Erica

LATEST ARTICLES ( 427 )

• Lark Rise to Candleford (1945) by Flora Thompson

  

  Book review by Sue R: Flora Thompson wrote the three books which were published in one volume in 1945: Lark Rise(1939), Over to Candleford(1941) and Candleford... Read more

  Posted on 02 February 2024 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Financial Times (1942) by Ronald Fraser

  

  Book Review by Chris Hopkins. I had never heard of Ronald Fraser, but bought this novel on impulse in a charity shop several decades ago because I liked the... Read more

  Posted on 31 January 2024 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Psmith in the City (1910) by P.G. Wodehouse

  

  Book Review by George Simmers: Psmith in the City is maybe P.G. Wodehouse’s most autobiographical novel, in that he was in the same predicament as its hero. Read more

  Posted on 24 January 2024 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Cwmardy (1937) by Lewis Jones

  

  Book Review by Jane V: Choosing a novel about the lives of miners in the South Wales coal fields was an obvious choice for me. The last of my forebears to ‘go... Read more

  Posted on 17 January 2024 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Over the Frontier (1938) by Stevie Smith

  

  Book Review by George S: I have often enjoyed Stevie Smith’s poetry, but had never tried her fiction. This month at the Popular Fiction Reading Group we are... Read more

  Posted on 20 December 2023 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Richard Chatterton V.C. (1915) by Ruby M. Ayres

  

  Book review by George Simmers: The Great War came as something of a boon to romantic novelists. It offered dramatic new ways of refreshing all their favourite... Read more

  Posted on 16 November 2023 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Pretty Lady (1918) by Arnold Bennett

  

  Book review by George Simmers: The Pretty Lady (1918) was Arnold Bennett’s novel of wartime London. It centres on the relationship between Christine, a French... Read more

  Posted on 07 November 2023 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Three Came Unarmed (1929) by E. Arnot Robertson

  

  Book review by George S: This novel begins brilliantly, with a virtuoso description of a young man stalking babirusa, the wild pig of Borneo. Read more

  Posted on 20 July 2023 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Man from Ceylon (1950) by Ruby M. Ayres

  

  Book review by Kathryn Rangeley: Ruby Mildred Ayres (1881 – 1955) was a prolific writer of more than 135 romance novels. Her writing career started in 1912 and... Read more

  Posted on 10 July 2023 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Herb of Grace (1948) and Gentian Hill (1950) by Elizabeth Goudge

  

  Gentian Hill reviewed by Alison: The two novels Mary and I read would seem very different. The one I read, Gentian Hill, is an historical novel set at the... Read more

  Posted on 08 July 2023 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Pack My Bag (1940) by Henry Green

  

  Book Review by Chris Hopkins. Henry Green (1905-1973) was the pen name of Henry Yorke, a contemporary of writers such as Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene,... Read more

  Posted on 28 June 2023 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Days of My Life (1926) by Henry Rider Haggard (Volume I)

  

  Book Review by Sue Roe: Rider Haggard was prompted to write his autobiography by a rather bizarre occurrence: A while ago, it may have been a year or more, the... Read more

  Posted on 26 June 2023 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Something of Myself (1937) by Rudyard Kipling

  

  Book Review by George S: Kipling began writing this autobiography in August 1935, and worked on it intermittently during the five months before his death in... Read more

  Posted on 23 June 2023 BOOKS, CULTURE

• My Fellow Devils (1951) by L.P. Hartley

  

  Book review by George S: At twenty-eight years old, Margaret Pennyfather is a model upright citizen. Unmarried, she looks after her father, does much local... Read more

  Posted on 28 May 2023 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Showboat (1926) by Edna Ferber

  

  Book review by George S: Sorry, but this won’t be an entirely objective review, because I didn’t so much read this book as wallow in it. Read more

  Posted on 15 May 2023 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Brandons (1939), by Angela Thirkell (Again)

  

  By Val Hewson The Brandons is, I think, the first Angela Thirkell novel I read, and it remains a favourite. Hilary Temple of the Angela Thirkell Society reviewe... Read more

  Posted on 18 April 2023 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Pal Joey (1940) by John O’Hara

  

  Book Review by George S: Pal Joey began in the late 1930s as a series of short pieces in the New Yorker. Each of them was a letter from ‘your Pal Joey’ to a... Read more

  Posted on 20 March 2023 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The White Company (1892) by Arthur Conan Doyle

  

  Book review by George Simmers: In 1891, at the same time that the first Sherlock Holmes short stories were appearing each month in the Strand Magazine, Doyle’s... Read more

  Posted on 15 February 2023 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Great News About Steel City Readers Book!

  

  Dear Reading 1900-1950 readers, Great news from Reading Sheffield: We have reached our fundraising target of £12,500 to support the publication of Mary... Read more

  Posted on 14 February 2023 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Captain Bulldog Drummond (1946) by Gerard Fairlie

  

  Book Review by George Simmers: In 1937 Herman Cyril McNeile who, as ‘Sapper’ had written the Bulldog Drummond thrillers, died. Read more

  Posted on 24 January 2023 BOOKS, CULTURE