Two final #1936Club titles

I’ve never read more books for a club year – for the first time, I’ve read more than there are days in the club week. (Or, indeed, in any week.) So I’m going to double up with a couple of reads that I don’t really have that much to say about… sorry to end on an anti-climax, but do check out the links round up for lots more suggestions. My favourites from my reading week were Miss Linsey and Pa by Stella Gibbons and Laughing Gas by P.G. Wodehouse. I won’t be blogging for a week, but will update with any links I missed when I’m back – and have scheduled a post for tomorrow saying what the next club year will be!

Anyway, onto my final two reads…

Houses as Friends by Dorothy Pym

I didn’t know much about Dorothy Pym – no relation of Barbara – but I bought this in a little bookshop in Fowey because the title intrigued me. I thought it might be about houses in fiction, or houses in general, but it is basically Pym’s autobiography through the different houses she lived in. Edwin Lutyens even wrote the introduction.

The houses are all rather grand and wonderful, and she was certainly brought up in privilege, married someone equally rich, and lived bountifully. I ended up knowing quite a lot of anecdotes, but still didn’t know a lot about who she was in essentials. And all the anecdotes were told rather plainly, without the sprinkle of magic that brings them alive, or makes them sound more exciting than they truly are. All in all, I enjoyed it as a period piece, but I found it lent a little too close to dullness. And I don’t really remember anything in it, already. Not one to rush to.

No Place Like Home by Beverley Nichols

I adore Bev, though have been a bit up and down with his non-fiction. The ups are VERY up, and I love the Merry Hall series to distraction, but others – like his investigation into spiritualism – didn’t really work for me. I’d assumed No Place Like Home would be one of his books about his house, but it turned out to be the opposite: it’s travel literature. Specifically of one long trip through Eastern Europe, to Egypt, to Israel, to Turkey and Greece. Not in that order. Rather than write a full review, I’ve come up with some pros and cons. And please head to Karen’s 1936 Club review of it for more detail – and also less uncertain enthusiasm for it!

Pros

  • Beverley is always pretty funny – depending, of course, on what you find funny. I really enjoyed his grumpy take on the Pyramids and the Sphinx.
  • It’s a great snapshot of 1936 across Europe, at least from one man’s perspective – he makes reference to Hitler that show his views were no secret at the time, though Nichols doesn’t seem to realise it’s the last time for a while that this sort of trip would be possible
  • His perspective on being in the Holy Land is very moving, and he does experience genuine connection with Jesus by seeing the places that He went (and railing against those areas that haven’t been upheld)
  • His vehemence against animal cruelty is welcome to me, and some of his views were probably very ahead of their time

Cons

  • …and some of his views weren’t. He is rather xenophobic at times. He is very against antisemitism, and then is antisemitic himself a few pages later… in general, the people of other countries are not as good as the Brits, in his eyes, and it made for some uneasy reading
  • The ‘Irate Reader’ he introduces to have a duologue with every now and then didn’t really work for me. In another mood it might have done, but I found it a little irritating
  • I just don’t love travel writing that much! I find it often leans towards the visual, which I find hard to translate in my head, and I also prefer people writing about their own countries and times – to give a deeper authenticity and grounding to their writing.

SO there you go. Neither of these are my favourite reads for the 1936 Club, but this club has been my favourite one, I think. So many interesting titles, so much going on in the world, and a brilliant cross-section shared from across the blogging community. Thanks, as ever, for reading, reviewing, commenting and sharing in the fun!

Begin Again by Ursula Orange – #1936Club

Of all the authors Scott at Furrowed Middlebrow has talked about over the years, Ursula Orange is the one who appealed most. So it was very exciting when he got three of her novels reprinted through his Dean Street Press series – and Begin Again is the third of those I’ve read. Orange is a wonderfully witty writer, and this novel is no different.

