rankings

Unnecessary Rankings! 10 years of Club Reading Weeks

StuckinaBook All 24 Comments

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!

Unnecessary Rankings! Rose Macaulay

StuckinaBook All , 13 Comments

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.

Unnecessary Rankings! Virginia Woolf

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Did you know (and why on earth should you) that yesterday was the second anniversary of my Unnecessary Rankings? How did we ever survive for so long without it, I’m sure you’re asking.

Well, today I’m going for a Big Dog – or a Big Wolf, perhaps. Yes, it’s time to rank the author I consider the best writer of the 20th century – here we go with Virginia Woolf. I haven’t included all her essay and short story collections separately, because they are published in some many iterations, and I’ve actually not read Night and Day yet, largely because I can’t face the idea of coming to an end of all the available Woolf novels.

16. Roger Fry: A Biography (1940)

Virginia Woolf never wrote a bad book, and probably never a bad sentence, but IMO her least satisfactory work is this biography of her friend Roger Fry. She drops her usual style and is made curiously bland by some self-imposed constraints. As I wrote in my review: ‘A good biography – but not quite what one expects from Woolf, and disconcerting to see her talent hide in the shadows of her own book.’

15. Collected Essays

It is hard to group these because, taken on its own, something like ‘Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown’ – Woolf’s very funny, fairly unfair take-down of writers like Arnold Bennett and John Galsworthy – would soar up the list. But I’m less interested in her writings on notable authors of the past, and it doesn’t feel like she’s having quite as much fun with them. (What people don’t tell you about Woolf is how funny she is, and this comes out most in her best essays.)

14. Flush (1933)

A faux biography from the perspective of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s dog! Sure, why not! The idea feels like a prank gone wrong, but it is worked out surprisingly well. I’m less interested in Flush than her other characters, but it is perhaps her most accessible novel.

13. Collected Short Stories

Woolf didn’t write masses of short stories, and some of the ones in her collected stories are more like experimental flourishes – ‘The Mark on the Wall’ being perhaps the most famous. She is certainly better at novel-length, but her eye for details is on display in her shortest fiction.

12. Collected Letters

There are few authors whose output has been so rigorously turned over, and any time Woolf put pen to paper, it ended up getting published. Her letters go to show that she never threw out a casual sentence. They are honest, thoughtful, often quite bitchy. I love them.

11. Three Guineas (1938)

I’ve included a couple of book-length essays as separate entries in this list. Three Guineas is wide-ranging and interesting, though I always find it hard to remember precisely what the main thrust of it is. What has largely stuck with me is the interesting way Woolf writes about photography.

10. The Voyage Out (1915)

Woolf’s first novel is surprisingly ordinary, in style. Rachel Vinrace is travelling by boat to South America, and the novel explores the range of fellow-passengers (including a couple who will take centre stage in a later novel!) as well as revealing Rachel’s life back in London. It’s a very readable, good book, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it was by Woolf.

9. The Years (1937)

I’m always surprised that The Years was Woolf’s bestselling title during her life, or up among them at least. Towards the end of her novel-writing career, Woolf returned to a more ‘traditional’ style – and this is a sort of family saga that, again, is excellent but not ‘Woolfian’ in the way you might expect.

8. Collected Diaries

You have to assume Woolf had an eye on publication here – her diaries are so beautifully, thoughtfully written. I love A Writer’s Diary, the single-volume focusing on books/writing/publishing that Leonard Woolf edited after Virginia Woolf’s death (though I know it is controversial in some circles). The unedited, six-volume edition is the real must there, and the best source for insights into Woolf’s mind.

7. Between The Acts (1941)

The top seven are hard to separate, because I’d say they are all works of genius. Woolf’s final, slim novel is characteristically insightful in its depiction of people putting on a pageant at a country house.

6. Orlando (1928)

Orlando lives for several hundred years and, overnight, becomes a woman. Sure! Why not! Woolf was joining in the 1920s vogue for fantastic novels (see: my doctoral thesis) and also teasing, and honouring, Vita Sackville-West. It’s a tour de force though I have to confess I loved it most the first time I read it.

5. The Waves (1931)

Woolf’s most experimental novel is written mostly in ‘dialogue’, but the speech marks are really the inner thoughts of a group of friends, from childhood upwards. When I first read it as a teenager, I was astonished that anything could be so beautiful – while also not really knowing exactly what was going on. That hasn’t changed.

