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Unnecessary Rankings! 10 years of Club Reading Weeks

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I took a look at all the books I’ve read for the club years since 2015, and it is *drum roll* exactly one hundred! Isn’t that extraordinarily pleasing? Who’d have thought it would work out so neatly.

Having made a list of them all, I decided to rank them. Since ranking 100 books would be unhinged, I’m ranking my favourite dozen from over that decade – all absolutely brilliant books. Many of them are books I wouldn’t have picked up if it weren’t for the club, so I’m very thankful.

12. Laughing Gas by P.G. Wodehouse – #1936Club

When my friend Malie told me that P.G. Wodehouse had written a body-swap comedy, I knew I had to ignore the piles of PGWs on my shelves and seek it out. A dentist mishap sees an Earl and a golden-haired Hollywood child swap bodies, and it is as silly and fun as you’d hope.

11. Love by Elizabeth von Arnim – #1925Club

My review only went up yesterday! A wry, funny, poignant look at an age-gap relationship where reality overtakes fantasy. One of Elizabeth von Arnim’s best, in my opinion, especially in the first half.

10. Darkness and Day by Ivy Compton-Burnett – #1951Club

For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like – nobody divides readers like Dame Ivy, but I loved this dark, twisty, extremely funny story in which, as always, the heightened way everyone speaks in circles is far more important than the plot.

9. The Bird in the Tree by Elizabeth Goudge – #1940Club

What makes this book so wonderful is the matriarch of the family – firm, loving, principled. It is so unusual today to have a novel that celebrates self-sacrifice, and Goudge does it in a beautiful way.

8. The Museum of Cheats by Sylvia Townsend-Warner – #1947Club

Not my favourite STW short story collection, but up there. She is at her best in Lolly Willowes and in her short stories, and these looks at ordinary lives capture the heartbreak, misunderstanding, and gentle hope that are the keynotes of most of our most memorable times.

7. Catherine Carter by Pamela Hansford Johnson – #1952Club

I was wary of this long, historical novel – but totally won over by this immersion in the world of Victorian theatre. It’s a page-turner, and the dynamic between Catherine and the man who is her manager, critic, and then husband is done with such nuance that you can’t look away from the page.

6. The Equations of Love by Ethel Wilson – #1952Club

Really here for the first of the two long stories – every word chosen perfectly, managing to be very funny while also deeply poignant about a couple living in near-poverty and near-distrust in mid-century Canada.

5. Tea at Four O’Clock by Janet O’Neill – #1956Club

I’d read a couple of O’Neill novels I was lukewarm about before picking up the extraordinarily good Tea at Four O’Clock. It opens with the funeral of Mildred, Laura’s sister – giving Laura agency and freedom for the first time in her life. And then the wastrel brother returns. It is such a complex, satisfying portrait of family dynamics.

4. Treasure Hunt by Molly Keane – #1952Club

As with O’Neill, I’d read a few Keane novels I liked but didn’t love – and then Treasure Hunt bowled me over with its humour. The younger generation are trying to save the ancestral home by taking in paying guests, and are obstructed at every turn by a trio of unhinged older relatives. So funny, and so engaging.

3. Tension by E.M. Delafeld – #1920Club

I read Tension in the early days of the pandemic, and it was in the British Library Women Writers series within a year. Delafield is so good at everyday monsters with no self-awareness – in this one, a respectable Lady does everything in her power to destroy a new teacher at the school, in the name of morality.

2. Miss Linsey and Pa by Stella Gibbons – #1936Club

Poor relatives move to be nearer their more well-to-do in-laws, and the clash is the source of the pain and humour in this novel. More humour provided by dead-on satire of the Bloomsbury Group. Much better than almost anything else Gibbons wrote (though sadly quite racist at times, which is why it’ll be unlikely to see the light of day again).

1. Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols – #1951Club

Gosh, what a journey this book kicked off! I absolutely fell for Beverley Nichols’ hilarious account of doing up a house and garden – and since then I’ve read many Nichols books and bought even more. His turn of phrase is endlessly funny, and the whole Merry Hall trilogy is a timeless delight.

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I also want to celebrate 10 years of this project more broadly. I am so thankful to everyone who has helped made it such a joy every six months. There are always far more reviews than I can keep up with, and such a range of authors, nationalities, genres, formats, languages. When I first emailed Karen about the idea, I hoped we would get some good take up. I couldn’t have imagined it would become such a fixture in our corner of the bookish internet, and I am grateful to Karen for always being an amazing co-host – and to all of you for joining in.