The novel opens with Leslie (early 20s) explaining to her mother why she feels she must move to London, where her schoolfriends Jane and Florence are living a lifestyle that Leslie considers ideal. Leslie wants to spend all the money she has on an art school – though it will not cover tuition and expenses for all that long – and also thinks she should probably have her own little studio, to be taken seriously. Whatever happens, she has to get away from the privileged and calm life she is currently living with her parents:

She knew, not only from Jane and Florence’s conversation (it had been some time since she had had a really good talk with them) but also from the pages of modern novels exactly the way in which young people living their own lives in London talk together – an attractive mixture of an extreme intensity and a quite remarkable casualness. “Henri says Marcovitch’s new poems are the finest things he’s ever read – will certainly found a school of their own. By the way – hand me the marmalade – Elissa is living with Henri now. He says he needs her for his work at present.” Clearly the sort of person who talked like this lived a much freer, a much wider, a much better life than the sort of person who merely said, “Good morning, mummy. Did you sleep well? When Alice brought my tea this morning she said a tree was blown down in the orchard last night.”

One of the things I like a lot about Orange is that she doesn’t have any throwaway characters. While four young women are at the centre of this novel, the secondary characters are not simply there to serve them. I loved the sardonic dryness of Leslie’s mother – which Leslie totally misses, since she expects her mother to be humourless. The reader is quite like Leslie’s mum – we have a definite affection for all the women at the heart of Begin Again, but also recognise they are young and silly.

The others are the aforementioned Jane and Florence, who work in offices and just about earn enough to pay for their unorthodox food and tiny flat – and Sylvia, who still lives in her parents’ grand home, thinking herself very modern with her thoughts on sexual and social liberation. All the women are very earnest, and their problems are real problems inasmuch as they genuinely feel anxiety about them, but Orange is also very funny about them. It’s also a joy to read about arguments over who used the hot water when you no longer have to house-share.

My favourite story of the four was Florence’s – who works as a typist, despite being pretty bad at it, and longs to be recognised as something more valuable. The other typist has fewer ambitions and class hang-ups, and is also much better at her job. The whole set-up of the office was believably unnerving for Florence, while also a joy to read about. That joy continues when the whole bunch travel over to Sylvia’s house for a party, and things get more dramatic and just as absurd.

This was a delightful 1936 read – enough genuine angst to make you take it seriously, and good-heartedness not to mind laughing at the characters. I’m not sure why Furrowed Middlebrow stopped after reprinting three of her novels, but I have my fingers crossed that they bring out the other three at some point…

Little G by E.M. Channon – #1936Club

Little G is a terrible title but rather a lovely book. It is a 1936 title from E.M. Channon who is apparently well-known as a children’s writer and a detective novelist – this was one of her few adult non-detective novels, or possibly her only one, and was reprinted by Greyladies in 2012. It found its way onto my shelves in 2014, and the 1936 Club has been a great opportunity to finally read it.

In the opening chapter, Furnival is being told that he needs to rest by a doctor. He is a maths lecturer at Cambridge, and the doctor is worried that he is stressed and unhealthy – and prescribes him some relaxation in a little village. Furnival is very keen not to see any women there, as he is horrified by any company that isn’t adult male, child, or animal – and the doctor assures him that the village is bereft of adult women. This, of course, turns out not to be the case.

In case you’re starting to rather dislike Furnival, Channon lays on heavily his good attributes. Installed in his new cottage, he befriends three young siblings who live next door – offering them cakes and goodies that their aunt doesn’t believe they should eat. Holding even more sway with me, he likes cats – and is given one when he passes a house and is concerned for its welfare. Here he is, having slipped it in his coat pocket:

The kitten, though of tender age, had claws like steel hooks, a voice like a bat’s and enough determination for ten full-grown Toms. He objected strongly to imprisonment, and fought with determination to work his way out. Furnival had to keep a tight hand on him, making personal discovery that the needle-like teeth matched the claws for sharpness; but he cared little for that. The warm, fierce, furry little body, wriggling ragefully under his fingers, gave him a pleasant thrill of affection and ownership, such as he had not felt since the acquisition of his first guinea pig, more years ago than he cared to count. He quickened his steps: not half so much for the sake of getting rid of a troublesome pocketful, as because he wanted to take out his purchase and play with it.

The kitten, true to its feline nature, finding that its new owner cared not a jot for all its fury, gave up the unequal contest, curled itself up in a concise ball, and slumbered profoundly. The pocket was warm. Struggling was, obviously, a useless waste of energy; and there is no more profound philosopher in the animal kingdom than Felis Domestica.