4. A Room of One’s Own (1929)

A foundational text of 20th-century feminism, A Room of One’s Own has that famous central ask – that a woman should have a room of her own to work in, and £500 a year – but it is so much more than that. It exposes the sexism inherent in literary history, academic institutions and more – and it’s also bitingly funny.

3. To The Lighthouse (1927)

The Ramsay family take centre stage, and are the closest thing that Woolf did to a portrait of her parents. The plot is incidental – WILL they get to the lighthouse? – and what makes this novel so special is her extraordinary, searing understanding of the ways people interact with and hurt one another. Lily the artist is her deepest fictional exploration of the creative process. And having said the plot is incidental, the novel has a twist moment that made me gasp out loud on the bus.

2. Jacob’s Room (1922)

Whenever someone asks me where to start with Virginia Woolf, I point them towards Jacob’s Room. It was her third novel and the turning point for finding her own distinctive style. Jacob is largely absent from this novel-length portrait of him – and, while not as experimental as the ‘big four’ novels, it’s a great introduction to how she plays with traditional novelistic forms and styles.

1. Mrs Dalloway (1925)

My first Woolf novel remains my favourite. I juggle around the top three at different times, but listening to Mrs Dalloway recently, read perfectly by Kristin Scott Thomas, has re-established it as my absolute fave Woolf. In the parallel stories of Mrs Dalloway hosting a party (and, yes, buying the flowers herself) and Septimus Warren Smith experiencing PTSD, Woolf never puts a foot wrong. I still felt a thrill of delight about the way she merges their stories, playing with perspective in ways that still feel fresh a hundred year later. It’s a joy. It’s a lark, it’s a plunge.

 

How would you rank our Ginny?

Unnecessary Rankings! Daphne du Maurier

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While trying to think whom to cover for another Unnecessary Rankings! post, I was looking around my bookcases and alighted on Daphne du Maurier. She was prolific, and I’ve read quite a few of her books. But I am slightly wary – because I also haven’t read a fair number of her books. And there’s always the danger someone will reply “You haven’t read Jamaica Inn??” or something similar. Well no, dear reader, I have only read 10 of du Maurier’s books. And yet here we go, I’m going to rank them…

10. The Progress of Julius (1933)
Later reprinted as Julius, this novel about the rags-to-riches of a selfish, cruel man is fairly well-written – but I’ve put it last because I hated reading it. The whole thing just felt so antisemitic and I ended up feeling dirty reading it.

9. The Flight of the Falcon (1965)
There’s a reason you seldom hear anybody talking about this one. I found this story of two brothers getting to re-know each other in a beautiful Italian city interesting for the scenery, but otherwise pretty boring.

8. The Rebecca Notebook (1981)
The title essay of this slim collection is an outline of Rebecca and gives the sort of insight into its writing history that you wouldn’t normally get. It’s fascinating. But the other essays in the collection are more or less padding, and Daphne du Maurier doesn’t have a lot of interest to say about religion, but says it a fair few times.

7. The House on the Strand (1969)
The narrator, Dick Young, takes an experimental drug that transports him to the 14th century – where he follows the man who lived there then, Roger, and Isolda, married to a powerful local knight. Given my distaste for historical fiction, this was very much a mixed reception for me. I loved all the sections set in the present day, and was bored rigid by the 14-century stuff.

6. Short stories (various)
I’ve grouped all of these together, even though I’m sure there are some I haven’t read, as I’ve read a few collections and can’t remember what was where. ‘Don’t Look Now’ is deservedly famous, and I like all her stories that use creeping discomfort to create a gradual terror.

5. Frenchman’s Creek (1941)
This novel caused an infamous disagreement between me and Our Vicar’s Wife (aka my Mum) – when I reviewed it in 2012 and my Mum had a post the following day, defending the pirate! I maintain that the heroine and hero of this novel are horrible people, as she abandons a kind, good man to have an affair with a selfish man for whom ‘toxic masculinity’ could have been invented. But I can’t deny that it’s a very compelling and enjoyable read nonetheless.