I did a little hunt, and I found the original email I sent to Karen in September 2015! And here it is…

Hi Karen – As is my wont, I had a thought about another mini blog project, and wondered if you fancied partnering up for it? Basically, I thought it would be fun to pick a particular year, and encourage everybody to read any book (or books) from that year – and thus build up a list of titles that give an overview of what was going on then?
And the year I thought might work was 1924 – just based on going through reviews on my blog, and there seems to be a good selection here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1924_in_literature – though I’m also definitely up for other suggestions if you think another year would work well!
What do you reckon?? I was thinking perhaps advertise now, then run it towards the end of October, or a bit later. Hopefully it would be pretty low effort for people, particularly if we can come up with a list of suggestions – though it would be the most fun if people thought up their own. And ‘The 1924 Club’ seemed a fun title.
Of course, Karen said an enthusiastic yes – and the rest is history!

Love by Elizabeth von Arnim – #1925Club

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Love

I have let my Audible subscription expire now, since I have such a backlog of downloaded titles I haven’t listened to yet (and since I discovered the free audiobooks from the library) – but, earlier in the year when I still have a sub, I listened to Love by Elizabeth von Arnim as part of their free Audible Plus catalogue.

I was pretty sure I owned Love as a print book, but I couldn’t find it on my shelves – did I lend it to someone? – but I’m delighted to have listened to it now, as it is now up there with my favourite Elizabeth von Arnims.

It’s incredibly bold to give a novel such a broad title, particularly when that title is the theme of more than half of books out there, so – what sort of love is von Arnim talking about? Well, it’s a May/December romance between an older woman and a younger man – but the man doesn’t realise that for a while.

Catherine and Christopher meet while in the audience for a play, The Immortal Hour, that they both love and have gone to see repeatedly. She is widowed with an adult daughter – by some complexities of her late husband’s will, she has been left with very little money so that she shouldn’t be targeted by fortune hunters. (What to make of this husband’s ‘thoughtfulness’ is left to the reader.) Going to the theatre is one of her outlays, but she does not expect to be intercepted by a young man – let alone one as boyishly enthusiastic as Christopher.

He is 25; she is about 20 years older. In the low lighting of the theatre, Christopher assumes they are about the same age – and, while she doesn’t intentionally lie, Catherine says a few things that mean he doesn’t put the pieces together at first. And then she runs with it (even though, as soon as he sees her in daylight, he is forever asking her why she looks so tired).

Catherine is flattered and amused, and rather bowled over by his enthusiastic romancing. And then… she falls for him too (although not until he has essentially kidnapped her against her will, which was a scene that thankfully would not be construed as impetuously romantic in 2025):

Vanity had been the beginning of it, the irresistibleness of the delicious flattery of being mistaken for young, and before she knew what she was doing she had fallen in love – fallen flop in love, like any schoolgirl.

Adding to the dynamics, Catherine’s daughter Virginia has also recently married, and has a young baby. Her husband is a clergyman who has long been a friend of Catherine’s – staid and wise, though himself silly and lovey-dovey when with Virginia. There is no disputing that Virginia and Stephen’s marriage is also a loving one – but von Arnim is drawing our attention very clearly to which age-gap relationships are acceptable and which are deemed beyond the pale. Quick clue: the men can get away with being decades older, and the women can’t.

Elizabeth von Arnim takes the story beyond an amusing premise, though. She asks: what happens if such a couple actually get married? Love perhaps isn’t as much a cautionary tale as Introduction to Sally is, and at least both partners are initially keen for the marriage to happen, but it becomes a much more sombre, serious novel as it goes on.

I certainly preferred the first half to the second. Von Arnim’s endlessly deft, light, sharp humour is on full display. She is very, very witty at the expense of pretty much any of her characters, while also holding up society’s foibles to ridicule – and, at the same time, recognising the very real impact they have on people’s lives, particularly women’s. As Ali points out in her review, von Arnim had recently been in a relationship with a man several decades younger than her, when she wrote Love, so she is being unsparing to herself too.

I prefer von Arnim on flippant form, and love her most when she manages to be ironically witty while still having a serious point (Father is the best example), and I found the melancholy rather overtook the irony in the second half. But I still think Love is up there with her best novels, and I’ll have to make sure I do have a print copy, if nobody returns mine. Did she earn the ambitious title? Perhaps that would be impossible, but she certainly makes you wonder about the limits that love can protect you and your relationship – particularly in 1925.

The Chase by Mollie Panter-Downes – #1925Club

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One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes is one of the worst-kept secrets of the mid-20th century, isn’t it? She isn’t a household name, and you might not even find that book in the average bookshop, but it’s well-known that One Fine Day is an absolutely extraordinary novel of life immediately after World War Two. Some of her stories are in print with Persephone, and her novel My Husband Simon was one of the first titles in the British Library Women Writers series – but, for such a well-regarded author, some of her books still remain a mystery.

For years, I’ve been tracking down her books at reasonable prices. The Chase will currently set you back at least £200 online, though my patience paid off with a much cheaper copy a few years ago. I’ve now read all of her novels, and unquestionably One Fine Day is the best – but I enjoyed The Chase a lot more than I expected to when it started.

