Virago 50th Anniversary Reading Project 2023 - August

2023 sees us celebrating 50 years of our favourite publisher, Virago!

We have set up a reading project to choose books from a section of the VMC catalogue in sequential order, and after some discussion on other threads, have decided to go for equal sections rather than trying to divide up the 50 years and fit books into this by publication date!

To aid us, we will be using our Virago Collection Tracker which can be found in the Group Wiki.

In August, our sixth month, we can choose from books numbered 421-490. These run from The Orlando Trilogy by Isabel Colegate to Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier. There are some excellent books in this section - lots of classic authors like du Maurier, Rosamund Lehmann and Elizabeth Taylor, as well as more modern names like Joyce Carole Oates and Lisa Alther. It will be lovely to see what people choose!

This should be a fun way to explore our collections, reconnect with our Viragos and help celebrate the 50 years! We'll look forward to hearing what you choose to read, enjoy and share with us in the monthly threads! :D

NB - I have put this thread up a little early so that we can all get our thinking caps on. August is traditional our All Virago/All August month and I have started a post for this too in case anyone wants to try to combine both events in one book! 😊

I can highly recommend The Orlando trilogy!

I've pulled out four Viragos from this month's selection, but as three of them are pretty huge I doubt I'll read all of them. I've picked
The richer the poorer by Dorothy West
New York mosaic by Isabel Bolton
A garden of earthly delights by Joyce Carol Oates
The bull calves by Naomi Mitchison.

I'm likely to start the West first as it looks like a good one to read on the train.

I intend to reread Now in November by Josephine Johnson for which she was the "youngest ever winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1935".

I read A Death in the Life by Dorothy Salisbury Davis, a rare mystery in the VMC line. Julie Hayes, dissatisfied with her marriage and in search of something to do, sets up shop as a tarot reader in New York City's theatre district, where she encounters murder.

I've narrowed it down to 3 possibilities:
#474 Good Behaviour, Molly Keane or
#476 Loving and Giving, Molly Keane or
#489 Jamaica Inn, Daphne du Maurier

>6 kac522: Good Behaviour and Jamaica Inn are both good books!

>7 NinieB: Yes, I'm looking forward to one (or both🤞)!

I've ended up with Jamaica Inn, which I hope to finish this weekend.

I finished The richer, the poorer and The garden of earthly delights, both of which were very good reads.

>10 Sakerfalcon: I am now reading The Richer, The Poorer. The setting is Boston Massachusetts where I spent my childhood years. When West mentions certain sites it stirs
up memories for me.

>11 kayclifton: Oh I hope you enjoy it! I thought the stories, and especially the essays, were so good.