Sadly, for me, we don’t see anywhere near enough of the kitten again. But that might be a relief if kittens aren’t your thing. Instead, we see Furnival interact with various villagers – his gardener, the vicar, the women who do turn out to exist, and particularly the three children. He softens over time, but he wasn’t really that un-soft in the first place. The stakes are low, but Channon stays decidedly on the right side of charming – the only part I thought was a little fey was when Furnival starts enthralling the children with stories about gravity, calling it Little G. But it is not the only Little G who turns up…

All in all, this novel was always a delight to read, and is exactly the right sort of book for many occasions when you need something fun, sweet, and very 1930s.

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

When I wrote about Strange Journey by Maud Cairnes, a body-swap comedy, I was wondering which others there were. Malie and Constance both mentioned Laughing Gas by P.G. Wodehouse which, as luck would have it, turns out to be have been published in 1936. I have zillions of unread Wodehouses, but I decided to add another – or, rather, to listen to the audiobook read by Jonathan Cecil. And what a wonderful book it is.

The narrator is Reggie Swithin, the third Earl of Havershot. He is 28, has a face that he often compares to a gorilla, and has been sent off to Hollywood by an aunt to rescue his cousin Eggy from getting engaged to a gold-digger. This is all just a way of getting an earl to America, and specifically to Hollywood. Wodehouse himself worked on Hollywood scripts a good deal, I believe, and comes to the movie plot with a great amount of good-natured cynicism. Reggie is the sort of affable and daft hero of almost any of Wodehouse characters – indeed, as he introduces himself, he is ‘just one of those chaps’.

Eggy is engaged, as it turns out, not to the gold-digger but to Ann Bannister – who was previously engaged to Reggie. And Reggie, in turn, falls in love instantly on the train on the way to Hollywood – with April June, the wonderfully named and very beautiful film actress. He is in love devotedly almost before they’ve spoken, but Wodehouse fans know to distrust the sort Wodehouse woman who speaks affectedly of how she is only ever happy in the company of books and flowers, and thinks nothing of money.

Anyway, all of Reggie’s plans are put on hold by bad toothache, and he goes to a dentist. In the waiting room, he meets Joey Cooley – a golden-haired child who is considered the idol of American motherhood. Michigan mothers are en route to lavish praise on him as they speak.

Both go into their respective dentists for their respective operations, apparently of the sort that require being knocked out by gas. And, while under gas… they swap bodies.

The first Reggie knows of it is when he comes to, and his chair is surrounded by eager journalists. And so set in motion his life as a child star – with a strictly controlled routine, domineering protectors, and (most chillingly) diet of prunes for almost every meal.

We don’t see much as Joey-as-Reggie for the rest of Laughing Gas, but follow Reggie-as-Joey. Being Wodehouse, the stakes are hilariously low. He takes the metaphysical anomaly pretty well, and doesn’t waste too much time philosophising. Instead, he is chiefly anxious about having to kiss someone at the unveiling of a statue, and where he can procure some substantial food (leading to perhaps my favourite line – ‘I had had a rotten lunch, at which the spinach motif had been almost farcically stressed’).

Then, of course, there are various love entanglements – he has the opportunity to see April June in a less flattering light, and may just fall in someone else along the way…

Wodehouse is always wonderful, but some novels are better than others. For my money, this is one of the best I’ve read. He is so consistently brilliant in turn of phrase – the sort of thing he does that nobody else can do; a brilliant mix of hyperbole, litotes, inversion, and all manner of other linguistic tricks that somehow never get old. He was a comic genius.

It’s hard to remember exact quotes from an audiobook, but here are three that bat about online a lot:

  • If Eggy wanted to get spliced, let him, was the way I looked at it. Marriage might improve him. It was difficult to think of anything that wouldn’t.
  • I shuddered from stem to stern, as stout barks do when buffeted by the waves.
  • It was a harsh, rasping voice, in its timbre not unlike a sawmill.

One I liked was along the lines of ‘It would have been alright if things were other than they were, but that is just what they, in fact, weren’t’. But line after line are brilliant, and I laughed my way through this. The plot is really just decoration for his unparalleled turn of phrase, and I’m delighted that the 1936 club has given me the opportunity to read another of his masterpieces.

