Erica

LATEST ARTICLES ( 424 )

• Dover Harbour by Thomas Armstrong (1942)

  

  Review by Val H: Dover Harbour (1942), by the forgotten Yorkshire writer Thomas Armstrong, is superficially an old-fashioned ‘ripping yarn’ about England in... Read more

  Posted on 12 December 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Thomas Armstrong (1899-1978)

  

  I wonder if anyone remembers Thomas Armstrong now? He wrote a number of best-sellers, none of which are in print now. The members of my reading group would say... Read more

  Posted on 11 December 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells (1909)

  

  Review by Sylvia D: I’d been meaning to read Ann Veronica for some time but have to admit that I found it a little disappointing given it has been cited as a... Read more

  Posted on 08 December 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells (1896)

  

  H. G. Wells need no introduction, so perhaps shouldn’t be in our collection of fiction from 1900-1950 that needs to be preserved, but his popularity is evidence... Read more

  Posted on 03 December 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• National Provincial by Lettice Cooper (1938)

  

  Review by George Simmers This is a very good example of the middlebrow political novel. Lettice Cooper was a committed socialist, and in part is preaching the... Read more

  Posted on 17 November 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The New House by Lettice Cooper (1936)

  Review by Sylvia D: Very little seems to happen in The New House (1936).  Over one long day a widowed mother and her 30-something daughter move from a large... Read more

  Posted on 13 November 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Lettice Cooper (1897-1994)

  Our next batch of reviews are of the Yorkshire novelist, Lettice Cooper (1897-1994). Splendid name. (So many unusual names are revived nowadays, but I have yet... Read more

  Posted on 13 November 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Man with Red Hair by Hugh Walpole (1925)

  

  A late entry into our series of Hugh Walpole reviews. See also reviews of The Killer and the Slain, Farthing Hall, Judith Paris and The Cathedral. Read more

  Posted on 06 November 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Village by Marghanita Laski (1952)

  Review by Val H: Oh how I enjoyed The Village (1952) by Marghanita Laski! On the surface, it is a simple, even dull love story, but this is merely a cover for... Read more

  Posted on 29 October 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski (1949)

  From the political comedy of Tory Heaven, to a very different kind of novel indeed…. Review by Margaret B: Hilary Wainwright, emotionally repressed English... Read more

  Posted on 23 October 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Tory Heaven Or Thunder on the Right by Marghanita Laski (1948)

  

  We had a very good reading group on Marghanita Laski. She began her novel-writing career with comic political satires, first Love on the Supertax, and then... Read more

  Posted on 22 October 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• We’re in the Yorkshire Post!

  

  There was very well-written article in the Yorkshire Post on Saturday about a collection event we’re holding on Wednesday about popular fiction in World War I. Read more

  Posted on 20 October 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Citadel by A. J. Cronin (1937)

  

  Review by Sylvia D: The Citadel is a powerful attack on the medical system in this country before the inception of the National Health Service in 1948. Read more

  Posted on 29 September 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Stars Look Down by A J Cronin (1935)

  

  Review by Helen N: This book if expressed simplistically might be expressed in the words of the old Music Hall song – It’s the same the whole world over… It’s... Read more

  Posted on 23 September 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Three Loves by A J Cronin (1932)

  

  Our reading groups started again in September after an August break, and the first novelist to report back on is A J Cronin. Archibald Joseph Cronin (1896 –... Read more

  Posted on 19 September 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Chatterton Square by E. H. Young (1947)

  

  Review by Thecla: This is the story of two contrasting families, the Blacketts and the Frasers, who live in adjacent houses in Chatterton Square, Upper... Read more

  Posted on 10 September 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Bright Day by J. B. Priestley (1946)

  Review by David R: The story opens in the immediate post-WW2 period. The narrator, Gregory Dawson is a scriptwriter staying at an hotel in Cornwall while he... Read more

  Posted on 14 August 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Yonder by E. H. Young (1912)

  

  Review by Jane V: Alexander is a country boy living in a remote place with his mother, a strong, capable character, and his father, a weak failure of a man whos... Read more

  Posted on 04 August 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Vicar’s Daughter by E. H. Young (1928)

  Review by Margaret B: The story takes place over a period of a week at the end of the summer. Edward Stack, his wife Margaret and their nineteen year old... Read more

  Posted on 25 July 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Confessions and Impressions by Ethel Mannin (1930)

  This book has a fair amount in common with Beverley Nichols’ autobiography-but-really-about-other -people Twenty-Five. Just shows the appetite for celebrity... Read more

  Posted on 23 July 2014 BOOKS, CULTURE