All Virago/All August 2024

Hello fellow Viragoites!

This year we have been celebrating our love of Virago Modern Classics with a monthly focus on the authors who have the highest number of titles in the imprint.

This will carry on during August, of course, but I thought I would put up a thread for our usual annual All Virago/All August reads in case some of us wanted to spend the month focusing even more on our Virago and related books.

To recap, this month we encourage to read from your Virago collection and also related kinds e.g. Furrowed Middlebrow, Persephone and the like.

So do use August as an excuse to indulge in as many of these lovely books as you like, and tie in with the monthly selection to cover two challenges in one! Let us know what you're enjoying! 😊😊📚📚

Karen

On a personal level, I'll have to be honest here and say that I tried one Thirkell before deciding she wasn't for me... So I shall skip this month's author, but I know many love her so I'll be interested to see what people choose to read!! :D

>2 kaggsy: I feel the same about Thirkell, so AVAA gives me a good reason to read one of the authors not covered this year, possible Rebecca West's The Judge.

>2 kaggsy:, >3 SassyLassy: I tried one Thirkell and it just didn't work for me either, even though I love Trollope and the Barsetshire books...I thought I was the only one!

I'll be choosing books by authors where I own several of their titles: E. H. Young, Winifred Holtby, Elizabeth Taylor, Rebecca West and Elizabeth Hardwick are all possibilities.

I'd just come on here to say I'll be skipping this month's read as I've tried one Thirkell and... but it seems I'm not exactly an outlier with that!

I finished (inhaled!) and absolutely loved Greenbanks by Dorothy Whipple (1932), a Persephone book I acquired last year. This is my 3rd Dorothy Whipple and I am in heaven! There is something so wonderful to be completely absorbed with a book; I can't really tell you why, but I can't put her books down. The characters are so interesting and nuanced, and I feel for them even when they're flawed. Not much happens and yet everything happens.

Next up: a re-read of Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor.


And today at a used bookstore (Half-Price books) I found a copy of Red Pottage by Mary Cholmondeley, which I've had on my WishList for years. I may not get to it this month, but I will soon.

>kac522

I intend to read Greenbanks and hope that I enjoy it as much you have.

>8 kayclifton: I hope you do, too. This is the 3rd Whipple I've read (Young Anne and High Wages read earlier this year) and I haven't been disappointed yet.

>7 kac522: I've finished my re-read of Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor (1971).

It's amazing what Taylor can communicate with the sparest of prose. I totally enjoyed this re-read.

Really hoping to get a Traveller in at the end of the month which also covers Women in Translation Month. Because I let my husband choose my 20 Books of Summer this year, and forgot to give him a stipulation, there are no Viragoes in that project and I'm playing desperate catch-up at the moment!

Have been struggling to choose a Virago that goes with my mood this month, but have eventually slightly fudged this by going for a Virago author but not a book published by them. Have started a re-read of Claudine at School by Colette and am adoring it! And of course, it's translated by another Virago author, Antonia White! 😊

Janet Frame Centenary: There is a wonderful tribute to her in the Guardian of August 17,2024 "From Poverty, Psychiatric Hospital and Writing in a Shed to Literary Stardom": Janet Frame at 100.

I've just started The Rector's Daughter by F. M. Mayor, and am enjoying it. I have a Penguin edition; however both Virago and Persephone have published this novel, so I'm expecting great things.

I've read Peace breaks out, which also fits with the author for August, Angela Thirkell. And I've read Chasm by Dorothea Tanning, and The surreal life of Leonora Carrington, after seeing an exhibition of her work recently.

I read Elizabeth and Her German Garden, and I'm plannng to read more Arnim next month.