4. Gerald: A Portrait (1934)
Daphne du Maurier’s biography of her father is an absolute delight. It is incredibly subjective, of course, and many of the passed-down anecdotes about his early life are probably apocryphal – but what makes it wonderful are du Maurier’s beautiful writing and the way we are immersed into Gerald du Maurier’s life as an actor and theatre manager. Daphne du Maurier brings the theatrical world alive, and the whole book is a lovely, fascinating tribute.

3. The Scapegoat (1957)
You do have to swallow quite a lot of disbelief in the premise of this novel – an English man is forcibly swapped with his French doppelganger, and nobody in the strange new family seems to suspect anything – but, after that, it’s worth it. As a novel of mistaken identity it is great fun – as a novel about the legacy of France’s occupation, it is very moving.

2. My Cousin Rachel (1951)
Did she or didn’t she? No novel does ambiguity better than My Cousin Rachel, which has – at its heart – the culpability or otherwise of a young widow, in the eyes of the deceased man’s cousin, Philip. His mind goes back and forth, putting him deeper and deeper into indecision and torment. Du Maurier walks a tightrope with impeccable judgement, and it is the perfect book group book.

1. Rebecca (1938)
If I were feeling all contrarian, I’d put something else at the top – but the reason Rebecca is the best known is because it’s the best. The unnamed Second Mrs de Winter comes to Manderley as the much-younger new bride of Maxim de Winter, who throws her to the wolves in the form of du Maurier’s greatest creation – the haunting, formidable housekeeper Mrs Danvers. The twists and secrets keep you guessing, and it’s the perfect updating of the gothic novel – still as chilling and engaging now as it was all those decades ago.

What do you make of my rankings? And which of her other books should I prioritise?

Unnecessary Rankings! Muriel Spark

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It’s time for another unnecessary rankings! In today’s iteration, I’m turning my attention to a very prolific novelist – I’ve been steadily reading her for years, helped by the fact that most of her books are very short. There are still a couple I haven’t read (The Bachelors and Aiding and Abetting), but this is my ranking of all of Muriel Spark’s other novels/novellas. I’ve written reviews of most of them, so if you’d like to know more, you’ll probably find details in my masterlist of reviews.

Let me know which Spark novels you’d put at the top – or, if you’re feeling in the mood, the bottom.

20. The Public Image (1968)
I’m baffled that this one got shortlisted for the Booker. It’s probably the only Spark novel I’ve found boring, and I found Spark’s look at celebrity through the lens of a film actress to be (shockingly, for her) predictable and tedious.

19. The Takeover (1976)
Reading the Wikipedia summary, I’m realising I remember the Italian setting (Lake Nemi) but none of the characters – which speaks volumes.

18. Robinson (1958)
Spark’s second novel is a play on Robinson Crusoe that sadly isn’t very successful, in my eyes.

17. Not To Disturb (1971)
The novella is mostly focused on the servants quarters in a house where tragedy has happened – or is shortly to happen? I enjoyed the writing but never really knew what was going on.

16. Reality and Dreams (1996)
A more successful look at the world of acting and cinema than The Public Image, this late-career Spark novel is about a film director who wants to keep control of his film after falling from crane…

15. The Mandelbaum Gate (1965)
The gate in question is between Israel and Jordan, and a knowingly charming man called Freddy lives in the region, crossing back and forth with some kind of diplomatic immunity. Things get complex when ‘half Jewish’ Barbara comes on the scene, having followed her archeologist fiance to the Holy Land, and accidentally becomes part of a crisis. This is far and away Spark’s longest novel, at 400 pages, and it’s interesting to see her do her thing at greater length.

14. Territorial Rights (1979)
A bunch of mostly unpleasant people antagonise each other in Venice. It’s very good, but somehow misses the (forgive me) spark that her novels have at their finest.

13. The Hothouse by the East River (1973)
The most memorable detail of this book is that the heroine’s shadow falls in the wrong direction. Elsa spends much of her time looking out the window at the East River. But what is she really looking at? Why has her psychoanalyst, Garvin, moved in as their butler? And is Elsa living in reality or hallucination? Even for Spark, The Hothouse by the East River is particularly weird – but it has quite a satisfying conclusion. It’s also the most recent of hers I read, and that was three years ago, so I need some more Spark and soon.

