Erica

LATEST ARTICLES ( 422 )

• Matthew Silverman (1937) by Victor Canning

  

  Book review by George Simmers: I was hooked by the first chapter of Matthew Silverman. It shows us the editor of a provincial weekly paper on press night: The... Read more

  Posted on 24 March 2026 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Fountain Inn (1939) by Victor Canning

  

  Book Review by Margaret B: Fountain Inn is one of the old Inns of Chancery in London and now houses a number of small businesses. Read more

  Posted on 18 March 2026 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Clockwork Man (1923) by E.V. Odle

  

  Book Review by George Simmers: The Clockwork Man is science fiction 1923-style. It begins at a cricket match in the quintessentially English village of Great... Read more

  Posted on 05 March 2026 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Reluctant Widow (1946) by Georgette Heyer

  

  Book review (Warning – contains spoilers!) by Val H: The Reluctant Widow is hugely enjoyable: well constructed, pacey and funny. Read more

  Posted on 20 February 2026 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Bones (1915), Lieutenant Bones (1918), Bones in London (1921) – by Edgar Wallace

  

  Book(s) review by George Simmers: A few years ago I read (and reviewed here) Edgar Wallace’s Sanders of the River (1911), a book of stories set in colonial... Read more

  Posted on 03 February 2026 BOOKS, CULTURE

• To All the Living (1945) by Monica Felton

  

  Book review by George Simmers: This is a big thick example of one of my favourite middlebrow genres. It reminded me of South Riding and National Provincial – bi... Read more

  Posted on 13 January 2026 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Parasites (1949) by Daphne Du Maurier

  

  Book Review by George Simmers: This very funny and sometimes affecting novel is about the Delaneys, a family of three step-siblings. Read more

  Posted on 02 December 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Swan Song (1928) by John Galsworthy

  

  Book Review by George Simmers: Another General Strike novel. Swan Song is the sixth novel in the Forsyte Saga, and the last of the second trilogy ‘A Modern... Read more

  Posted on 29 October 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Young Anarchy (1926) by Philip Gibbs

  

  Book Review by George Simmers: Philip Gibbs was the most topical of twenties novelists. The General Strike put the country at a standstill in June 1926, and in... Read more

  Posted on 29 October 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• My Days: A Memoir (1974) by R.K. Narayan

  

  Book review by Sue Roe: I hesitate to say this but I had never heard of Narayan. He was a well-known (if not to me!) Tamil Hindu, a writer of over 200 novels, a... Read more

  Posted on 01 October 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• What We Read Last Year – and What We Are Reading Next Year

  I promised I would post up last year’s reading list. However, when I looked at the Reading Group Topics by Year page I realised that it was a couple of years ou... Read more

  Posted on 23 September 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Death at the President’s Lodging (1936) by Michael Innes

  

  Book Review by Val H: This review is free of spoilers. All quotations from the novel are taken from the green Penguin edition of 1958. Oh, I read a lot of... Read more

  Posted on 31 July 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Cavalry Went Through (1930) by Bernard Newman

  

  Book review by George S: This is an unusual novel, since it imagines a counterfactual history. It gives us an alternative version of the Great War – which it... Read more

  Posted on 21 July 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Black Mischief (1932) by Evelyn Waugh

  

  Book review by George Simmers: I hadn’t read Black Mischief since I was a teenager, when I remember enjoying it heartily. Since then it is a book that has... Read more

  Posted on 11 July 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Buried Alive (1908) by Arnold Bennett

  

  Book Review by George S: Buried Alive is a novel based on a premise that is ridiculously unlikely. The novel’s anti-hero is Priam Farll, a celebrated painter wh... Read more

  Posted on 19 May 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Eternity Ring (1950) by Patricia Wentworth

  

  Book review by George Simmers: Eternity Ring is the fourteenth of Patricia Wentworth’s thirty two ‘Miss Silver novels’. I’ve seen Miss Silver is sometimes... Read more

  Posted on 20 April 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Turmoil (1915) by Booth Tarkington

  

  Book Review by George S: The Turmoil is the first in Booth Tarkington’s ‘Change’ trilogy. The three books are not connected by common characters, but by their... Read more

  Posted on 16 March 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Ariadne and the Bull (1945) by Eleanor Farjeon

  

  Book Review by Kathryn Rangeley: I chose this book thinking it would be for children. My knowledge of the author came from my childhood when I knew her as a poe... Read more

  Posted on 10 March 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Ides of March (1948) by Thornton Wilder

  

  Book Review by George S: In the foreword to The Ides of March, Thornton Wilder admits to taking liberties with historical chronology. Read more

  Posted on 02 March 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Death Comes as the End (1944), by Agatha Christie

  

  Book Review by Val Hewson: ‘My dear mother,’ Imhotep looked at her in horror. ‘This is not a jest.’ ‘All life is a jest, Imhotep – and it is death who laughs... Read more

  Posted on 24 February 2025 BOOKS, CULTURE