The Enchanted Voyage by Robert Nathan – #1936Club

Reading Robert Nathan is one of the relatively rare times when I know what it must be like to be an Anglophile-bibliophile outside of the UK. His books are pretty easy to stumble across in the US and pretty tricky to find here – but on both my visits to Washington DC, I managed to come away with a couple of his books. I bought The Enchanted Voyage in 2015 and, as luck would have it, it’s a 1936 title.

Nathan’s novels are always pretty short and whimsical, and The Enchanted Voyage is no different. The font is enormous and even so it’s something under 200 pages – telling the story of Mr Pecket, a carpenter who is disliked by his wife and cheated by his neighbours. Or perhaps ‘cheated’ isn’t the right word, since he walks open-eyed into situations where he will build shelving (say) and be hectored into being paid rather less than the value of the wood.

But, as the opening lines tell us, Mr Pecket has one eccentric passion:

Mr Hector Pecket had a boat. He had built it himself; it stood squarely on the ground in the yard of his little home in the Bronx, very far from the water. But it would scarcely have floated anywhere else, for Mr Pecket had neglected to  caulk it, and it had no keel. Nevertheless inland and to the eye, it was a boat; a little like an ark, but with a mast for sailing, an anchor, a windlass, belaying pins, a cabin, and a cockpit. It was named the Sarah Pecket, after his wife.

Mrs Sarah Pecket is not sensible of having received a compliment. Rather, she would live to have some household income – and sells the boat to a neighbour to run as a restaurant. She puts wheels on it, to transport it round the corner. In another sort of novel, we would have a lot of sympathy for Mrs Pecket. But in the fanciful and carefree world of Robert Nathan’s heroes, this is a crime – and we cheer Mr Pecket on when, in the middle of the night, he commandeers the boat and sails – no, rolls – away. The wheels move him on the ground, and the sail determines his direction.

Along the way, he picks up a disaffected waitress and a curious dentist – sure, why not – and they continue to trundle along with the aim of getting to Florida. But the real aim is just to get away from everyday life – the humdrum, the unkind, and the unimaginative. This isn’t an escape from reality – their boat is slowly wheeling along the roads, not floating off into the sky – but it is an escape nonetheless. There is a sort of Peter Pan esque tone to the whole thing. Emotions are broad and simple things in Nathan’s work, but there is something touching about seeing them so close to the surface.

This reading club year is really interesting, because by 1936 it seems to have been rather an open secret that a major conflict was coming. While plenty of politicians were famously trying to avert it, you get the sense from reading books of the period that the general population would not have been enormously surprised to have found themselves in the middle of a world war a few years later – at the very least, the prospect of it was a dominating conversation. So how would the topic find its way into the novels we’re looking at this year?

This is the nearest that The Enchanted Voyage gets to contemporary commentary:

Mr Pecket walked down the street, carrying his shelves and his tools. He looked into the faces of men and women, and what he saw made him feel anxious and sad. It seemed to him that a new feeling had come into the world since he was young; that people no longer felt kindly disposed toward one another. Now that the bad times were over, and it was possible to work again, they seemed to be looking for someone to blame for everything.

You – you have a sharp look, you dress too well. Doubtless it was you who made all the trouble in the world. Well, just keep out of my way after this.

And you, over there – you have no money and no work. To the devil with you. Perhaps you are a communist.

Interestingly, he is seeing this is as a period when the Great Depression is largely over – but senses that there are difficult things on the horizon too. In context, it hammers home Mr P’s dissatisfaction with the world, but it’s still very much of its time. Those are the sorts of details I love discovering in these club years.

Is Robert Nathan great literature? No, not really – but he is reliably diverting, with a joyful imagination and I love spending time in his eccentric and sweet worlds.

Thirteen Guests by J. Jefferson Farjeon – #1936Club

There are a whole bunch of British Library Crime Classics from 1936, and I have quite a few of them on my shelves. Which to choose? Murder in PiccadillyThe Sussex Downs Murder, and The Santa Klaus Murder were options, but I chose Thirteen Guests because I’ve enjoyed other J. Jefferson Farjeon novels.

