also surprised that this is a Virago as her books are widely published and she is a very contemporary author. IDK. I might be missing something.
(I also read Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski which is not a Virago but what a good Y.A. story. Just wonderful!~!)
belva

edited to include Strawberry Girl as I would love for some of you ladies/gents to read her.

Message edited by its author, Sep 21, 2009, 1:21am.

Belva, I spell 'travelling' with two ls also. It is the British spelling, which is what I learnt first.
:-))

Belva - It's possible Virago got to publish a few modern day American authors who the mainstream British publishers would not touch during the 70's and 80's. This could be how they got Margaret Atwood and Maya Angelou. I believe Atwood is still published by them. I remember that Alice Walker was published by The Women's Press (?) in England (the one with the iron for a logo) perhaps because no one else wanted her as well.

I also spell travelling 'wrong'.

Further research shows that Liz Calder has been Atwood's British publisher since 1980, that she sat on the Virago board and is a good friend of Carmen Callil and that Atwood moved with Calder to Bloomsbury when she went to work there. Angelou perhaps followed a similar route.

And yes I know Atwood is Canadian!

Message edited by its author, Sep 20, 2009, 8:01pm.

Just read The Rector and am thinking of jumping ship and not reading the second story in the book, The Doctor's Family, because I have been tempted to go read The Perpetual Curate instead, which focusses on a character given a peek, but a very leading peek.

Picking up after the two ells, that's two esses in focusses. I don't know if that's just wrong, but I always want to spell it that way.......

I'd return to The Doctor's Family at some point - much better than The Rector and with some very enjoyable characters of its own!

I just finished Mr Fortune's Maggot which I was under the impression was a quiet little book about a gay 'love affair' but found to be a quiet little book about two wonderful people who - simply - loved each other. I found it deeply moving.

I have almost finished with Daphne Du Maurier's Myself When Young.
This is a lovely piece of nonfiction that she wrote at about age of 70 as she was going over some diaries she had written as a young girl.
The co-title is "The Shaping of a Writer" and she describes her struggles as a writer in her young years. I found all the little quotes she had written on bits and snips of papers and stuck in her diaries quite real as random thoughts of a young girl.
belva

Reading My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier. Good so far.

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier. Another good story for my Monthly Author Read Group

The Ha-Ha by Jennifer Dawson. Interesting so far...about a young lady removed from Oxford and committed to a mental institution. I find her observant, brilliant.

For Banned Books Week, I'm reading The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall. It was given to me by a thoughtful LT-er--thank you!!

When I was growing up we read those books in secret. The fact that it was banned made it so exciting. My sister read The Well of Loneliness as a teen. I read James Baldwin's Another Country at 13. I read it during the reading period at school - the teacher had no clue it was banned and neither did I. It was given to me by the girl who sat next to me, whose parents were beatniks. This is why books are so wonderful - a skinny little girl in Australia in 1964 visited Harlem through the work of a gay black man living in Paris.

Finished Myself When Young and moved onto The Loving Spirit (loved it); finished that one and am now into I'll Never Be Young Again (though it is not a Virago). All by Daphne Du Maurier for "Author of the Month" reads.
The hospital is a good place to catch up on some of one's reading, though it is difficult to concentrate. But good to have something to do.
belva

Message edited by its author, Sep 28, 2009, 5:51pm.

Belva - hospital reading has to be light and easy to pick up and put down. A friend of mine had a terrible car accident when she was 10 and her father read aloud to her the whole time she was in and out of consciousness. Perhaps you could read some Jeeves and Wooster or the like to Chrissy?

>80: Excellent choice; I read it for Banned Books Week last year! It's very good.

I remember reading The Well of Loneliness in high school. I found it moving - I got so wrapped up in Stephen's story, and wanted so badly to step into the book and smack her mother...

Still working on Company Parade. For some reason I'm not really drawn in. Maybe I just don't care much about Hervey. And I'm not at all convinced by Jess, her American lover. He just sounds too British to be a believable Texan.

Just read Miles Franklin - My career goes bung (http://veritysviragoventure.blogspot.com...) and just started Mother Country by Elisabeth Russell Taylor. Enjoying it more than Pillion Riders.

Loved loved loved The Well of Loneliness, as sad as it is.

I think My Brilliant Career is definitely superior to My Career Goes Bung. I would like to hear what you think of it, verityjdo.

>85 Andrew, as a former Texan, I had a similar reaction to Jess!

I'm trying to think of which VMCs were once banned books because I might be able to fit another one in this week. Scanning through the table, I see:

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
The Land of Spices by Kate O'Brien
At the Still Point by Mary Benson
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
(all of which I've read)

Letty Fox by Christina Stead
Daughter of Earth by Agnes Smedley
From Man to Man by Olive Schreiner
No More Than Human by Maura Laverty
(none of which I own)

Does anyone know of others?

Christina, have you checked out LT's Banned Books Library?

I believe that Kate O'Brien's Mary Lavelle was also banned in Ireland when it was first published.

>#83:
Thank you romain. Excellent idea. I will suggest that. Her parents have been reading aloud to her from the books they read to her as she was growing up. She was a "tomboy"; still is, so it is Black Beauty, Treasure Island, Lad, A Dog, Come Home Lassie, etc. I wonder if she will remember when she comes out of this.

Aluvalibri - I also reviewed that on my blog - there's a link to the My brilliant career review on the Bung post. I loved both of the books - they were very different. But I think My Brilliant Career was probably superior.

I finished Rhoda Broughton's Belinda. Here's a review. Only three stars, I'm afraid.

I am 100 pages into Peking Picnic and really loving it. How does it compare to
Illyrian Fields?

I prefer Illyrian Spring but that could be the location of it which I prefer to China. I absolutely loved Singing Waters which is set in pre-war Albania and is very wordy and no real romance at all, but Illyrian Spring remains my favorite so far - I have an omnibus of her 'Julia' books yet to read.

I'm currently reading A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym, which I'm thoroughly enjoying. Once I finish, I think I'll start Their Eyes Were Watching God in honour of Banned Books Week and due to all the positive comments I've read here...

Julia;
I finished Their Eyes Were Watching God this morning (thanx to Linda's rec and reminder yesterday) and it is lovely. A truly incredible book!~!

I am currently reading The Awakening by Kate Chopin which is on the Banned Books list but is not a Virago. However........it should be!~! (just sayin')
belva

Message edited by its author, Oct 1, 2009, 7:36pm.

Belva - I always think of The Awakening as a Virago too. I love the title story but there is one called Desiree's Baby that's a killer.