The novel opens in East London, and I’m sorry to say that the first line of dialogue is “Blimey! ‘Ere’s the Standish kid!” – though the actual first line of the novel is rather more beautiful than that: ‘The kindly winter dusk was just falling over Perk’s Alley, softening its grime and squalor, making the gaunt, sordid houses shadow blurred, like a Post-Impressionist painting.’ We are thrust into the dynamics of a group of Cockney boys having a fight, and it has absolutely no authenticity. As I wrote in my review of her novel Storm Bird, it is clear that Panter-Downes was, at this stage of her career, drawing her characters and stories from what she had read in books, rather than what she had experienced. What did she know about life in poverty, with an alcoholic father, for a young boy? Had she ever met a Cockney? I suspect not.

There are elements that are clearly borrowed from melodrama, or cinema, and our young hero – Charles Standish – is given to vocalising his thoughts in the way that a silent film hero of the period might have had appear onscreen. It means that there isn’t a huge amount of subtlety in this early section. For instance, Charles says this out loud, to nobody:

“Some folks have too much, an’ others too little. It ain’t fair. Every one ought ter ‘elp every one else wot ain’t got enough – not that we want their blarsted charity.”

I wasn’t sure how much of this I was going to be able to take, if I’m honest. What kept me going was Panter-Downes’ wit, sprinkled in alongside:

One of Charles’ mottoes was: “Always look as nice as you can – you never know who you’re going to meet on the way.”

The only person he met on the way to High Derwent was on futuristically spotted cow looking over a hedge, but I am sure she was very much impressed by the angle of Charles’ hat.

Things got a lot more enjoyable when Charles comes across Nick. Dominic – known as Nick – is eight or nine years older and considerably posher. He is an affable, witty, silly man who speaks pleasant nonsense at him and welcomes him into a set of young men and women wealthy enough to be bohemian. Nick is very like a P.G. Wodehouse character, and Panter-Downes carries him off well – a total pleasure to be around. For Charles, he is the first person to be kind to him without expecting anything back. Their acquiantance is short-lived, but it gives him confidence to be aspirational. He carries Nick’s name (and a tie) with him, idolising him as a lesser god.

We jump forward a bit and Charles has got a job as a steward on a ship going to America. There, he beguiles a financial tycoon who gives him a job in his office. You see what I mean about Panter-Downes borrowing from Hollywood? Given the realism of One Fine Day, you certainly have to adjust yourself to the sort of writer she was a couple of decades earlier – and then enjoy it on its own terms. It’s why the novel is more successful after it detaches from the Cockney working-class background – because Panter-Downes’ attempts to merge realism and fantasy don’t work, until we are loosened to enjoy the fantasy. As someone says of him later in the novel (explaining the title of the novel, too):

“He is a solitary sort of chap really. I mean, he’s worked like hell for years to get where he is to-day. His chase, he called it once to me. I bet it was some chase. It was sheer luck that Porter got interested in him, of course – I dare say you know the story – but if he hadn’t followed up the advantage with sheer hard work it wouldn’t have done him a scrap of good. As it is, he sweated up from the bottom, always alone, and – well, a millionaire at thirty isn’t bad.”

Which isn’t to say there isn’t emotional reality to the novel. As it progresses, Charles gets involved (fairly unknowingly) in a love triangle. As (of course!) he becomes extremely successful himself, and moves back to England, he and his lovable secretary (Clive) get into another love quadrangle with a pair of sisters, all of which is enjoyable to read and has genuine emotional weight, despite the unlikely paths we’ve taken to get there.

I’m racing through the novel as I describe it, and that is fitting: it is the sort of novel you race through. When we move onto a new stage in Charles’s life, a new group of characters take centre stage and we tend to forget the ones who have come before – though Panter-Downes is also very good at re-introducing them when the moment is right. Her settings of a New York boarding house and an English estate are both perfect for bringing together various interesting characters and dynamics between them, and if she doesn’t know much about the way one might become a financial whizzkid, then, well, neither do I. After the false start of the horrible attempts at Cockney dialect, I loved reading The Chase.

It is amazing to think that she was only 18 or 19 years old when she wrote The Chase. It definitely comes across as the work of an older writer, but perhaps less than ten years older. The author’s inexperience of the world is clear – but what is also clear is, under the froth of the genre she has stumbled into, the seed of her psychological wisdom and her moments of subtlety. It’s a curious concoction. As a novel, it is a fun romp without the brilliant nuance and insight of One Fine Day – but, at the same time, it doesn’t come as a surprise that the writer of The Chase grew into the writer of One Fine Day.

I don’t know if The Chase would ever get reprinted. Since the main character is a man, it falls down on one of the main criteria for the British Library Women Writers series. Persephone have said they won’t. But I don’t think it would do her any disservice if somebody did bring it out again, and I certainly had a lot of fun reading it.