12. The Finishing School (2004)
Spark’s final novel is set at a finishing school in Switzerland, and is a fascinating exploration of how creativity can create divisions and emnities that fester under the surface. She was still innovative and excellent right to the end.

11. The Driver’s Seat (1970)
One of Spark’s most discussed novellas – we know from the outset that Lise has been killed while on a trip abroad, but don’t know who does the deed. It is psychologically and narratively very satisfying, but it’s outside the top 10 because of my (often-mentioned!) problems with the title.

10. The Comforters (1957)
Spark started her output showing how odd her choice of themes would be: Caroline, a novelist, starts to hear voices and typewriter noises through the walls, and begins to wonder if they are dictating her actions. From the outset, Spark shows an astonishing assurance in her writing.

9. The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960)
The arrival of Dougal Douglas in Peckham Rye spells disaster in the lives of many of his neighbours – the brilliance of Spark’s plot is that she never outright names him as the devil, but it’s hard to draw any other conclusion. Her eccentricity is on full display.

8. The Abbess of Crewe (1974)
Who but Spark would set the Watergate scandal in a nunnery? This is perhaps her most direct extended satire, and she’s clearly having a lot of fun doing it. It could be a one-note joke, but her confidence and brilliance with character mean the novel is a success.

7. The Girls of Slender Means (1963)
I think this novel – about the young women resident at The May of Teck Club – is the best example of Spark’s frequent manipulation of narrative time. That is, she gives away huge plot points long before they happen, mentioning them in passing, and shows how compelling a novel can be even when we know precisely what will take place. I think almost all of her novels are worth reading, but the top seven on my list are all masterpieces.

6. A Far Cry From Kensington (1988)
Agnes ‘Nancy’ Hawkins is an editor at a publisher living in a boarding house, and through her we see an overwrought Polish dressmaker neighbour and, most memorably, the ‘pisseur de copie’ Hector Bartlett who stalks Agnes and whom she considers (and calls) an appalling writer and dreadful person. It’s such a spiky, fun, strange book that apparently took revenge on a real ex-lover of Spark’s. If that’s true, it is a devastating portrait.

5. The Only Problem (1984)
Of my favourite Sparks, this is probably the one I see mentioned least. Harvey Gotham is living in France, writing a book about the biblical figure Job – the ‘only problem’ being the problem of suffering. This is an eccentric enough premise for a plot, but Spark makes everything characteristically unhinged by introducing – of all thigns – a far right terrorist organisation. The novella is bizarre but so grounded in the characters that the contrast works beautifully.

4. Symposium (1990)
If I were to pick one for a Spark newbie to start with, I’d go with this one – and did, indeed, get my book group to read it. Symposium starts with a cast of characters at a dinner party – during which one household is burgled. We then follow different characters in the lead up to the party and afterwards. The book feels like the most representative of Spark’s style and often-returned-to devices, and it’s a brilliant example of them.

3. Memento Mori (1959)
WHAT a glorious premise: people living in an old people’s home keep getting phone calls reminding them that they will die. The solution to that particular mystery is SO Spark, but along the way we get to meet the wide cast of fascinating older people, written with exceptional insight and sharpness by an author who was only in her early 40s at the time. It’s also a rare example from her body of work of some likeable, even lovable, characters.

2. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961)
Yes, this one is deservedly famous. Spark is often described as a Scottish novelist, but this is her only major work to take place in Scotland – Miss Jean Brodie is a teacher whose combination of culture, romance, and megalomania inspire and damage a generation of schoolgirls. She is an astonishing creation, played to perfection by Maggie Smith in the film adaptation – absolutely unforgettable, and I’m glad Brodie has her place in the pantheon of literary greats.

1. Loitering With Intent (1981)
But my favourite is the wacky Loitering With Intent, helmed by writer Fleur Talbot. She is trying and struggling to complete her first novel, Warrender Chase, and takes on work as secretary to a group of older people trying to put their memoirs to paper. She starts fabricating their stories out of boredom and recklessness – not realising she has somehow guessed the truth. And then events in her novel seem to intertwine with the life of her boss. For my money, Loitering With Intent is the best and most enjoyable example of Spark’s weirdness, her ruthless, intelligent heroines, and a compelling plot that wrongfoots the reader.

Do let me know your favourite Sparks – or where you’ll be starting, if you haven’t read her yet.