Hello Barbara;
In reading the intro of the The Awakening, I gathered as much. (regarding Desiree's Baby)

It is heartrending to me that so many of our wonderfully brilliant female authors of the early years died bereft, alone, penniless and unappreciated. There was/is just something very wrong in a world like that.
belva

#79,
How are you finding The Ha -Ha, Noodlejet? I bought The Upstairs People from Oxfam after a Library thing reviewer described it as one of the most well written and disturbing books she'd ever read. I now find myself reluctant to pick it up for the same reason!

I've just got hold of The ha-ha and will be reading that next week.

I enjoyed the ha-ha can't wait to read your review Verity.

I just finished and thoroughly enjoyed Miss Mole (an absolute delight with sparkle and depth) and am on to Illyrian Spring in a vintage hardcover sent by my dear friend!

I've just finished The rector's daughter - review on my blog on Tuesday (they've got a bit backed up!)...

I finished All Passion Spent by Sackville-West this morning.

I am reading a book that isn't a Virago, but perhaps ought to be: If It Prove Fair Weather (1940) by Isabel Paterson. There doesn't seem to be a touchstone for it, and no one on LT seems to own a copy. I got this one through an ILL. Has anyone heard of this author? The writing is stream of conciousness in style, and quite thought provoking.

#106 noodle, I really enjoyed All Passion Spent. Did you like it? I saw Victoria Glendinning's biography of Vita Sackville-West (and various other temptations) at Borders yesterday but left empty-handed and with my halo shining brightly...

I'm reading a non-Virago novel by a Virago author, Mrs. Humphry Ward's Robert Elsmere. Shockingly, it's no longer available in print in a Oxford World Classics or Penguin Classics edition.

>108 I loved it and so read it as slowly as possible. There are always temptations at Borders. I'm envious that you were to leave empty-handed. Let your halo shine on!

>108, 110: Isn't All Passion Spent wonderful? I enjoyed it, too. Fortunately I don't live anywhere near a Borders or B&N so I am seldom confronted with halo-tipping temptation. But then there's the internet ... uh oh.

#107: Marise, no, I haven't heard of that author but it sounds intriguing.
#104: Lizzie, isn't Miss Mole a delight?

I've had All Passion Spent sitting here for yonks. Must get at it one day soon, with all the praise being heaped on it here.

#109: Rob, where did you find your copy? Must click the link to see what it says.
ETA: not a review, description or peep about it. Hope you do a review...let us know if you do, please and thanks?

Message edited by its author, Oct 4, 2009, 8:04pm.

I'm reading Saraband today.

I must be on a Vita Sackville-West kick. I'm starting Family History.

I am reading All Passion Spent right now as well. I love the writing of Vita Sackville-West, but the preface and introduction really make me want to find a bio on her. It's a beautiful book. I am reading mine slowly as well because I only have one other of hers; The Edwardians. I hope it is as good.
Enjoy everyone. Sounds like it was a good Sunday for reading.
belva

Belva,
I have liked all the Vita Sackville-West's books I have read.
The Edwardians, I liked a lot.

I really enjoy her style of writing. I find it very relaxing.
I finally tossed War and Peace and Dracula last night. I had been picking up everything else to read but them and I am over half way through Dracula and about 1/3 of the way through War and Peace, but I just don't want to read them right now. Isn't that terrible? But I just figure life is too short to be bogged down in a book you feel like "you have to" read.

I have to agree with you Belva. I am dutifully reading War and Peace, bit finding parts of it a real drag, the fighting campaigns mainly. although I am getting to know some of the characters.

Valerie;
Do you think it is because we so recently read Anna Karinina and are just tired of his slow style of writing? I am actually putting mine down for a while. It got to where I just wasn't enjoying it and life is too short. I kept my mark and will eventually pick it up again but not for a while. I am enjoying some Virago reading now and it is a better fit for my time and space right now.
I wish you luck with your read.
love,
belva

When my mother-in-law read Anna Karenina, she only read the chapters about Kitty and Levin and skipped the chapters about Anna and Vronsky. If I had done that, I might have made it through the book!

I still have not read Anna Karenina but if its not full of battle scenes I might enjoy it more.

Valerie;
Anna Karinina is not full of battle scenes and I did enjoy it tremendously.
I am just thinking that for myself, two Tolstoy door stoppers in one year may have been too much to bite off. It takes a long time to read him and while I know I can do it; doing it and enjoying doing it are two quite different things. Perhaps skim the battle scenes; IDK, just paying attention to the names and places might help.
I will be thinking of you as I read my Viragos and know that I am a big fat quitter!~!
hugs,
belva

I did Russian Lit at uni and Anna Karenina was one of them. Unfortunately I knew the ending before I started so found it hard going. Somewhere in Erica Jong's body of work are the names of three dogs - Chekarf, Dogstoyevsky and (I think) Poochkin. But I digress... I still have that book Andrew recommended and look at it every few days thinking I'll get to it soon. Sofia Petrovna. It is short and I don't know the ending.

Thanks Belva :-(

(Belva, I decline to deal with "big, fat," and I absolutely decline to let you call yourself a quitter. You are a realistic time manager, so there! You said that you'd get back to Russia at some point, and I believe you. So there.)

>109 Rob, I enjoyed that book tremendously. You may also want to check out The Damnation of Theron Ware some time. Not a Virago or Virago (or woman) author but a similar theme and very, very good.

And to everyone who found the battle scenes in War and Peace a hard slog, I can only say, "Me, too!"

Speaking of slogging, Company Parade is dragging in big way. I just can't work up any interest in Hervey Russell. I finally reached the halfway mark and have to decide whether to give up or soldier on. Rather disappointing as I started out by liking it.

Message edited by its author, Oct 5, 2009, 8:45pm.

Andrew: A few years ago, I read Sinclair Lewis's Main Street, in which Carol Kennicott reads The Damnation of Theron Ware. So, then I read The Damnation of Theron Ware. In that book, Theron Ware reads the Recollections of Ernst Renan. So then I read Renan's Recollections. Now I'm reading books with characters based on (or allegedly based on) Professor Mark Pattison. Hence, Middlemarch, Rhoda Broughton's Belinda, and Robert Elsmere.

Rob - I read Main Street about five years ago and completely forgot about the Frederic reference, although, at the time, I remember thinking "Hey, I read that book, too!" Didn't Mrs. HW write something on Renan? I vaguely remember some connection - Amiel's Journal maybe?