A Saturday Life by Radclyffe Hall – #1925Club

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A Saturday Life

Radclyffe Hall’s name echoes through any history of early 20th century women’s writing, or queer writing. We all know that The Well of Loneliness was banned for its portrayal of a lesbian relationship (in the so so saucy words ‘that night they were not parted’) – but what is Hall actually like as a writer? While I’ve read some of her short stories, A Saturday Life is my first novel by Hall. And, wow, it is so much freer and funnier than I was expecting.

I’d sort of assumed Hall would be worthy and earnest, and the more I read the less time I have for earnestness in fiction. In A Saturday Life, though, she is neither of those things. And we might be able to grasp that from an opening scene, where young Sidonia is experimenting in naked dancing, and her absent-minded mother is called upon to look away from Egyptian research and do some parenting.

Sidonia is an extremely gifted child, given to whole-hearted creative expression – for a time. Over the course of the novel, she embraces dance, singing, the piano and sculpture with wild enthusiasm that fades almost as soon as the commitment to pursue them has been made. The slightly odd title is only explained when the novel is well past the halfway mark: a ‘Saturday life’ relates to ‘an Eastern tradition’, which suggests certain spirits have seven incarnations on earth – and, in the final stage, someone is ‘said to exhibit remarkable talent for a number of different things; but since they have many memories to revive, they can never concentrate for long on one’. I have no idea if such a theory exists, but it does feel rather like Hall read about it and wondered what a character like that would be in reality, in an upper-middle-class home, and what their impact might be on the people around them.

In the very good introduction to my Virago Modern Classics edition, Alison Hennegan describes Sidonia as ‘wilful, enchanting, exasperating and ultimately ambiguous’, and I think that is an excellent way of putting it. As a person, she is all those things – but as a character to read about, she is chiefly (at least at first) very funny to read about. I didn’t expect Hall to be so dry and funny, with such a deadpan tone. We see how ridiculous Sidonia can be, without losing the simultaneous sense of how tricky her life might be to live. And a lot of the humour comes from the ways in which her mother, Lady Shore, struggles to really pay attention to Sidonia’s development – even while caring. Here’s a conversation she has with Frances, an unmarried friend who is a go-between for mother and daughter, a confidante for both, and a source of reason and sense that both need and both often disregard.

A year slipped by, and another year. Lady Shore began a new book.

‘It’s so peaceful, I think I could work again.’

‘Sidonia’s seventeen,’ said Frances.

Lady Shore looked puzzled.

‘So she is, my dear. I shall write my hand-book on scarabs.’

‘Some people would think Sidonia quite lovely.’

‘Yes, of course. Have you seen my spectacles?’

‘Here they are. We don’t know many men, do we, Prudence?’

Lady Shore was trying hard to breathe a scratch off her glasses. ‘There’s Professor Wilson,’ she murmured abstractedly.

‘I said men, not ichthyosauri,’ snapped Frances.

‘But why do we want to know men, my dear?’

‘There’s safety in numbers,’ Frances remarked thoughtfully; ‘the thing to be dreaded and feared is one man. One man is usually the wrong one.’

Lady Shore put down her glasses.

‘Oh, dear!’ she complained, ‘I know, you want to discuss something tiresome.’

‘Sidonia’s seventeen,’ repeated Frances stubbornly. ‘Sidonia’s no longer a child.’

Lady Shore looked frightened.

The actual man arrives on the scene rather later, after Sidonia has had an ill-fated beginning to some sort of scholarship to sculp elsewhere. The man she meets wouldn’t be out of place in a made-for-Netflix romantic comedy:

He was tall, quite six-foot-two, thought Sidonia, and his shoulders were flat and broad. His waist and flanks were excessively slim, his close-cropped hair waved a little. His eyes were grey, not intelligent, but kind, his features blunt and regular. His clean-shaven face would have looked well in bronze. He had a deep cleft in his chin.

Ok, yes, it does feel rather like a queer writer being all, “Idk what makes men hot; I guess I’ll describe a statue” but with added flanks, which I have only encountered elsewhere in horses. But maybe she is making a point? Anyway, David (!!) is cut from the kind-but-stupid mould, and increasingly wants Sidonia to conform to his outlook on life. And she is pretty willing to do so. The comedy of the novel gets a little tempered as we see what a strong-minded, unartistic, determined man can do to a woman who is creative and clever but unsure of herself – particularly if she is in love with him.

But the real love story in the novel, in my opinion, is between Frances and both Sidonia and Lady Shore. There are moments in the novel where Sidonia is very clear in her love for Frances, even if it framed as friendship – “Frances, look at me! Don’t you love me? Frances, won’t you be my friend? All, all my friend? I don’t want to marry anyone, I tell you; I just want to work and have you, all of you.” I suspect these lines would have been more heavily censored if A Saturday Life had been published after The Well of Loneliness, rather than before. But even beyond these heightened moments (that are not really reciprocated), the relationship that Frances manages to sustain with both mother and daughter is fascinating, moving and sometimes beautiful. The three women are so different, and the three sides of the relationship triangle could scarcely differ more, and Hall does it all so well.