Unnecessary Rankings! British Library Women Writers

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Since it’s International Women’s Day, I thought I’d commemorate the occasion by… ranking books by women! Yes, putting successful women up against each other probably isn’t the MOST #IWD thing, but it’s really a celebration because all these books are brilliant.

Obviously I’ve read (and reread and reread) all the British Library Women Writers series, but I’ve decided to stick to a top 15 – because it wouldn’t be the best advertisement for the series to put something in last place, especially when I think they’re all very good. So if something from the BLWW series is missing from the list, then I still like it, just not as much as these 15 marvellous books. Ranking was VERY hard, since they’re basically all 10/10 reads in my opinion.

I’d love to know your thoughts – from the ones you’ve read, how would you rank them?

15. Mamma (1956) by Diana Tutton
Guard Your Daughters may be Diana Tutton’s masterpiece, but she is on more sombre form with Mamma. It’s a love triangle between a woman, her daughter and her son-in-law – but the least shocking version of that premise. Beautiful, almost elegiac, and very human.

14. Introduction to Sally (1926) by Elizabeth von Arnim
Elizabeth von Arnim is so good at finding relatable humour in absurd situations. Sally is like a Greek goddess come alive, but with a ‘common’ accent and working in a shop – von Arnim takes this idea and turns it into a novel with pathos, as well as a great deal fo humour.

13. The Home (1971) by Penelope Mortimer
A spiritual sequel to Mortimer’s much-loved The Pumpkin Eater, this novel is based on the author’s own separation from her husband and re-establishing her life. It’s strange, funny, poignant and expertly written.

12. Which Way? (1931) by Theodora Benson
This forgotten novel gets a little boost up the charts for its brilliant Sliding Doors premise: Claudia has to choose between three weekend invitations. The next three sections of the novel follow, in turn, the very different lives she’d live depending on which invitation she accepts.

11. Tea Is So Intoxicating (1950) by Mary Essex
Some of the books in the series are beautifully writen works of significant literature. Some are just silly, delightful fun. None comes sillier or more delightful than Mary Essex’s Tea Is So Intoxicating, following a couple in their ill-advised attempts to open a tea garden.

10. One Year’s Time (1942) by Angela Milne
Another one that had truly disappeared, despite Milne’s famous uncle – the novel follows a year in the life of Liza, particularly focusing on her romantic and work lives. It feels so modern and fresh, and it makes the top 10 because of the sparkling dialogue.

9. A Pin To See The Peepshow (1934) by F. Tennyson Jesse
I’d argue A Pin To See The Peepshow is the best book in the series – but, of course, best doesn’t always equate to favourite. It is very closely based on the Thompson/Bywaters murder case, with very evident sympathies for Edith Thompson – who, in FTJ’s hands, is an eloquent, compassionate, creative woman. Incidentally, the afterword is perhaps the one I’m proudest of.

8. Keeping Up Appearances (1928) by Rose Macaulay
Macaulay seems to be best-remembered for The Towers of Trebizond, but I much prefer her in witty, lively 1920s mode. Keeping Up Appearances is about two very different sisters – and a lot about middlebrow vs highbrow culture at the time. A constant delight.

7. Dangerous Ages (1921) by Rose Macaulay
And this novel slightly nudges above the other – perhaps because she covers so many generations of women, in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 60s, and 80s, if memory serves. Very, very funny on things like the free love movement and Freudianism, while also surprisingly poignant on the topics of ageing and trying to return to the workplace after raising children.

6. Strange Journey (1935) by Maud Cairnes
I love a high-concept novel that retains heart and humour – and few do it better than this 1935 body-swap comedy, which is really about class, as a titled lady and a middle-class housewife find they are inadvertently switching places.

5. Tension (1920) by E.M. Delafield
It’s a crime that Delafield is only known for a handful of novels when she wrote so many brilliant books. I think Tension is one of her funniest, as well as having one of the all-time great monsters in Lady Rossiter, who sets out to destroy another woman’s life in the name of morality.

4. Father (1931) by Elizabeth von Arnim
Another well-known author with an unjustly neglected book: Jen is one of the ‘surplus women’, expected to look after her father’s household until he marries a much younger woman and turfs her out. I love Father because of Jen: such a spirited, fun, naive, joyful creation.