Perhaps your phenomenal memory is dredging up Squire Wendover's mention of Renan in Robert Elsemere. I haven't gotten there yet, but I found it in a keyword search of the text on the Literature Online database.

Perhaps, Rob, although I wouldn't call my memory "phenomenal". I really think there's some connection between Ward, Renan, and Amiel's Journal. I came across a French edition of Amiel's Journal at McDonald's Books in SF some years ago, spent maybe half an hour leafing through it, and it seems to me that the book was related to MHW in some way, but that's all I can swear to at the moment.

Evidently, she translated it into English ("at the instigation of Mark Pattison," says Wikipedia).

LizzieD;
You forgot the "neener, neener!~!"

Rob and Andrew;
What a fascinating conversation. That's almost like that game they play: "The Power of ??", I think.
Anyway, what a way to read; by references in the book you are reading. I wonder how far one could go? I would venture a long, long way.
Fascinating. I really like having a few guys around. They have a bit of a different take on things and that is a great plus for us gals.
Thanks guys.
hugs all round,
belva

I finished Peking Picnic last night. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Bridge's writing is
sensory overload in a good way. This afternoon I began Not So Quiet by Helen Zenna Smith. I don't quite know what to say except that I will finish it before I go to bed and it should be required reading for anyone who thinks war is anything but an abomination.

Why is this not ranked with All Quiet on the Western Front and Sun Also Rises as one of the greatest novels of WWI? And why was I not aware of it until I began to read VMC's????

I own a Feminist Press copy of Not So Quiet and agree it looks awfully good. I will get to it in the fullness of time. I can't tell you why it is not highly rated - perhaps only because it was written by a woman, or perhaps because it was published in 1930 when everyone had moved on from WW1. I too am constantly humbled by the Virago and Persephone catalogs - so much talent.

#133 and 134

Liz and romain - so glad to hear that you are both advocates of Not So Quiet - I read it back to back with All Quiet on the Western Front. I was not aware of the work until I became an LTer and it was member mrspenny from Australia bought it to my attention as one of my 999 reading categories is War and Women.

Am reading Shutter of Snow today.

I just finished Kate O'Brien's Without My Cloak. Does this woman ever disappoint? I absolutely loved it. Several surprising turns and I thought the way it began was quite beautiful.
Last night I began The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald. I don't believe it to be a Virago but have heard lovely things about it. So far, I am not too impressed but am only on page 41 so we will see. I am also reading The Virago Book of Ghost Stories. This book is wonderful for those of you who have not read it. Some really unique types of stories are within the covers and some excellent Virago authors are included. They have put the book together in chronological order so it is quite interesting to see how the genre changes as the stories move along through the years.
Typical Autumn day here; high winds, leaves blowing all round, lovely day for a good read.
belva

Belva, I'm glad to hear that you are enjoying The Virago Book of Ghost Stories. There is a copy enroute to my local library from another library in our consortium. I hope to be able to pick it up this weekend.

I have to admit that I had trouble getting into The Blue Flower too. I figured I was just in the wrong mood for that type of book at the time. I'll probably try it again one day.

Thanks to the privilege of interlibrary loans, I'm reading A Dedicated Man and other stories by Elizabeth Taylor (a Virago, but not in a Virago edition).

>131 - Rob, thanks for the info.

> 136 - Verity, I envy you the pleasure of reading Shutter of Snow for the first time. That is one of the few books I regularly give as gifts (The Vet's Daughter is another).

Having finished Illyrian Spring (like eating berries with lots of whipped cream), I have chosen The Ladies of Lyndon for something different. But as soon as I pick a book, somebody says something here about another VMC that I haven't read, so I may change to one of Andrew's Barbara Comynses.
NO! Five things at a time = enough!
(Has anybody here read Sadie Jones's The Outcast? I've been dipping into it a little and liking it.....It was on the Orange Broadband long list last year. AND when Wolf Hall, which was released today - and therefore, was a logical birthday gift for me - arrives, I'll probably drop everything to read it. Luxury indeed!

edited to tweak author Touchstones which refused tweaking

Message edited by its author, Oct 13, 2009, 11:02pm.

@aguntherc It was wonderful! There are a number of VMCs dealing with madness (so far I've come across Yellow Wallpaper, the Antonia Whites, The ha-ha, and Shutter - can anyone think of any others?), and they all treat it so differently. Not sure I would give it as a present though!

(@LizzieD - yes, I loved The Outcast, and I've just read her most recent book Small Wars).

Ooh, and I've got the DVD of The getting of wisdom to watch tonight!

I'm sooooo jealous, Miss Verity! The Getting of Wisdom DVD is not at all available in the US! I love Beresford's films!

Last evening I finished, (not a Virago, but close), Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower and followed it right up with The Bookshop. It took me a while to get into The Blue Flower but I did enjoy it. Really liked The Bookshop although the ending quite surprised me.
Then I read some more of The Virago Book of Ghost Stories. I am enjoying this so very much. And I began, (again, not a Virago--but a Virago author), For One Sweet Grape by Kate O'Brien and am already liking it a lot.
I am finding that I am having to stick to the more gentle reads at the moment. Just brain strain, I guess, but that is fine with me.
Hope all is well with everyone and that everyone is reading a wonderful book at the moment.
hugs,
belva

An Overlooked Virago?

Enid Bagnold

A Diary without Dates
by Enid Bagnold

O where, o where have those Viragoes been
O where, o where can they be?
O where, or where have those Viragoes been
This book is a book they should see.

Given the the penchant of Viragoes (a lively band of naughty women hanging out at the VMC forum - not to be confused with the scolding women of English lit. lore), I am surprised they have not jumped on this book, read it cover to cover, or at least added it to their ever-shortening list of Viragoes they should own if not read ;-) So for the edification, gratification and general amusement (well strike the amusement, there is none), I will review this book for Viragoes and sundry.

As Jane Potter notes in Boys in Khaki, Girls in Print, the war-related fiction and nonfiction published during WWI glorified or sentimentalized the war. The horrific toll on human bodies and spirits largely goes unnoticed in the literature of the period. A Diary without Dates is one of the few exceptions. Published while the war still waged, Bagnold's diary presents the war from a V.A.D.'s perspective - and an unflinching perspective at that. No rose-colored glasses for here.

Written in a fluid, almost stream-of-consciousness style, Bagnold's diary shifts from the abjection of men objectived by doctors, Sisters, and V.A.D.s., from the man who moans in pain,

his knees drawn up under him, the sheets up to his chin; his flat chaulk white face tilted at the ceiling [with] the look that a dog gives . . . his words the character of an unformed cry

to the Sister who blithely says while laughing with an M.O. over tea, "I can't do anything. He must stick it out."