My 1925 Club read was a series of surprises. First, that Hall was so funny. Second, that the comic novel had such melancholy undertones. Third, that the real star of the novel would be Frances, who lives so much in the background.

1925 Club – your reviews!

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Welcome to the 1925 Club!

All week, Karen and I are asking people to read and review books published in 1925 – whatever format or language. Together, we’ll build up a picture of the year in literature. And, believe it or not, it’s ten years since the club years kicked off. We’ll be celebrating those ten years on Thursday with a special look back, and we’d love you to join in that too.

Post links to your reviews in the comments (and if you don’t have a blog/insta/etc then feel free to write your review in the comments.)

Propos sur le bonheur by Alain
Book Around The Corner

by Jane Austen
This Reading Life

My First Goose by Isaac Babel
Words and Peace

The Man Nobody Knows by Bruce Barton
Somewhere Boy

Professor Dowell’s head by Alexander Belyaev
1st Reading

The Little World by Stella Benson
Stuck in a Book

The Layton Court Mystery by Anthony Berkeley
Words and Peace
Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings

The School at the Chalet by Elinor Brent-Dyer
Staircase Wit

The White Guard by Mikhail Bulgakov
1st Reading

The Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov
Bookish Beck
Andrew Blackman

Letters from England by Karel Čapek
Rattlebag and Rhubarb

The Professor’s House by Willa Cather
Entering the Enchanted Castle

The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie
Volatile Rune
What Me Read
Book Around The Corner

The Witness for the Prosecution by Agatha Christie
Rattlebag and Rhubarb

Still William by Richmal Crompton
Rattlebag and Rhubarb

The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars by Maurice Dekobra
1st Reading

Wings of Desire by Maurice Dekobra
Neglected Books

The House Without a Key by Earl Derr Biggers
Fanda Classiclit
Typings
Words and Peace

Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos
Just Reading a Book
1st Reading
Somewhere Boy
Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings

Selected Poems by T.S. Eliot
Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings

No More Parades/Parade’s End by Ford Madox Ford
Typings

The Sailor’s Return by David Garnett
Somewhere Boy

The Polyglots by William Gehardie
Winston’s Dad

The Counterfeiters by Andre Gide
Book Around The Corner

Cement by Fyodor Vasilievich Gladkov
Winston’s Dad

The Artamonovs by Maxim Gorky
1st Reading

Settlers of the Marsh by Frederick P. Grove
Buried in Print

A Saturday Life by Radclyffe Hall
Stuck in a Book

Simonetta Perkins by L.P. Hartley
Somewhere Boy

The Collected Poems of H.D.
Rattlebag and Rhubarb

In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
Let’s Read

Simon the Coldheart by Georgette Heyer
She Reads Novels
Witchy Reader

Those Barren Leaves by Aldous Huxley
746 Books

Along the Road: Notes and Essays of a Tourist by Aldous Huxley
ANZ Litlover

The Trial by Franz Kafka
746 Books

Alice in Orchestralia by Ernest La Prade
Somewhere Boy

The Princess by D.H. Lawrence
Calmgrove

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
Rattlebag and Rhubarb
A Hot Cup of Pleasure
Jacqui Wine

Greenery Street by Dennis Mackail
Staircase Wit

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
What Me Read

Americana by H.L. Mencken
Rattlebag and Rhubarb

Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery
Staircase Wit

The Informer by Liam O’Flaherty
What Me Read

Wild Geese by Martha Ostenso
Brian Busby

The Chase by Mollie Panter-Downes
Stuck in a Book

The Yellow Sofa by Eça de Queirós
Winston’s Dad

The Threshold of Fear by Arthur J. Rees
A Hot Cup of Pleasure

The Paddington Mystery by John Rhode
Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings

Love by Elizabeth von Arnim
Stuck in a Book
Sarah Matthews
Somewhere Boy

Metropolis by Thea von Harbou
Mr Kaggsy

The Old Straight Track by Alfred Watkins
Calmgrove

The Dower House by Patricia Wentworth
Staircase Wit
BabsBelovedBooks via Instagram

The Black Cabinet by Patricia Wentworth
She Reads Novels

The Mother’s Recompense by Edith Wharton
Old Geezer Reading

Carry on, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
Adventures in reading, running and working from home
Winston’s Dad

The Common Reader: First Series by Virginia Woolf
Somewhere Boy

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Calmgrove
Janet – LoveBooks, ReadBooks

Some 1925 letters by Virginia Woolf
Janet – LoveBooks, ReadBooks

Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska
Somewhere Boy
What Me Read

Fear by Stefan Zweig
This Reading Life

 

The 1925 Club: one week to go!

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Just a quick post to remind you that the 1925 Club is kicking off next week! Karen and I are asking everyone to read and review books published in 1925 (and don’t forget, that makes them eligible for Neeru’s Hundred Years Hence challenge too).