It starts really promisingly. A jovial young man arrives at a country station, and leaps from the carriage – in so doing, he injures himself quite badly, because the train was in motion. A witty young woman takes pity on him – John and Nadine, for such are their names, at a delightful pair. Farjeon is great at fun dialogue that doesn’t feel forced, and I’d have loved a rom-com where they overcome their obstacles – e.g. Nadine is very funny about the fact that she is ten years older than John. That’s not what this novel is, of course.

John is persuaded to take shelter at a house where Nadine is staying – and he is the thirteenth guest. That means that, as well as the hosts, there are 13 more characters. Among them are a famous painter, a famous actress, a man who manufactures sausages, a gossip columnist, a trashy novelist, an MP…  goodness, there are so many of them.

And guess what guys? The first body that turns up is NONE of them!

I won’t write too much about this one because I’m going to put it in the ‘disappointment’ pile of British Library Crime Classics – because the writing is so good at the start, and I was so into the world he created. And I suppose the writing continues to be good, but before long I stopped noticing that because I was so confused. There are SO many characters, and the police who get involved – while very amusing – are the sort who like to list timings and places and variables over and over.

Anyway, if you have a mind for this sorts of complex detective novels than I do, then you might well love it. Perhaps very slow reading with a notebook and pen would be rewarding? But, for me, I’m afraid this one left me still have no idea who, what, why, where, or when even when I turned the final page.

Miss Linsey and Pa by Stella Gibbons – #1936club

Lots of Stella Gibbons’ novels have come back into print in recent years – from Vintage and from Dean Street Press – but Miss Linsey and Pa (1936) has been notably missing from their lists. Having read it for the 1936 Club, I can sadly see why it wouldn’t fit into 21st-century publishing. And yet it’s my favourite of her non-Cold-Comfort-Farm novels that I’ve read so far.

Miss Bertie Linsey and her Pa move to London to be near Bertie’s uncle – Mr Petley – and his son Len, realising that they need family connections now that they are falling on harder times. They leave behind an idyllic countryside home that comes with plenty of beautiful trees and green spaces, but no source of income. They are emphatically not invited to live with Mr Petley and Len above their tobacconist’s shop, but Mr Petley goes as far as to find them accommodation at the nearby home of the Fells. Mr Petley doesn’t trust any accommodation outside of Radford Street, and thinks that Miss Linsey and Pa will manage to make do with the dingy, beetle-infested home run by Mrs Fell. Mr Fell, meanwhile, keeps birds in the upper rooms and seldom communicates with anybody at all.

Gibbons has given us a wonderful cast here, even if we got no more (and we get some great other people). Miss Linsey is resilient, managing to be both enthusiastic and rather sad. Pa is happier than she to get to know the Fells, but is also drawn to know the local pub. Mr Petley is quite hardened and wants little to do with his in-laws, and is affectionately controlling of his son – whose life, and love, was left in France in the First World War two decades earlier.

There is quite an emotional core to this novel, particularly in Len’s storyline of the woman he loves in France – I found a lot of it very moving. But there are also plenty of opportunities for Gibbons’ satirical streak, that I haven’t seen have such a delightful outing in any of the other non-Cold-Comfort-Farm novels. In Miss Linsey and Pa, she has her sights on spearing Bloomsbury – because Miss Linsey finds work first as a cook-housekeeper at the home of Dorothy Hoad and E.V. Lassiter, and later as a sort of governess for a household with very strict rules on not telling the child stories and always calling everything by its proper name. These were my favourite sections – here’s how we first meet Miss Hoad, coming into the tobacconist and meeting Miss Linsey:

She nodded and, turning her back, stared out into the street with her dark unhappy eyes. What would E.V. be doing? She looked down at her platinum watch, of so fiercely modernist a design that it suggested a short story by Ernest Hemingway. Half-past three. E.V. might be trying to write, with the wave of hair falling into her eyes.

She turned round again as the drab man came back into the shop with a smaller and even drabber woman. G*d, how awful it must be to be that kind of person and live that kind of life!

And here is one of the many very funny snapshots of Bloomsbury life:

The women friends of Dorothy and herself used frequently to announce that they must have a child.

They would plomp themselves on the sofa, fling up their feet and put their elbows behind their heads and stare at the ceiling. Then they would say abruptly ‘I must have a child.’