Bagnold has a deft touch for rendering the various people who come through the wards for example the "lady" visitor who cries on seeing an officer limp into the Mess:

'And can some of them walk, then!' Perhaps she thought they came into to tea on stretchers, with field bandages on. She quivered all over, too, as she looked from one to the other, and I felt sure she went home and broke down crying, 'What an experience . . . the actual wounds!'

Thus the "ladies" with their teas and sentimental tears carry out their war duties

On a similar note, Bagnold satirically observes her fashionable friend in Chelsea, who from the safety of his unenlisted status proclaims he "feels" the war more than other people do, that his "heart is able to bleed more profusely than any other heart . . . in . . . England." This same man self-righteously expounds his theories: "When the taxes go up . . . perhaps it will make make people feel the war." Bagnold, ever the ironic observer, notes in her diary, "He forgets that even in England a great many quite stupid people would rather lose their money than their sons."

With her sparse economic prose, Bagnold, nevertheless, manages to comunicate a wealth of information about the various hierarchies that rule the wards - and the rules abound. V.A.D.'s must not form romantic attachments to the soldiers. Officers get special privileges, special food not available to the enlisted men. Then there are the hierarchies of class - nurses disdainfully referring an old lady as "comic." Of the Tommies (the lowest in rank), Bagnold notes, "The men fall in with our moods with a docility which I am beginning to suspect is a mask, admit to that she is comic." But on closer observation, Bagnold observes that this "comic" old lady is not so comic:

. . . Her treatment [of the soldier] differed from ours. She treats him as though he were an individual; but there is more in it than that. . . . She treats him as though he had a wife and children, a house and a back garden and reponsibilities: in some manner she treats him as though he had dignity. . . . That is the difference: that is what the Sisters mean when they say 'the boys.' . . .

In a country full at the time of patriotic fervor and praise for "masculinity over softness," Bagnold's descriptions must have sounded like heresy.

However, Bagnold's experience is not without its compensations. For the first time, women have an opportunity to participate in real work, to free themselves from the cloisters of home and family. despite the rules governing her life, Bagnold exults in the "exhilaration of liberty" she experiences.

This book first published in 1917 and last in 1978 by Virago Press provides a short but incisive description of the war. As one of the few anti-war narratives actually written during the war, this book deserves attention . . . and a new edition.

Message edited by its author, Oct 14, 2009, 8:58pm.

Mother Urania dear - I note that you have returned the compliment and have led *me* into temptation with the Enid Bagnold WW1 book. Mercifully the library has it - the Amazon.co. whatever it is price for used and new was £17 something pence!!! Upon recovering from the shock of such outrageous overpricing I sped to my Oxfordshire library resource and there it was ... I have blued £0.85 and reserved it. Now waiting for five books - including Wolf Hall and The Land of Green Plums of Muller - only hope that they don't all arrive at once....

Message edited by its author, Oct 14, 2009, 5:43pm.

P.S. For those who don't hold up their noses when Baron von Kindle walks by, I have put together a pretty good mobi file (complete with cover) for anyone who would like it. Just pm me and I will e-mail it to you. Actually any mobi reader will work, and I can probably reformat for other readers if you tell me what yours is.

Message edited by its author, Oct 14, 2009, 6:08pm.

Loved the review, Mary. Equally love Enid Bagnold's direct, clear gaze. This is one I must find, thank you.

Mary, as usual your reviews are splendid! I will see if I can locate a copy but I doubt I can find an affordable one (Julie could not).

@bleuroses

It was wonderful! My colleague bought it at work to surprise me (we have a huge film collection and I'd rejected it as being too obscure!); think it was an Australian import.

There is one copy of A Diary Without Dates on ebayuk with a starting bid of L1.50 and shipping only to U.K. or I would have been all over it. In fact I did bid and was rejected. Good luck ladies and gents. And may the best man win.
On ebayus, there is one copy going for $199.99 U.S. I'm not that flush.
belva

Thanks Belva - rushes away to check it out!

Great review Mary - I found the 1978 Virago edition at the library this morning and read 60 pages straight away (Teresa very conveniently fell asleep in the car!). Am really enjoying it.

That is a very helpful review, Mary. Thank you. And I say that when everybody has read A Diary without Dates, you should all go back and pick up The Happy Foreigner in which Bagnold fictionalizes her experience of driving French and Russian officers around France and Germany after the war. She works a romance into the picture, but also gives a clear-sighted look at an independent young woman whose family trusted her enough to allow (!) her to live her choice of adventures.

#154 Peggy, thank you - that sounds so very interesting and I love the link to her fiction inspired from her own life.
A Diary Without Dates has journeyed from the 'Central Shelves' in Oxford to my local library and 'is awaiting collection'. Our libraries are closed on Sunday so we will have to wait until tomorrow....

Message edited by its author, Oct 18, 2009, 3:00am.

#154 Peggy, I'm going to look for that one on the next library trip.

Am I the only Commonwealth country group member who hasn't read Bagnold's National Velvet? I have a feeling that I should have...

Cushla - I wouldn't advise it. Anyone who grew up on the movie version will be disappointed. One of the few instances where the movie was better. Or if not better, the movie is so entrenched with most of us that the book comes in a poor second.

Am I the only Commonwealth country group member who hasn't read Bagnold's National Velvet?

Cushla, I haven't read National Velvet either. I'm not even sure that I've seen the movie (if I did, it obviously didn't make much of an impression on me).

I haven't seen the movie either!

The Question of Max a Virago Crime by Amanda Cross is very good, full of literary allusions and an interesting murder investigation by amateur sleuth/Lit Professor Kate Fansler which takes her on a trip to Oxford, England.

At Mrs Lippincote's by Elizabeth Taylor, not in a Virago edition, but a 1945 hardback I found.

VIRAGO CRIME????? I didn't know that!
Oh dear. I have a feeling I may go off the deep end. (And I read the Kate Fanslers as they came out and enjoyed them, every one!)

Not a Virago, but a Virago author: The Feast by Margaret Kennedy. Very good.

LizzieD - Women on the Case and A Woman's Eye are two collections of short stories by "the best women crime writers of our time" edited by Sara Paretsky if you are interested in Virago crime fiction.

Amanda Cross was, of course, in reality Carolyn Heilbrun, the feminist scholar, professor at Columbia University, as well as mystery writer. There's a fascinating article about her death, and life, at http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/n_9...