On Thursday 23 Oct, we will also be sharing our highlights from TEN YEARS of these club years – and hope you’ll do the same, whether you’ve been joining in for one year or the whole decade.

Looking forward to it!

Unnecessary Rankings! Rose Macaulay

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Time for some more rankings! Today is a very prolific writer – Rose Macaulay – so I’ve read 12 of her books, but barely dinted the surface. I have a lot more waiting on my shelves, and I’m not including Told By An Idiot, which I have started three times and always given up on… but if there are any other Macaulay novels that I shouldn’t miss, do let me know.

12. Staying With Relations (1930)
A story about going to an archeological dig, what I chiefly remember was being disappointed by how boring it was.

11. I Would Be Private (1937)
An ordinary couple have quintuplets and escape to a Caribbean island to avoid journalistic obsession with them. While apparently based on a real-life family, I question whether having quintuplets would create such unending fervour. The novel is very funny and enjoyably Macaulayish, but is low down the list for having no real sense of central motivation, and for a sizeable amount of racism.

10. Mystery at Geneva (1922)
A vigorous, silly satire of murder mysteries and the League of Nations – I think probably required you to be alive in 1922 to really appreciate what it’s doing, but Macaulay is clearly having fun.

9. Letters
I’ve read four collections of Macaulay’s letters, I think – published in exchanges with her sister, her cousin, and her spiritual advisor (three different people). All very interesting, but not especially memorable.

8. A Casual Commentary (1925)
The sort of light-hearted, ephemeral essay collection that every author was expected to write in the 1920s – good fun, and Macaulay manages to weave in some axes to grind, but it’s clearly not the sort of book she most enjoyed writing (and she does rather satirise the idea in some of her other 1920s books).

7. Personal Pleasures (1935)
A collection of things that Macaulay finds pleasurable – a fun sort of book to keep in the loo. ‘Departure of Visitors’ is a favourite of mine, and it’s a diverting book, but maybe done better by J.B. Priestley.

6. The World My Wilderness (1950)
Macaulay’s final two novels were for a long time her best-known, and find her in more serious, literary tone. As this list shows, I prefer her 1920s exhuberance, but her novel of life immediately post-WW2 is done extremely well. And kudos to her for making up a fake epigraph to borrow her title from.

5. The Towers of Trebizond (1956)
Her final novel often appears on lists of best opening lines: “Take my camel, dear”, said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass. It is an eccentric, well-crafted novel roaming over Turkey, Jerusalem, and the Soviety Union – a brilliant achievement, which I am ready to admit might be her best novel, but not my favourite.

4. Potterism (1920)
As my top four will show, I think Macaulay was on an extraordinary run in the 1920s. In all of them – including this look at journalism – she combines wit, whimsy, satire and fun into a magical cocktail that is a riot to read while also having searing things to say about contemporary society.

3. Keeping Up Appearances (1928)
In her sights in Keeping Up Appearances are middlebrow vs highbrow debates, class, and what constitutes literary taste. Two unlikely sisters live in different ‘brow’ worlds, and there is an early twist that she carries off brilliantly. Now back in print from the British Library.

2. Crewe Train (1926)
What a marvellous creation Denham is! She has lived entirely away from ‘culture’, and is essentially primitive when it comes to literature, art and society – until she founds herself whisked into the middle of it. And isn’t very impressed. Gloriously funny, and pin-sharp satire.

1. Dangerous Ages (1921)
I was delighted we managed to get Dangerous Ages into the British Library Women Writers series – it’s a bitingly funny, searingly precise look at women across different generations, from 20s to 80s, and the obstacles they face. Some are very 1920s (starting Freudian psychoanalysis simply to get someone to listen) and some feel extremely ahead of their time (a GP re-entering the workforce after years of being a full-time mother). It is all done with Macaulay’s trademark sharp humour, and has so much to say about life for women in the 1920s.

Hush, Gabriel! by Veronica Parker Johns

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I wanted to add a second novel to my #SpinsterSeptember contribution, so went through my shelf of ‘would these make good British Library Women Writers suggestions?’, flicking through them until I saw any indication that they featured spinsters. Since most of the shelf are hardbacks without dustjackets by little-known authors, with minimal info about the titles online, it was mostly a case of keeping an eye out for ‘Miss’.

Well, Hush, Gabriel! (1940) by Veronica Parker Johns is narrated by a self-described ‘respectable spinster’, aged 52, and I was drawn in immediately by the opening paragraph:

I may as well state at the beginning that I am used to being surprised by Clotilda. I was surprised when she was born; somewhat more so than my mother, who had kept the secret from me until the last possible instant. I first became aware of it when Mother, coyly but with determination, refused to come to my graduation exercises at college. When, a few months later, I ceased to be an only child, I found Clotilda surprisingly beautiful, and so she remained, gracefully avoiding the awkward age as I trudged into my late thirties. I was amazed when she married Malcolm Allen, confounded when she moved with him to a quiet, unassuming Virgin Island. Therefore, I scarcely turned a hair when one of her house guests was found, surprisingly to everyone else, murdered.