3. The Love Child (1927) by Edith Olivier
I wrote quite a lot of DPhil thesis on this novella, so of course I love it: Agatha accidentally conjures up her childhood imaginary best friend, and this miracle turns into something rather darker as a power battle develops. This is a tour de force in quiet form – an extraordinary work of imagination with a lot to say about the perils facing unmarried women in the 1920s.

2. Sally on the Rocks (1915) by Winifred Boggs
Another one that gets so high up for its heroine. Sally is a delight – funny, feisty, going after what she wants. She ends up in a love triangle, fighting for the hand of a man she despises but can offer security. What makes Sally on the Rocks so ahead of its time is that both women in the love triangle are amicable and even friendly: there’s no maligned ‘other woman’ here.

1. O, The Brave Music (1943) by Dorothy Evelyn Smith
My number one BLWW title is also one of my favourite ever novels. We follow Ruan from 7 to the cusp of childhood, finding freedom from a repressive home by exploring the moors and befriending a wise older boy, David. The novel has such heart and, even though many sad things happen, it feels full of hope of possibility.

Unnecessary Rankings! Stella Gibbons

StuckinaBook All , 21 Comments

My ‘Unnecessary Rankings!‘ series have quickly become my favourite blog posts to write, and I love reading your comments – sometimes in agreement, but usually not, and that’s the most fun. Of all the authors I’ve done so far, Stella Gibbons has the widest range – i.e. some of her novels are all-time favourites, and some are unbearable trash.

As I put this together, I realised I’d read fewer than I thought – and she was very prolific. So it’s only ranking eight of her 30 or so books. Let’s treat this more of a way to find out what I SHOULD be reading… recommendations, please.

8. Beside the Pearly Water (1954)
This feels like one of the worst books I’ve ever read, let alone Gibbons’ worst. It’s based on an idea that doesn’t make any sense and is worked out with frustrating stupidity. An attempt to stay up-to-date that truly didn’t work.

7. Here Be Dragons (1956)
There are elements of Here Be Dragons that I really enjoyed, particularly the heroine getting a job in a café and seeing that world – but the rest didn’t arrest my attention particularly. A theme I’ll return to is that Gibbons is fantastic in general but very bad at romance storylines.

6. Nightingale Wood (1938)
A lovely Cinderella-style story that reminded me quite a lot of the scenes from I Capture the Castle where Cassandra and her family visit their rich neighbours. The individual characters haven’t stayed with me, but the atmosphere has.

5. Bassett (1934)
The first half of this novel is absolutely sublime – two incompatible spinsters decide to set up a boarding house together. It’s hilarious, and just the right side of outright farce. I lapped it up. And then… the second half weirdly transfers to a love triangle between three very tedious young neighbours. Apparently that half is autobiographical, and it is not at all interesting – Bassett is so high because the first half is so delightful.

4. Westwood (1946)
Gibbons in slightly more poignant mode – the introduction to my edition, by Lynne Truss, says: “If Cold Comfort Farm is Gibbons’ Pride and Prejudice then Westwood is her Persuasion.” I think that’s a very astute observation – the humour is still there, but this is a more sombre, heartfelt novel.

3. Enbury Heath (1935)
I’ll race to any novel about house moves, and the first third of Enbury Heath is about siblings setting up a little cottage together with a small inheritance – and jettisoning the advice of their pestering aunts and uncles. The rest of the novel didn’t quite match that high for me, but I really enjoyed my time with this one.

2. Miss Linsey and Pa (1936)
Gosh, I love this book! Miss Linsey and her dad move to be near relatives but aren’t welcomed in their home – so move to a horrible flat in a run-down building. Miss Linsey works in the home of some thinly-disguised Bloomsbury types, and Gibbons has great fun mocking them. The whole cast of characters are wonderful, and I think it’s Gibbons’ greatest success at combining pacing, humour, and pathos.

1. Cold Comfort Farm (1932)
I think Gibbons is a good example of the most famous book also being the best. Cold Comfort Farm is such a tour de force, quite unlike any of her other books, and she fuses the madcap cast of characters with endless energy – whether they are bitter, annoying, good-intentioned or witless. Having Flora as the breezy, unsentimental outsider is perfect. Unmatched and unmatchable.