Message edited by its author, Oct 20, 2009, 5:49pm.

Oh Jane - I found this article deeply shocking. That someone given so much should value it so little...

In theory, I understand her philosophy of deciding each day whether to live or die--but taking one's life is irreversible. It's really a decision of living this day or forfeiting all days in the future. As much as people claim it was an autonomous, thought-out decision, I cannot fully believe that, and it makes me sad that such a fire of a life was lost on a down day (on a day where she didn't want to engage in any small talk and felt "sad about the universe"). I do understand (irrespective of whether I agree with it or not) suicide when a descent is starting, when one becomes sick, when one begins to lose oneself, or when one's situation becomes unbearable; this I do not.

Message edited by its author, Oct 20, 2009, 8:42pm.

I must agree -- if one is terminally ill, or in deep pain, or desperately alone, I could understand. But it actually seems wildly selfish to me for someone who has a family, children, friends, to do such a thing to them.

As a surviving friend of a suicide, I agree, Jane.

So do I, Christine.

Did she have some kind of chemical depressive disorder?

Okay, confession time. I, too, once contemplated suicide by slow starvation - got down to 80 pounds and was hospitalized involuntarily. I had family and friends. I knew they would be upset, but at that time the pain of living was intolerable. All I can say is one has to have reached that point to understand why the act does not feel selfish but instead feels like the only way out. Remember, extreme depression is also hard on one's loved ones. If one feels that one is going to stunt their lives by staying alive, suicide can actually seem unselfish.And psychic pain can be more painful than physical pain. Not to worry; I have been well-medicated since. And I have come to recognize the symptoms of depression early and to hop off to my doctor, who is great and will see me at a moment's notice. And that was 18 years ago.

Dear, dear Mary, I lead the chorus of voices that will cry, "Thank God you're still here with us!" I've never been that depressed (again Thank God) but the one thing I know is that life is change. Excepting terminal illness, I know that this good time I'm having now is going to be lost to hard time; and that hard time will eventually be replaced by good time. It's my life - whatever the circumstances - and I choose to live it and rejoice in it as well as I can.
(If that's a sermon, I apologize. I do understand about chemical imbalances - am dealing now with a cousin disabled by that whose mother is in an extended care facility. Again, I cherish what I have in echo of friends who wrote above.)

Mary, I do understand--chemical depression and psychic pain can lead to suicide. If one remains unmedicated, depression can make the situation unbearable, and that is a suicide I can understand, leaving aside the question of whether I agree with it.

What riled me about the article is the fact that the journalist and the survivors claim that her suicide was "an act of will, an idea brought to life." As the circumstances are described in the article, her suicide was neither a sensible nor informed decision. In no way should she be condemned, but her actions should be mourned, not held as held out as courageous or rational and in any way distinguishable from Plath, Woolf, and Sexton, as much as the writer takes pains to try to separate them.

Message edited by its author, Oct 21, 2009, 11:56am.

Mary, my daughter was hospitalized twice because clinically depressed. The first time she cried for help because "the voices" were telling her she should kill herself, the second time she actually tried to do it.
Thank goodness, a few years later, she is now well and thriving.
All of the above to say that I do understand only too well the pain depression brings into people's lives.

I also totally understand the "feelings" and state of mind that can put a person in that particular "place". I spent a week on a psyche ward just under a year ago and within a month after being put on several meds, for the first time in my remembered lifetime, I did not feel like I had a cloud over my head, like something horrible was going to happen, like I was going to die---immediately---. And I know/knew these were all unreasonable feelings but was unable to control them and I thought I was the only one who had ever had them and that I just had to live this way always.
One day I decided I no longer wanted to live, but it didn't just happen in a day---it took years for that thought to come into play. Thankfully, I had the courage to call my husband at work and tell him I didn't want to be here when he came home. And when he ask me where I wanted to be, I told him nowhere------------that I just did not want to be. He made a one hour drive in 20 minutes and spent every moment with me for the next 3 days until they found a bed for me on the ward. I was so filled with shame and humiliation. But after being there for a week; getting my medications regulated; starting therapy; learning tools and techniques for handling the attacks of panic, anxiety and depression that I have had all of my life, I learned that there are millions of people like me out in the world. Some are finding help and some are not. Hopefully none will ever find themselves leaning over the barrel of a rifle as I was the day I called my husband.
I still never feel "happy" but I do have days where I feel content.
The most important thing I have learned through all of this is that a feeling is just that. A feeling. Feelings change and no one ever died from a feeling. So I take my meds, I get my rest, I see my doctors when I need to, I talk to my husband, and when those feelings do come into play again; I always know that there will come a day when they will change. That they won't last forever because they are just "damnit feelings".
If this helps one person out there in my L.T. world, it will be worth the exposing of it. And Mary, I thank you for giving me the courage to do so.
belva

Message edited by its author, Oct 21, 2009, 6:06pm.

Ditto all of the above. Been there, done that, over and over all my life. Get up, slog on etc. BUT this lady - we are told - felt none of the angst the rest of us live with. Of course the article may not be doing her justice at all... but it does appear to say that this was not the result of personal pain or illness etc.

I work with teens who have TERRIBLE lives.

(Very dear Barbara and Belva, we're all enriched by your gracious lives and by your courage.) Belva, I was struck by your saying that you were not happy. Happiness seems to me to be a gift, and I'm not sure that we can give it to ourselves. On the other hand, partly because I also worked with teens who had TERRIBLE lives, for years I faced each day with dread and resignation and wept in secret on Sunday nights because the whole thing was about to start again. Now I get up with anticipation of some usefulness or maybe even joy. I'm entirely grateful for this time and wish something similar for all of you here.
Meanwhile, I'd have written that Heilbrun performed "an act of will, an idea brought to death." That sounds truly insane to me.

I have the complete opposite reaction to the terrible teens, Peggy. From day one I went home thinking - I will never complain again! And I pretty much haven't. I used to 'weep in secret on Sunday nights' about my boring office jobs but I love having meaningful work at last.

I have not been depressed since I gave birth at 42. I absolutely love my life now but I still have to break it down into bite size pieces. I didn't win the lottery but I read a great book, fed the birds, saw a Van Gogh sky etc. Today I was lifted completely out of myself by thousands of Canada geese flying over my house, honking in, all the way from Greenland.

I think that suffering can be either redemptive or embittering. At 58 I can finally see the point of mine and am thankful for it. I wouldn't have had my life any other way.