This is how I learned that I was reading a murder mystery! Agatha (the spinster in question) is visiting her sister ahead of Clotilda’s impending baby. There are a handful of other guests, assembled in a clear ‘one of these is going to be a murderer’ sort of way, with little other reason for them all to come together. It took me a while to disentangle them, as they tend to dart onto the scene and disappear – we have Dolly Woods, a silly, brash woman whom Agatha meets on the journey there, and her older, wealthy husband. There’s likeable Mary and her flirtation with Carl; there’s Clotilda and her fairly absent husband; there’s a local judge, whom Agatha grows swiftly fond of. And there is Agatha’s dog Nell, who has somehow made the journey.

I really enjoyed Parker Johns’ writing from the off. She gives Agatha an ironic turn of phrase and tone of voice that I definitely appreciated – I loved the deft way this paragraph finishes:

I liked Carl, too. He was the only one of the guests I had known before, if you except my shipboard abhorrence of Dolly Woods. He had introduced Clotilda to Malcolm, but I had forgiven him for it long since. Numerous theatre invitations during my winters in town had down down my resistance. When a boy of thirty pays that much attention to a woman scenting fifty, she’s just bound to weaken. Eventually I invited him up to my place in Connecticut for summer weekends, and he not only came but seemed to enjoy himself. It was he who had thrust Nell, my cocker spaniel, upon me, and he had been a loving godfather to her. I was grateful to him for always remembering her birthday and forgetting mine.

The aforementioned murder happens pretty quickly – a doctor is found, shot through the head. The mystery part seems to be pretty short-lived: Clotilda instantly confesses to the murder. This is curiously disregarded by everyone, with the feeling that pregnant women will confess to murder at the drop of the hat because of hormones, or something. But the plot thickens when Agatha establishes that the doctor didn’t die by shooting – he was shot after he was dead.

To be honest, the novel’s very promising opening isn’t lived up to. Parker Johns seems to have put all her stylistic effort into the first chapter or so, and the prose becomes much more plebian as we go on. Agatha remains an interesting character, but without the captivating charm that initially thrusts her on the scene. And, yes, it is novel (especially for 1940) for a 50-something spinster to be given a romantic storyline, and it is satisfying that her romance is also intellectual, rather than abandoning her wisdom on the opportunity for a man. But it doesn’t really make up for the novel’s less able elements.

The main one is structure – it sort of meanders on, but further deaths and crises but it’s hard to be very invested. Alongside that is a lot of padding from characters who seem rather one-note, except for Dolly Woods who makes an extremely unlikely transformation into a very likeable character. The title doesn’t seem to make any sense. We learn that Clotilda says “Hush, Gabriel” at the scene of the murder, and Agatha knows she always said it growing up, but since we already knew from the first chapter that Clotilda was at the scene of the murder, it doesn’t add much.

And then there’s the racism… that’s the key reason that I won’t be rereading (or keeping) this novel. I suppose a 1940 novel set in the Virgin Islands is unlikely to be culturally sensitive, and I wasn’t surprised by the slightly-off depiction of the Black inhabitants – though, on the other hand, pleasantly surprised by one of the characters being a Black doctor, well-respected in his profession. The n-word is used a couple of times, but by a character we are clearly meant to consider awful. BUT – I won’t explain exactly how, in case you ever read this – the solution to the mystery partly involves some horrendous racism. Sigh.

So, I think there is a kernel of something wonderful for Spinster September here – if Agatha had lived up to her initial introduction, she would have been a total delight. And if Veronica Parker Johns has written any novel more consistently and coherently, then I’d be interested to read it – at its best, her writing is wonderful. But, overall, this one ended up being a disappointment.

Are there any good secondhand bookshops left in London?

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I know that’s a bold opening, but a commenter recently asked for suggestions for secondhand bookshops in London, and… I struggled. I would have some eager recommendations a few years ago, but they’ve either closed (e.g. the Slightly Foxed Bookshop) or got significantly worse.

Here’s my run-down of thoughts and places I might still visit but, please, do let me know what you would suggest!

(I am thinking for the average book buyer, not a collector with deep pockets, btw.)

Any Amount of Books
Charing Cross Road is a shadow of its historic self – Any Amount of Books seems to have far fewer books than it used to, and its basement is no longer a wonderland, but it’s still the best one in that area IMO.

Henry Porde Books
Since their move (also on Charing Cross Road), they are much smaller, and don’t have many affordable things. Though they also seem to have politer staff than they used to, so that’s a win.

Notting Hill Books & Comics Exchange
This used to be my absolute favourite, but they’ve also massively downsized – and, on my most recent visit, the back room seemed to have really sunk in quality. I found some gems in the front room, so still worth a visit, but sad to see their decline.