‘You ought to have a child,’ they would say bluntly, when one of their number complained of a headache or an inability to finish writing a novel. Sometimes they had the child (they never called it a baby), sometimes they got no further than plomping on the sofa and announcing that they ought to have one.

For quite a short novel, an awful lot goes on – perhaps because there are four central characters who get our attention and sympathy, and plenty of secondary ones who are equally interesting. The combination of satire and pathos works because we aren’t asked to combine those feelings for any particular individual – rather our laughter at Bloomsbury, say, is part of what makes Miss Linsey’s difficult life so moving. And the climactic moment of the novel succeeds in being dramatic and poignant in a way that feels honest to everything that has preceded – including layers to Mr Fell, who could easily have been a one-note character experiencing unspecified mental illness.

And why wouldn’t it be published now? Well, sadly Gibbons includes portraits of a Black character, a Jewish character, and a lesbian that are all inappropriate to differing degrees. Some in that well-intentioned ‘You won’t believe this character is from X minority and yet isn’t Y’ way that is hardly any more palatable than out and out racism. These elements are very much not the main thrust of the novel, though it would also be hard to neatly excise them.

There’s a conversation to be had about the moral responsibility of reprint publishing, and perhaps that’s a topic for another day – but no author is ‘owed’ reprinting, and any publisher is likely to decide this isn’t worth the fight. And it’s a shame that these parts pull Miss Linsey and Pa back, because it is otherwise a wonderful triumph of a novel – and, with those caveats, perhaps my favourite read of the year so far.

#1936Club – links round-up

I’m very excited that the 1936 Club starts tomorrow – a week, run by me and Karen, where we invite everyone to read and review books published in 1936. It’s definitely been a bumper year of choices for me – I had literally dozens of options, and have narrowed down with difficulty.

I’m actually away at the end of the week, so may be a bit delayed with catching up – but please put your links in the comments here. If you don’t have a blog/GoodReads/LibraryThing etc, then do put your thoughts in the comments.

Happy reading!

Flowers for the Judge by Margery Allingham

Literary Potpourri

The Dark Frontier by Eric Ambler

A Hot Cup of Pleasure

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes

Reading Envy
What Me Read

Întâmplări în irealitatea imediată by Max Blecher (and three translations)

Finding Time to Write

Case for Three Detectives by Leo Bruce

Bitter Tea and Mystery

Double Indemnity by James M. Cain

Words and Peace
746 Books

War of the Newts by Karel Čapek

Lizzy’s Literary Life
Kinship of All Species

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Briefer Than Literal Statement

Little G by E.M. Channon

The Captive Reader
Stuck in a Book

Short stories by Agatha Christie

Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings

Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie

Staircase Wit
Book Around the Corner
Briefer Than Literal Statement

The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie

What Me Read

Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie

Scones and Chaise Longues
Hopewell’s Public Library of Life
Books Please
She Reads Novels
Bitter Tea and Mystery

