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Michael Cunningham’s autobiography

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I’ve over at Shiny New Books, talking about Michael Cunningham’s new autobiography(?), Unsayable. Here’s the beginning of my review, and you can read the rest at SNB…

When Michael Cunningham set out to write Unsayable, I wonder if it started as a book about writing that couldn’t keep out memoir. Or perhaps it started as a memoir which kept getting sidetracked into advice about writing. Or perhaps – the most likely, given Cunningham’s evident and enviable control over his writing – Unsayable is exactly the combination of the two that he intended.

Day by Michael Cunningham

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Cover image for Day by Micahel Cunningham

If you read my Top Books of 2023 or listened to the ‘Tea or Books?’ episode where Rachel and I shared our favourite reads, you’ll have already heard that I really loved Day by Michael Cunningham. It came out last year in N. America but has only just been released in the UK – so my review has gone live over at Shiny New Books.

Here’s a quote from the review – read the whole thing at Shiny New Books.

To the casual reader, Cunningham probably remains best-known for The Hours, with its three parallel storylines of Virginia Woolf writing Mrs Dalloway, a mid-century housewife reading Mrs Dalloway and a 1990s woman whose life very much resembles Mrs Dalloway’s. Day follows the theme of having a timespan in the title and taking place in three sections – though following the same group of 21st-century people. The first section takes place on the morning of 5 April, the middle section is the afternoon of 5 April, and the third section is the evening of 5 April. The twist on this idea is that the first part is 2019, the second is 2020, and the third is 2021. It’s the same day, but it is emphatically not the same day. This is, of course, Cunningham’s Covid novel.

A Bite of the Apple by Lennie Goodings

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I’m over at Shiny New Books with a review of A Bite of the Apple – the new memoir by Lennie Goodings about Virago Books. It’s a fascinating and personal book – here’s the full review, and below is the opening of what I wrote.

There’s a certain variety of person who can always spot a bottle-green spine at a hundred paces, and has faced the agonising decision about whether to shelve their Virago Modern Classics together or in with the rest of their books. I, reader, am one such person (and they’re shelved together, for what it’s worth) – Virago Modern Classics has introduced me to any number of wonderful writers, and I have plenty left to read. And it’s chiefly the idea of finding out more about the VMCs that made me delighted when I heard that Lennie Goodings had written A Bite of the Apple.

The Remarkable Life of the Skin by Monty Lyman

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A little while ago I reviewed a book for Shiny New Books that you might not expect to see on my reading pile – The Remarkable Life of the Skin (2019) by Monty Lyman. Well, I’m learning that I should start reading more in areas that I don’t think will appeal. The whole review is over at Shiny New Books – below is the start.

The number of science books I’ve read can be numbered on my fingers, and the number of science books I’ve read that weren’t written by Oliver Sacks is nil. Until now! Full disclosure, Monty Lyman is a friend of mine – and that was why I picked up The Remarkable Life of the Skin. But I’m very glad I did, and would definitely recommend it to anybody who doesn’t have the privilege of being Monty’s friend.

Lyman (let’s keep this review professional) is a doctor in Oxford, and his research has specialised in dermatology. That interest has taken him around the world, and the book reports on interesting cases from most of the planet’s continents – with an especial interest in Tanzania. The real marvel of The Remarkable Life of the Skinis is how much content it packs into a relatively short space.

Alice by Elizabeth Eliot

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I’m sure you know about the exciting and excellent Furrowed Middlebrow series from Dean Street Press – if not, hurry to them – and today I’m going to share my post about Alice by Elizabeth Eliot. Below is the beginning of my review – you can read the rest over at Shiny New Books.

Hurrah to Dean Street Press and their continued Furrowed Middlebrow series, bringing back underrated women writers that most of us haven’t heard of before. Elizabeth Eliot certainly fits that category for me, but after reading Alice (1949), I’ll be keen to read more Eliot.

Despite being called Alice, the narrator is Margaret – she first encounters Alice when they are at boarding school together, in the late 1920s. It is immediately clear that Alice has left a significant effect on her schoolfriend, with Alice’s almost artless carefreeness showing options for a bohemian lifestyle that Margaret can’t quite aspire to.

Evenfield by Rachel Ferguson

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evenfieldFor some reason, despite quite a lot of reading time, I haven’t managed to finish more than one short book so far in 2017. What’s going on? Well, for now, here’s a Shiny New Books review of Evenfield (1942) by Rachel Ferguson – one of the new Furrowed Middlebrow reprints. It’s quite an extraordinary novel – in terms of what it’s trying to do and be. Below is the intro to my review, and you can read the whole thing here.

The launch of the Furrowed Middlebrow series from Dean Street Press, under the editorial eye of blogger and middlebrow expert Scott of Furrowed Middlebrow, is an occasion for much rejoicing. His knowledge of neglected writers from the twentieth century is second to none, and I very excited to see which names he picks for the ongoing series. But there was one name in the first tranche that particularly thrilled me: Rachel Ferguson.

Ferguson is known now, if at all, as the author of The Brontës Went to Woolworths and Alas, Poor Lady, which have been reprinted over the years, but the rest of her novels have remained neglected. Dean Street Press have now brought back A Harp in Lowndes Square, A Footman for the Peacock, and Evenfield, written between 1936 and 1942. The last and latest of these is the novel I’ve read for Shiny New Books, and it is a bizarre, enticing curio that could have come from no other pen.

Terms and Conditions by Ysenda Maxtone Graham

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It’s no secret that I’m madly in love with Slightly Foxed Editions, and covet having the whole library on my shelves one day. So far I have this lovely bundle of them…

slightly-foxed-circle

The one I’m going to talk today is not a reprint, though; it’s Terms and Conditions by Ysenda Maxtone Graham – a history of girls’ boarding schools from 1939-1979. It’s basically the perfect stocking filler for the bookish person in your life, and I’ve already given one copy to a friend who was thrilled with it. I wrote about Terms and Conditions in more length in Shiny New Books – you can read the whole review here. And please do – this book is a real treat.

Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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night-flightDid you know that the author of The Little Prince wrote about dangerous flights in South America? Well – now you do! My review of Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is over at Shiny New Books, and the beginning of it is here:

If the name Antoine de Saint-Exupéry means anything to you, it probably only means one thing: The Little Prince. It was this contrast between legacy and his 1931 novel Night Flight that intrigued me to pick up a copy when Alma Classics printed it with a new translation by David Carter – and what an intriguing little book it is.

The Men’s Club by Leonard Michaels

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mens-clubA nice issue of Shiny New Books is coming out later this week, and I’ve still got a couple reviews I’ve not sent you towards. So you’ll get a couple in quick succession – tiding me over while my wrist recovers (which also accounts for how few reviews I have in Issue 13, sadly). Firstly, here’s a very strange, somehow also very good, book from 1978: The Men’s Club by Leonard Michaels. The whole review is here, and here’s the beginning of it:

There have been quite a few reprints, in recent years, from the interwar period and thereabouts. We are familiar with Golden Age detective fiction coming back into print, or the likes of Persephone, Virago Modern Classics, and others looking to the 1920s and 1930s for forgotten gems. Less often do reprints emerge from the 1970s – and so it was intriguing that Daunt Books have looked to Leonard Michaels and The Men’s Clubfor their latest offering (originally published in 1978 according to the inner flap, and 1981 according to Wikipedia – who knows?).