*sigh* By the time I left, I was no longer convinced that I was making a difference in anybody's life. They were incredibly needy and incredibly determined that they didn't want anything that I was offering. I would have left sooner except that my experience was THE experience pretty much across the board - young teachers, old ones, everybody. A very sad state of affairs.
(I feel as though I've now highjacked this thread and I apologize.) It was the "small" things, that really aren't small a bit, that got me through. I'm still working on the not-being-bitter-part. Meanwhile, it's wonderful not to be angry and frustrated day in and day out.

>179: Today I was lifted completely out of myself by thousands of Canada geese flying over my house, honking in, all the way from Greenland. I absolutely love that, too. We get hundreds of them on our pond around Christmas and even though sometimes they wake me up in the morning, and they poop a lot, I love 'em.

Lizzie - I could apply everything you said to other schools I've subbed and worked in. I came to this one after walking out of another in a snit. The school I work in now is just different. There is an abundance of goodwill, which I have not experienced in any job before.

Laura - I watch them for 15 minutes at a stretch some evenings. They go to a pond in our development and I laugh when I see them calmly feeding around all the wooden dogs they've put up to discourage them. In the midst of them every year is a lone white one, a snow goose perhaps? They live very cooperatively. And don't get me started on The Snow Goose.

PS - Lizzie - I worked for a year in one school, a middle school, and in that year I never once kept a class quiet or taught a damned thing. One time they threw chairs while I cowered in a corner. Crisis wouldn't come because they were being sued by the parents of the chair throwers. My worst day was showing a health class sex video to 7th graders. They were bored by it and threw things at the tv. And this was 'regular' ed. These were nice middle class kids.

There were amusing moments like the sweet little girl who told me I looked like a movie star. Unfortunately she couldn't remember her name until close to three when she came up and said "I remembered!" I'm hoping for Julia Roberts or Susan Sarandon but - alas - it was Mrs Doubtfire.

This is a fascinating discussion. My bout with depression was triggered when, after eight years as a stay-at-home father, I suddenly had both of my children in school and I had "nothing to do." No sense of purpose. Ironically, it was also at a period when I was unusually creative and successful at getting my work published. It's odd how your sense of your own worth is divorced from your worth as others assess it. It was also odd how an SSRI (antidepressant) made me both happy and completely unproductive and uncreative. I stopped writing entirely. Unfortunately, I think there is a real connection between creativity and depression. Strange that it should be so.

On the Virago angle: has anyone read Emily Holmes Coleman's The Shutter of Snow (1930)? It's narrated by a woman institutionalized with postpartum depression. It's on my TBR list, unfortunately buried by many other things.

Message edited by its author, Oct 22, 2009, 6:59pm.

Rob;
I think Tui wrote that she had read The Shutter of Snow and I believe that she wrote a review on it. I have it on my list as well.
And I totally agree with you that there is some sort of connection with being in some kind of pain and the creative process. I don't find it within myself but have seen it in other family members. I also find it sad but true that from my limited knowledge of depression, anxiety and emotional illness there seems to be a genetic link.
belva

It is an interesting discussion. Rob I particularly like what you said "It is odd how your send of your own worth is divorced from your worth as others assess it." That is so true.

romain I identify so strongly with the crying on Sunday night because of my office job. Not just boring and not meaningful but full of people who yell and are intentionally demeaning.

I love that finding little bits of joy in small pieces. I often feel that is where life is really lived. A cardinal in a tree a, a cup of tea, a kind word. It is good to remind ourselves where value lies.

I am so glad to hear how many of you have found improvement and treatment.

Actually Rom your book selection is interesting as well because I imagine a woman's treatment for depression in the 1930s was very different.

O.K. I was about to write something particularly poignant and meaningful, but Kitten Hilfy Bit just did a 180 degree turn in midair a nanosecond before Kitten Tully chased her, and poignant and meaningful are completely dissolved in giggles.
Barbara, I'm thankful that your work is now good. I was never really physically afraid - even when threatened (The threatener was eventually expelled)........and there were girls to warn me not to drink the bottled water with the hand cleanser in it.
"Mrs. Doubtfire" *snorkle* That may be worse than "Mrs. Mac, you've got chipmunk cheeks!" or maybe not.
GOOD for us. We survive and thrive one way or another.

I think there is a real connection between creativity and depression

Rob, that is very interesting. In fact, I remember talking about it with my daughter's psychiatrist, who said that probably many among those we define 'geniuses' have/had some sort of mental illness (I apologize if the expression sounds offensive, but cannot think of another definition right now).

I like the Dali Lama's version of happiness, which isn't that rush people get from retail therapy or falling in love but a deep connectedness with our true selves and the relationship we have with our spiritual and external worlds (to grossly oversimplify). Otherwise, I think "happiness" is highly overrated and that contentment is the much more desirable state of being. Happiness is Everest sharp spikes and peaks of emotion; rarified air that can make you giddy and not a place where you can stay for long. Contentment is the calm, green valley, the sheltered place where you can actually live. Down the cliff face into the depths below is another matter. That way be trolls and orcs, nasty boogerous things.

Having just gone through a two year period with a very dear friend with intense suicide watches, just barely pulling her back from the brink in time a few times, I have tremendous compassion for those who have to live with the devastation that this kind of body chemistry causes. Thank goodness for those meds which give everyone a shot at living in that valley.

Re Carolyn Heilbrun's decision to end her life when she appeared to have no problems: I would posit that not having a will to live is a form of mental illness in and of itself. The will to survive is the strongest instinct we have. If she didn't have it, how can there not have been something seriously wrong? An ennui with life so profound that she could find no value in it to merit carrying on? I can't agree that there was no problem there.

What thread is this, anyway...scroll up...oh...just reading posts, no Viragos at the moment. ;)

Message edited by its author, Oct 24, 2009, 11:51am.

I'm reading one I didn't realise was a Virago till I spotted the little apple on the spine! It's The Making Of Mr Hai's Daughter and it's an excellent memoir of growing up British-Asian in the 70s - moving as well as funny.

Finished Kate O'Brien's Last of the Summer. Although the latter was reprinted as a Virago Modern Classic I secured a 1944 copy and it was such a joy to read. Set in Southern Island just prior to the Second World War with a family story of love lost, requited and tensions unspoken. It really lived up to my expectations.

I am now reading A Diary Without dates by Enid Bagnold. Originally publishe on 1918 it was reprinted as a Virago in 1978. My copy is a library copy taken out of the store. I failed to get the ebay copy but congrats to whoever you ar eif it was you!! This slim volume is Enid Bagnold's diary of the period when she worked as a VAD in Woolwich tending for soldiers most horribly wounded in the First World War - this is right up my street, if a little harrowing in places.