Unnecessary Rankings! Jane Austen

StuckinaBook All , 38 Comments

It’s actually surprising that it’s taken me this long to rank Jane Austen in my Unnecessary Rankings series. Because surely we’ve all had this conversation with fellow Austenites at some point?

It’s probably also the one that gets most controversial. But here we go…

8. Mansfield Park
It’s the novel that is most like her contemporaries’ novels, and it is comfortably the most boring. It’s too long and baggy, Fanny and Edmund scarcely scintillate, and it’s telling that nobody has managed to make a convincing adaptation for screen.

7. Collected Letters
Who knows what gems Cassandra burned, but beyond the few much-quoted bits from these letters, it’s all rather unrevealing and unexciting. And even the most quoted bits, like ‘two inches of ivory’, are clearly ironic and have often been used out of context.

6. Juvenilia / unfinished works
I’ve grouped all these together because I can’t really remember what I thought of Lady Susan vs The Watsons vs Sanditon vs Love and Freindship etc. Her early work shows an astonishing confidence at satire, and the unfinished works are fun without being fulfilling.

5. Persuasion
A lot of people put Persuasion at the top of their list, and there’s certainly a touching romance to the spinster-on-the-shelf Anne (who is all of 27) and the love she thought she’d lost forever. The reason it’s not very high on my list is that it’s her least funny book, in my opinion, and I read Austen at least as much for the humour as the character development.

4. Northanger Abbey
Austen’s lightest novel leans heavily on subverting stereotypes of the Gothic genre, but there’s a lot to enjoy even if we aren’t buried deep in the works of Ann Radcliffe. It’s silly, fresh, and surprisingly mentions baseball.

3. Emma
People who dislike Emma usually give the reason that she’s an annoying snob. Like, yes, that’s the point? And we love her nonetheless? The only one of Austen’s heroines who is independently wealthy, Emma is a fascinating study in being unobservant and delusional while also thinking she knows everyone deeply.

2. Sense and Sensibility
There’s a simple reason that I love Sense and Sensibility so much: it’s hilarious. Yes, I am moved by the story of Elinor and Marianne – but I come back to the book for Mr and Mrs Palmer.

1. Pride and Prejudice
There’s a reason it’s the most adapted one, and perhaps the story that comes to mind first when the average person thinks of Jane Austen. Elizabeth Bennet is the perfect heroine, and her journey to self-knowledge is exquisite – and that’s before we get to the enormous number of incredible supporting characters. Austen doesn’t always get credit for the detail and brilliance of her plotting, and I think it’s best displayed in Pride and Prejudice.

Unnecessary Rankings! Shirley Jackson

StuckinaBook All , 10 Comments

I try to stick to writers I’ve read most or all of, for these unnecesary rankings – so how has it taken me this long to include Shirley Jackson? Join me as I rank all her books, as I am a Jackson completist – and, as ever, let me know why I’m wrong (or right!) You can see the rest of the rankings I’ve done on the rankings tag.

9. Collected short stories

Is ‘The Lottery’ how Jackson is still best-known? It’s certainly a classic story for a reason, and I think several generations of American schoolchildren probably have read it. Jackson is an example of a writer who never published a bad book – so I’ve put her short stories even though I like them. I just think she’s better when she has more space for a sustained sense of atmosphere – whether foreboding or funny.

8. The Road Through the Wall (1948)

Jackson’s debut novel – and you’ll begin to sense a theme, in terms of my order closely reflecting publication order. The Road Through The Wall is about Pepper Street and its younger inhabitants – as well as the ‘threat’ of the lower classes nearby. From the outset, Jackson was great at weird, but she walks a tightrope between weird and vague. I like this novel, but it doesn’t have the clarity she later mastered.

7. Hangsaman (1951)

More of the above, really! Natalie is heading off to college, and her unhappiness and oppression from her father dominate her life – to the point where she sometimes seems to be in almost a fugue state. A sexual assault early in the novel leaves her more confused than ever, and the novel has a dark dream quality to it as she becomes dependent on a student called Tony. A very good, rather baffling, novel.

6. The Bird’s Nest (1954)

Very ahead of its time in a depiction of dissociative identity disorder – you can hopefully forgive some of its inaccuracies because it was written long before the condition was even medically recognised. The ‘characters’ Elizabeth/Lizzy/Betsy/Beth are well-handled, and it’s a fascinating work.