The Strange Case of Harriet Hall by Moray Dalton

A Hot Cup of Pleasure

Susannah of the Mounties by Margaret Dennison

Staircase Wit

Death in the Back Seat by Dorothy Cameron Disney

A Hot Cup of Pleasure

Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier

Trisha Day
Book Word
What Me Read
Literary Gitane

Drums Along the Mohawk by Walter D. Edmonds

Staircase Wit

Murder in the Cathedral

T.S. Eliot

Thirteen Guests by J. Jefferson Farjeon

Stuck in a Book

The General by C.S. Forester

Booker Talk

All That Swagger by Miles Franklin

Brona’s Books

The Passion Years by Arthur Gask

Whispering Gums

Miss Linsey and Pa by Stella Gibbons

Stuck in a Book

A City of Bells by Elizabeth Goudge

Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud

Antigua Penny, Puce by Robert Graves

Sally Tarbox

A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene

Reading Matters

The Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay

A Hot Cup of Pleasure

The Talisman Ring by Georgette Heyer

Desperate Reader
Becky’s Book Reviews

Behold, Here’s Poison by Georgette Heyer

Desperate Reader
Staircase Wit

Live Alone and Like it by Marjorie Hillis

The Captive Reader
She Reads Novels

South Riding by Winifred Holtby

Scones and Chaise Longues

Parrots by Rex Ingamells

Brona’s Books

Death at the President’s Lodgings by Michael Innes

Staircase Wit

Minty Alley by C.L.R. James

Adventures in Reading, Running, and Working from Home
Heavenali

Together and Apart by Margaret Kennedy

Heavenali

Murder in Piccadilly by Charles Kingston

Bitter Tea and Mystery
A Hot Cup of Pleasure

The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf

Staircase Wit

The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann

Book Word

The Haunter of the Dark by HP Lovecraft

Calmgrove

The Shadow Out of Time by H.P. Lovecraft

Market Garden Reader

Mephisto by Klaus Mann

Lizzy’s Literary Life

Thank You, Mr Moto by John P Marquand

Typings

Death of Anton by Alan Melville

A Hot Cup of Pleasure

Anne of Windy Poplars by L.M. Montgomery

Karen’s Books and Chocolate

Collected Stories by Vladimir Nabokov

Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings

The Enchanted Voyage by Robert Nathan

Stuck in a Book

No Place Like Home by Beverley Nichols

Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings
Stuck in a Book

Begin Again by Ursula Orange

Stuck in a Book

Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell

Pining for the West
Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings
Book Around the Corner

The Swedish Cavalier by Leo Perutz

Words and Peace

Houses as Friends by Dorothy Pym

Stuck in a Book

The Poisoners by George R Preedy

A Hot Cup of Pleasure

One Murdered: Two Dead by Milton Propper

My Reader’s Block

A Puzzle for Fools by Patrick Quentin

A Hot Cup of Pleasure

Pigeon Post by Arthur Ransome

Pining for the West

Three Comrades by Erich Maria Remarque

A Hot Cup of Pleasure

The Fortunes of Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini

Desperate Reader

The Holiday Game by Mihail Sebastian

Finding Time To Write

All Star Cast by Naomi Royde-Smith

Neglected Books

Novel on Yellow Paper by Stevie Smith

Typings

Miss Buncle Married by D.E. Stevenson

Bag Full of Books

Ordeal by Hunger by George R. Stewart

Becky’s Book Reviews

Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

Staircase Wit
Bookish Beck

It Pays to be Good by Noel Streatfeild

Briefer Than Literal Statement
Pining for the West

The Wife Traders by Arthur Stringer

The Dusty Bookcase

A Cat, A Man, and Two Women by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki

Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings

A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey

Booked for Life

August Folly by Angela Thirkell

What Me Read

Who Killed Stella Pomeroy? by Sir Basil Thomson

My Reader’s Block

Murder in the Bookshop by Carolyn Wells

My Reader’s Block

The Shape of Things to Come by H.G. Wells

Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings

The Thinking Reed by Rebecca West

ANZ Lit Lovers

The Other Day by Dorothy Whipple

Karen’s Books and Chocolate

The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White

Heavenali

Young Men in Spats by P.G. Wodehouse

Lory on GoodReads

Laughing Gas by P.G. Wodehouse

Stuck in a Book

Fires by Marguerite Yourcenar

1st Readings

#1936Club: Reminder!

It’s now less than two weeks until the next club year, where Karen and I encourage everybody to read books published in the same year. I’ve lost track but we’ve done LOADS of them. This time – it’s 1936! It’s also my favourite image of all the badges so far. Don’t you just want to be in this room?

We’ll be running the week from 12-18 April, but you can start reading whenever you like… In fact, not gonna lie, I’ve already read seven 1936 titles… turns out it is a very good year for me. I’m looking forward to sharing the spoils, including two that are strong candidates for my best-of-2021 list. But, of course, I’ll keep a book or two to read during the week itself.

Announcing the 1936 Club!

Thank you for all your suggestions for the next club year! Karen and I looked through them all and had a discussion, and decided to go with Marina’s suggestion of 1936, which has a good range of well-known novels as well as many lesser-known works, of course.

We did think about evening up the decades by doing another 1970s year, but neither of us were that excited by the prospect… what I can say, the 1930s turned our heads. And it’s a great excuse to use this lovely image that I found on Flickr (with rights for re-use). Wouldn’t this be wonderful on a book cover? I might put it on The Provincial Lady Goes Further, actually, though that’s four years too early for this club.

Obviously six months is a lot of notice, but we’ll make sure to remind you in good time before next April. Already looking forward to it!