It was me that got the ebay copy! Did you bid, because it looked as though mine was the only bid.

Oh I am so pleased it was 'one of us'!! No I didn't bid as I had been travelling and by the time internet access was made here in la belle France the moment had passed! Seriously I am very pleased that it has gone to a good home. I have just finished it and am recovering ... I find that period of history and the role of women at that time especially interesting. Thank you Mother Urania for alerting us to it.
PS Isn't the cover delightful?
PPS I put in an offer for three Storm Jameson hard backs and got all three for £1.99. I haven't been on ebay for ages - what a haul! I will let you know all about them when they arrive.

Getting into the spirit of the season with The Virago Book of Witches and The Virago book of Ghost Stories

I'm starting Deerbrook, but it's a big book and I'm likely to put it and everything else aside when my copy of Wolf Hall (a birthday gift!) finally arrives.

Rob, I've read The Shutter of Snow and it's one of my all-time favorite Viragos. So much so that I hunted down a first edition.

I'm reading Brother Jacob, by George Eliot. A very short novelette, with, I suspect, a little surprise (for the characters, if not for the reader) at the end.

I'm reading (Daddy was a number runner). Am really enjoying it!

194 How appropriate. I bet the virago book of witches and virago book of ghosts are better than standard Halloween fare.

The Virago Book of Ghost Stories is much better than your normal Halloween fare. Wonderful authors and some really creepy stories. Edith Wharton's The Eyes totally did me in. Ewwwwwwwwwww!~! And Margaret Oliphant really did a number with The Open Door. But the entire book is good. This one is a compilation of stories from The Virago Book of Ghost Stories: the Twentieth Century (two volumes, 1987 & 1991) and The Virago Book of Victorian Ghost Stories, 1988.
One thing I really have enjoyed about this edition is that the stories are arranged in chronological order so that one can see how the genre has changed over the years.
I don't have The Virago Book of Witches. I wish I did. I am sure it would go wonderfully with this one, which I highly recommend. I will have to make sure I get it for next year.
belva

I've not come across Virago Book of Witches which sounds awesome - but I've got my copy of the Virago book of ghost stories ready to hand for the weekend. Yay!

I'm reading Antonia White's The Sugar House (sequel to Frost in May and The Lost Traveller). Oh, it's quite good. In this one Clara (Nanda in the first book) is 21 and being shat upon by various men. But I believe she will overcome this and become a strong, independent woman. All the more poignant since it's autobiographical.

Currently reading Hunt the Slipper and enjoying it very much (and nodding emphatically at several passages). The Hound and the Falcon by Antonia White is on deck for the weekend.

It will be forever before I finish Deerbrook. More than anything else I've read this year, this is the book that tells me that I have retired and have time to read. It is delightful! I fall into the doings of these few families in a small English village in the first part of the 19th century and breathe deeply and lower my blood pressure.

Now reading Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther by Elizabeth von Arnim as part of my Monthly Author Read. I am finding her writing delightful and witty.

The Sugar House was a short, easy read and rather moving in its way. Poor Clara has a rough go of it but appears to have a way out of her predicament at the end. At the center of the novel is Clara's emerging sexuality. White mostly alluded to sexual matters rather than stating them outright. A sign of the times, I s'pose. But at the end I kinda wanted to ask her several questions to make sure I "got it" !!

I have finally started on Ann Bridge's Julia novels. None of these are published by Virago, which stuck to only Illyrian Spring and Peking Picnic. These were written in the 50's and 60's and are much more Rosamunde Pilcher-ish. As with all Bridge's work, The Light Hearted Quest is one part 'romance' and one part travel book. In this case the lovely Julia is sleuthing in Casablanca, Tangiers and Fez. She makes it sound absolutely magical and if I never go myself, at least I have read about it.

Ohhhhhh, that one sounds so good Barbara. I will have to seek it out. When you say her "Julia novels" what do you mean? Are part of her books a series? Or just books with the same character?
I hope you enjoy it tremendously.
belva

Reading Muriel Spark in preparation for Muriel Spark week on my blog next week - Virago reissued four of her titles fairly recently. Today I'm readingLoitering with intent. Do check out http://veritysviragoventure.blogspot.com next week!

Message edited by its author, Nov 10, 2009, 7:31am.

#208> Belva, the Julia novels are three and collected in an omnibus: Julia Involved. It should not be difficult to find it on Amazon.

Belva - I got the omnibus from PBS. They have the middle book on there currently The Portuguese Escape. The others show up from time to time as singles and as a threesome. I am not sure if they should be read in order or not. There is at least one other Julia in Ireland published in the seventies. But these three are The Lighthearted Quest, the above mentioned Portuguese one and The Numbered Account.

Today I am starting The Reef by Edith Wharton, which I found this past weekend. It has an intro by Marilyn French in which she deliberately does not give any spoilers. Thanks, MF!

>212: you've just inspired me. I agreed to read and review The Reef for an Edith Wharton blog tour in January. I hadn't thought about it as an excuse to add to my VMC collection but have just ordered a used copy !!!

>213 Ah, glad to be of service! I like it very much, so far. Will be interested to read your review!

In my efforts to clear some of my TBR pile I decided to read all my skinny books. I was supposed to start with a skinny Virago but instead felt in the mood for the non-Virago Sofia Petrovna which our Andrew recommended a few months ago. I've spent the last 24 hours immersed in Stalinist Russia and while I cannot say I 'enjoyed' it, I did find the book powerful, deeply moving and surprisingly easy to read. Thank you Andrew.

Love it - reading skinny books!!

>213 There was a Radio 7 production of The Reef - not sure if it remains accessible or not.

Just finished Christopher and Columbus. Full of Elizabeth von Arnim's humour, but also showing the disadvantages of being half-German during wartime in England and America. The Twinkler twins are delightful characters.

I have 60 pages left to Dusty Answer I am really enjoying this book. Some of Lehmann's descriptions are pure poetry.

Reading The Lost Traveller by Antonia White. Much to think about here.

>219: ah, that sounds like a good sign.

About 40 pages from the end of Troy Chimneys and enjoying it very much.

I am about halfway through The Enchanted April and finding it 'enchanting'.

Just been reading Edith Olivier's The love child. Review on my blog soon (the reviews have backed up a bit!)

I'm off to finish Deerbrook right now - maybe 25 more pages! I will be forced to write a review because the only one here is about two sentences long and gets one of the protagonist's names wrong. Then I will get back to Unbeaten Tracks in Japan and probably won't be able to forego starting something else Virago too.
Later!