5. The Haunting of Hill House (1959)

Onto one of Jackson’s best-known books, and probably the closest she got to all-out horror – I still love it, even as a wimp and someone who never reads horror. A group come to Hill House to determine whether or not it is haunted. I love Jackson’s playfulness with the architecture of the house (nothing is quite a right angle, so you’re never quite where you think in relation to other places) and those who’ve read it won’t forget the hand in the bed.

4. Raising Demons (1957)
3. Life Among the Savages (1953)

Number 3 and 4 could go either way around – Jackson’s preoccupation with the enclosure of domestic spaces can also come out in humour! These autobiographical books about life as a wife and mother are hysterically funny – very Provincial Lady-esque. Some see the darkness of Jackson’s agoraphobia below the surface. Perhaps it’s there, but you can also enjoy these as comic domestic memoirs par excellence.

2. We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962)

My first experience with Jackson, and I was captivated from the first paragraph – where Merricat walks to the local high street and feels herself observed and judged by the townsfolk. Almost all her family have died in a recent poisoning, and the remaining few (including Merricat’s sister) live there in strange isolation. Sidenote: one of the best titles ever.

1. The Sundial (1958)

My favourite Jackson is up there with my favourite books – and breaks my ‘every non-memoir novel in chronological order’ ranking! The residents and visitors of Halloran house are the only ones who will be spared in the forthcoming apocalypse. Jackson’s masterstroke is to make the (enjoyable awful) characters not really care about this. They continue their petty squabbling, even while the world is ending. It’s the perfect combination of Jackson’s humour and gothic strands – and that’s why it’s my favourite.

What about you? How would you rank Jackson’s books?

Unnecessary Rankings! R.C. Sherriff

StuckinaBook All , 33 Comments

It was my birthday yesterday and I’ll my bookish gifts at some point (it will surprise nobody to know I got a few), but for today let’s do some more Unnecessary Ranking! This time I’ve picked R.C. Sherriff – famous initially for Journey’s End (which I haven’t read or seen) but brought back more broadly by reprints from Persephone Books. He isn’t the most prolific writer, and I haven’t read all of his novels, so it’s not the longest list.

As ever, I’d love to know your own rankings…

6. Chedworth (1944)

The only book of his that I wouldn’t consider a success. Wing Commander Derek Chedworth marries a vaudeville dancer and she comes to live at his ancestral home – a promising premise that never really comes off. Sherriff is usually so brilliant at character, setting, and pace – so I don’t know why Chedworth fell flat.

5. The Hopkin’s Manuscript (1939)

All his other books (that I’ve read) are brilliant, so don’t read this low ranking as a negative. It’s a very domestic spin on an apocalypse, and the only reason I prefer other Sherriff novels is that this has a science fiction starting point that isn’t necessarily my most-loved genre.

4. The Fortnight in September (1931)

When I first read this, I wouldn’t have believed there’d be three Sherriff books I’d like even more – because it is sheer perfection, on its own terms. A family plan for, and then take, their annual holiday to the seaside. The family are growing up, and their usual lodgings are growing old. An astonishingly good book about nothing and everything.

3. The Wells of St. Mary’s (1962)

If The Hopkins Manuscript isn’t my favourite genre, then The Wells of St. Mary’s is – the domestic novel that incorporates the fantastic. Or does it? When some abandoned wells start curing people’s illnesses, it becomes a huge tourist attractions. The reader is left trying to work out how much is magical…

2. No Leading Lady (1968)

R.C. Sherriff’s autobiography is that rare example of an author really telling you about their craft, in delightful detail. Half the book is about the genesis, writing, production, success, and aftermath of his break-out play Journey’s End. He glosses over his private life, and even some of his work, but I’ve read very few autobiographies that I enjoyed anywhere near as much.

1. Greengates (1936)

The most similar to The Fortnight in September, in terms of being a narrow lens on a very domestic set up. When Mr Baldwin retires, he and his wife decide to move to a new housing estate – and this gentle novel is simply about that process. In almost any author’s hands it would be nothing – in Sherriff’s, it is a masterpiece.

I’d love to hear your Sherriff rankings, or which of his books you’d like to try next!