Walden Books, Camden
This is a small but very interesting bookshop – you’ll be in and out in half an hour, but I think the one on the list that gives me greatest hope.

Archive Bookstore, Marylebone
There might be good books in here but, honestly, who would know? I love a disshevelled bookshop, but this looks like someone emptied a truck of books through the window. You can hardly get to any of the shelves, and it’s sad to see.

Hurlingham Books, Fulham
Also very chaotic, but somehow more enjoyably so, and the best customer service I’ve come across. I’d recommend a visit for sure, but it’s not central so you’d have to be going deliberately.

World’s End Books, Chelsea
I went for the first time the other day, and it’s a nice little shop – not much stock on the shelves, a lot very pricey, but well chosen.

Skoob Books
This is central, but I’ve always been a bit underwhelmed by their selection – almost none of the mid-century hardbacks I’m after. If you’re looking for lots of modern paperbacks, then you could be in luck.

Judd Books
That reminds me of Judd Books, and I realise I haven’t been in years. Must rectify!

I can’t think of any others near the centre, but maybe I need to be making special trips to further flung parts of London? Sorry for a post that is a bit negative, but it’s sad to see a great book-buying city become so uninspiring for the average book hunter.

So – please give me hope!

Literary Gardens by Sandra Lawrence

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I’ve really dialled back the number of review books I say yes to (and, let’s be honest, don’t get offered as many as I did in the blogging heyday) – but I couldn’t resist when I was kindly offered a new title from Frances Lincoln publishers. Literary Gardens: The Imaginary Gardens of Writers and Poets by Sandra Lawrence was a lovely concept – and is executed just as beautifully as you’d hope.

The book looks at the gardens created by different authors in their books – particularly those which have a real bearing on the experience of the characters and the imagination of the reader. When I first heard about the book, I thought it might tread very familiar paths – your usual assembly of Austen, Bronte etc, with an eye on the mass market. And, yes, there are some crowd-pleasers in here (Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald) – but Lawrence is clearly extremely well-read and very thoughtful in her selection.

Some authors I love that are represented – ‘The Garden Party’ by Katherine Mansfield, Hallowe’en Party by Agatha Christie, Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim. We have nostalgia catered to, with The Secret Garden, The Tale of Beatrix Potter, and The Chronicles of Narnia – and then there are authors I’ve never read and, in some cases, never before heard of (Vivant Denon, Valmiki, Sei Shōnagon).

Each chapter introduces you to the book in question, talks a little about the plot and reception and, of course, the setting. Lawrence has an easy, friendly way with words – balancing her research with the affability of a fellow-reader. Here are a couple of paragraphs on Hallowe’en Party, for instance:

One of Christie’s last whodunits, the novel was not well-received on publication in 1969. Alongside pace-slowing throwbacks to previous ‘greatest hits’, she, perhaps unwisely, tries to keep up with the times. Her tried-and-tested but quaint by the 1960s style is littered with everything from long-haired beatniks to recreational drugs, the merits of abolishing capital punishment to the dropping of the eleven-plus exam, televions to – shock – lesbians, in the process, it would seem, both alienating her core and irritating any prospective audiences. […] Time has been kinder, however, than the critics, and while not her most tightly plotted mystery, the basic story of Hallowe’en Party is solid.

The action is mainly set at the imaginary Woodleigh Common, 30-40 miles from London near the equally fictional Madchester. The village’s houses are mainly named for trees: The Elms, Apple Trees, Pine Crest. The only exception is a large Victorian pile boasting a strange garden: Quarry House. Poirot is unimpressed. To him the idea of a ‘quarry garden’ is ‘ugly’, suggesting blasted rocks, lorries and roadmaking, all alien to this olde-worlde setting. 

In each chapter, Lawrence widens from the novel or story itself to a broader look at the author – in this one, for example, she looks at Christie’s own home and garden, Greenway. The chapters are short but satisfying. It’s probably more satisfying if you’ve read the book in question, if I’m honest, but I still appreciate Lawrence’s willingness to introduce us to less familiar authors.

This sort of beautifully produced book (not a ‘coffee table book’ in the sense of merely flicking through, but would grace any coffee table) stands or falls on its accompanying visuals – and Lucille Clerc’s illustrations are a wonderful success. They are so sumptuous, inviting you into the imaginary gardens (or, occasionally, appropriately deterring you). She captures the feel of narrative – none of the images feel static, even the ones that don’t have anybody in. Here’s Mr McGregor’s garden from The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, and I defy you not to want to scurry in.

If you google the book, you’ll find a few other examples. I could stare at them for a long time – Clerc resists being fey or whimsical, and even the most fanciful garden illustration has a groundedness to it.

It’s such a good idea for a book, and it is done much better than I could have hoped for. Such a thoughtful selection, and put together wonderfully. I think Literary Gardens would make a lovely present – but I’d equally recommend it for a purchase for yourself.