I'm 65 pages in Compton-Burnett's A House and its Head. This is the first novel of hers I have read and I am finding it very heavy going. I don't know whether it is her style or what, but the lack of descriptive transition is driving me nuts! People are there and then they aren't....apparently having left the room without any nod from the author. But even worse is when characters are just there! Two people are talking and, all of a sudden, the neighbors are contributing to the conversation when there was no indication that they have arrived.

I would appreciate any encouraging words to carry on.

#225, I read A House and its Head (my first ICB) this year and enjoyed it. However I know some people hate her with a vengeance so I don't know how encouraging I should be!

My initial experience was pretty much the same as yours. I was confused and irritated. Then at a certain point (unfortunately I can't remember exactly when, maybe after about 5 chapters) something clicked. It was kind of like struggling to understand someone with a completely different accent to your own and then suddenly tuning in to what they're saying and finding they're wonderful company!

Once this happened I loved it. The whole story is told through the dialogue though. Also, it is a very dark story so probably not recommended if you're not in the mood for that right now, too!

I am reading Love's Shadow, the first in Ada Leverson's The Little Ottleys trilogy. A witty, early C20th tale of a beautiful heiress, some foolish men and a plain and dour companion who is of course more intelligent than the rest of them put together!

Edited to change touchstone.

Message edited by its author, Nov 26, 2009, 6:21am.

That's it exactly! I was struggling to state what I was having trouble with. Someone with a different accent! I am half way through chapter 4.

I was thinking about the novel last night (so I guess this is good) and decided it reminded me of O'Neil's Strange Interlude where people drift from spoken dialogue to spoken thoughts to spoken dialogue in one speech. Confusing until you get the rhythm; of course, it helps that the others actors freeze when the internal monologue is happening.

In A House and its Head everyone is talking, but no one is listening. Setup for disaster.

Thanks for the encouragement.

E

Read Love by Elizabeth von Arnim. A bittersweet story of love between a middle-aged women and a much younger man.

No touchstone.

Mr Skeffington by Elizabeth von Arnim. Another good one from this author about a woman approaching her fiftieth birthday coming to terms with the fact that she is no longer young and beautiful. Very good.

Valerie - I saw the Bette Davis movie of this as a teen and then read the book. I re-read it as part of my Virago collection and also loved it. I remember being really flummoxed by the movie because Bette was never a classic femme fatale and (IMO) really had no great looks to lose. That was in the days before I embraced my own inner Bette of course!

>230:
Barbara;
"I remember being really flummoxed by the movie because Bette was never a classic femme fatale and (IMO) really had no great looks to lose. That was in the days before I embraced my own inner Bette of course!"

Isn't that the truth? But how that lady did carry it off through all of those movies!! And the men went crazy over her!~! Let's hope all of us have a bit of the Bette Davis within us.
belva

Belva - she even shaved her head to play Elizabeth 1st. Can you see Loretta Young doing that?

Got back from an 1800 mile round trip drive to have Thanksgiving dinner with the in-laws (only in America!), dog vomiting all the way, but while sitting in bumper to bumper traffic outside Richmond, Virginia, I finished a second hand copy of Lynne Truss's Talk to the Hand which is about "the utter bloody rudeness of the world today" and in particular how the English ability 'to look back on a day of total disaster and say "Well I think that went quite well, don't you?" has degenerated into a 'reflexive eff-off'.

Not a Virago but very very amusing.

>...the English ability 'to look back on a day of total disaster and say "Well I think that went quite well, don't you?"...'

This reminds me of a story that recently appeared in the New York Times. And of one of my favorite monuments in England: a statue in a park in Litchfield of the captain who went down with the Titanic. On the pedestal is the inscription, "Be British."

>232: If you drove I-95 from Richmond thru Baltimore today, you deserve a medal. That's one of the worst corridors under any circumstances, but on Thanksgiving weekend ... I shudder at the thought. We did it once and said, "never again".

>233: Rob, great story. I hadn't heard about that phrase but it's just brilliant.

Romain - I wonder if it's on DVD, if so I might add it to my collection. Bette Davis was one of my Dad's favourites.

Valorie;
Mr. Skeffington is available on DVD. Try this amazonuk link:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss?url=...

Hope you find something that works for you. I noticed that the bottom couple were VHS, region 1, or U.S. import so you want to make sure you get the one that will work in your DVD player. Good luck.
hugs,
belva

Thanks Belva. Will definitely get it when funds allow.

Mr. Skeffington is also available from Netflix, and I just added it to my queue. I do enjoy early Bette Davis, and always thought she would have done a better job of Scarlett O'Hara than Vivien Leigh did. Remember, "Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm..." I think in so many of her roles her lack of conventional beauty served her well, as she wasn't concerned with looking good at the expense of creating the character. In "Of Human Bondage", for instance, she was utterly convincing in a role that other actresses had turned down because it would require them to be unsympathetic and show the effects of poverty and disease.

About to start a Virago autobiographical book The Diary of Ma Yan written by a Chinese schoolgirl.

Now that one sounds fascinating. Tell us more please Valerie.
belva

Hi Belva, it's the story of a young girl who is determined to get educated and with the sacrifices her parents, particularly her mother, make in helping Ma Yan achieve this.
I am about half way through. It is very moving - box of tissues by my side. Life in the countryside is very different to life in the towns and is particularly hard if you are a female.

Sounds very good. I think I need to look for this one.

The Diary of Ma Yan. Very moving account of how poor people living in the Chinese countryside struggle not only to survive, but strive to send their children to school so that they may ultimately have a better life than their parents. The book has much additional information on the conditions in rural China. Recommended.

As part of my skinny books project I have got through Brother Jacob and Olivia. I liked the former which although just a long short story was really amusing but was less impressed by Olivia. I think the subject matter has been handled better elsewhere.

I'm having another go at Rebecca West's The Judge. I left off at page 228 back in July, it just didn't suit my summer reading mood. But I do want to finish it so I'm trying again now.

Not a Virago but it should be; I am reading Passing by the very wonderful author Nella Larsen. She wrote so very little. I find that very sad.
belva

We've discussed Passing on this site before. I also found it very interesting - the subject matter being so foreign to most of us.

I just finished Manhattan When I Was Young and loved it. It is a memoir of the 50's and 60's in Greenwich Village and although it would not be everyone's cup of tea, it was mine. I couldn't wait to get back to it, time traveling back 40 years to a place I never lived and a lifestyle I never had. The joys of reading...