Erica

LATEST ARTICLES ( 398 )

• Steel Saraband (1938) by Roger Dataller

  

  Book Review by Sylvia D: Roger Dataller was the pen name for Arthur Eaglestone, who was born in Rotherham in 1888 and started working in a steel mill at the... Read more

  Posted on 15 February 2022 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Children of the Dead End (1914) by Patrick MacGill

  

  Book review by George S: The book’s subtitle is ‘The Autobiography of an Irish Navvy’ and its hero, Dermot Flynn, has many experiences in common with Patrick... Read more

  Posted on 06 February 2022 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Kiddar’s Luck (1951), by Jack Common

  

  By Val Hewson This month we read working class fiction and I discovered a book which makes me think about where I come from. … Newcastle being a fine town to... Read more

  Posted on 25 January 2022 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958) by Alan Sillitoe

  Book review by Alice C: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning was: ‘That rarest of all finds: a genuine, no-punches-pulled unromanticised working-class novel which... Read more

  Posted on 23 January 2022 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Beginning with a Bash (1935) by Alice Tilton

  

  Review by Kathryn Rangeley: Like another member of the group, I chose to find a book by a woman in the hope that I might get the ‘hard-boiled’, tough aspect of... Read more

  Posted on 12 January 2022 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Impressions of Latterday Symphony (1927) by Romer Wilson

  

  By Alison Butlin, Chris Hopkins, Mary Grover and Val Hewson Impressions of Latterday Symphony (1927) by Romer Wilson Recently our group read books by novelist,... Read more

  Posted on 11 January 2022 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Torment for Trixie (1950) by Hank Janson

  

  Cover of the first edition. Book review by George S.: Torment for Trixie is the seventeenth of the over two hundred novels published under the name of Hank... Read more

  Posted on 12 December 2021 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Ride the Pink Horse (1946) by Dorothy B Hughes

  

  Book Review by Jane V: I fetched a deep sigh on contemplating November’s ‘hard-boiled fiction’ assignment. I didn’t look forward to reading about testosterone... Read more

  Posted on 07 December 2021 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Trials of Hank Janson (2004) by Steve Holland

  

  Book review by George S.: Hank Janson (pronounced Yanson) was, to the embarrassment of the respectable, Britain’s best-selling author in the late forties and... Read more

  Posted on 09 November 2021 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Skin-Deep (1927) by Naomi Royde-Smith

  

  Book Review by George S: Naomi Royde-Smith is probably best-remembered for her career as a literary journalist, first on the Westminster Gazette (where she ran... Read more

  Posted on 13 October 2021 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Proud Waters (1954) by Ewart Brookes

  

  Book review by George Simmers: Minesweepers were among the less glamorous naval vessels during the Second World War, but the work they did was vital. Read more

  Posted on 17 August 2021 BOOKS, CULTURE

• We (1924) by Yevgeny Zamyatin

  

  Book review by Alice C: Cover of the first American edition. ‘You look in bad shape. You look as if you’re developing a soul’. I read this dystopian novel in Th... Read more

  Posted on 08 August 2021 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Humbug (1921) by E.M. Delafield

  

  Cover of the third edition. Book Review by G.S.: Humbug is a very good novel, yet another reminder that there is more to E.M. Delafield than the Provincial... Read more

  Posted on 17 July 2021 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Before Lunch, (1939) by Angela Thirkell

  Book Review by Hilary Temple Written in 1938 and unclouded by any rumours of war, this novel is surprisingly filmic compared with Thirkell’s previous and... Read more

  Posted on 15 July 2021 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Adèle and Co., (1931), and Blind Corner (1927), by Dornford Yates

  

  Book Review by Chris Hopkins Adèle and Co. is told in the first person by Boy, married to Adèle, cousin of Berry, while Jonathan Mansel is married to Daphne –... Read more

  Posted on 17 June 2021 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Blood Royal (1929) by Dornford Yates

  

  Cover of the first edition. Book review by George Simmers: This is the third of Dornford Yates’s ‘Chandos’ novels, and the first not to feature Jonah Mansel. Read more

  Posted on 16 June 2021 BOOKS, CULTURE

• The Phantom of the Opera (1910) by Gaston Leroux

  

  Book Review by Jane V. I wanted to source an early title for the session on books produced by Mills Boon publishers at the beginning of their existence. Read more

  Posted on 12 June 2021 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Portrait of a Village (1937) by Francis Brett Young, with Woodcuts by Joan...

  

  Book Review by Chris Hopkins. Frances Brett Young in his ‘Author’s Note’ starts by referring to a novel he published three years earlier: Some years ago, when... Read more

  Posted on 06 June 2021 BOOKS, CULTURE

• Women Who Seek (1928) by Denise Robins

  

  A Wills cigarette card from the ‘Famous Authors’ series. Book review by George S. This month at the Popular Fiction reading group we have been exploring the... Read more

  Posted on 25 May 2021 BOOKS, CULTURE

• WAAF into Wife (1943) by Barbara Stanton

  

  Book Review by Chris Hopkins. I was very pleased to discover this Mills Boon novel about five years ago when I first started to explore fiction about British... Read more

  Posted on 19 May 2021 BOOKS, CULTURE