All Purls. No Swine.
She was born 122 years ago today, on August 16, 1902, the daughter of a British Army officer and a classically-trained musician. She grew up in Paris and London and--when her sickly brother was bed-bound in 1919--began to tell him stories set in Georgian (eighteenth century) England. Those stories were, with the encouragement of her… Continue reading For Georgette Heyer, on the Occasion of her 122nd Birthday
About 2 1/2 years ago, I wrote a post mentioning John Higgs's biography of William Blake, saying that I couldn't call my post a "book review" because I hadn't read it yet. I have read it since, and it's a wonderful book. I highly recommend this book for anyone who's interested in exploring the roots… Continue reading A Book Review: William Blake Verus The World, by John Higgs
A few years ago, I wrote a post on "The Great American Novel." What follows, on this, just the eighty-eighth anniversary of the publication of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind (what a very young country is this United States), is a lightly edited version of that post, and a few remarks on why we… Continue reading From Gone With the Wind to China Beach, The “N-Word” in Popular Culture
Several months ago, I wrote a "very preliminary" book review of John Blashford-Snell’s From Utmost East to Utmost West: My Life of Exploration and Adventure. Happily, someone took me up on the challenge to read the entire book and write the actual whole thing, and the result is this post on the Ricochet main feed. (Worth… Continue reading On Family Memories and the Meaning of “Gift”
She was born 121 years ago today, on August 16, 1902, the daughter of a British Army officer and a classically-trained musician. She grew up in Paris and London and--when her sickly brother was bed-bound in 1919--began to tell him stories set in Georgian (eighteenth century) England. Those stories were, with the encouragement of her… Continue reading Happy Birthday, Georgette Heyer: And Many Thanks
Whatever the cause, my memory is my memory, it does what it does, gathers and curates as it sees fit, and there's just as much truth in what I remember and how I remember it as there is in so-called objective facts. Things like chronology and cause-and-effect are often just fables we tell ourselves about… Continue reading Quote of the Day: On Narcissism and Truth
Cross-posted from Ricochet: And a conclusion: If you only buy one book in 2023, make it this one. I hope I’m not alone in my annual habit of buying myself the occasional Christmas present, wrapping it up, and labeling it “with love from the dogs–we tried not to slobber on it” or “from the sheep–thanks for the hay!” or “affectionately,… Continue reading From Utmost East to Utmost West: A Very Preliminary Book Review
My childhood in Corfu shaped my life. If I had the craft of Merlin, I would give every child the gift of my childhood--Gerald Durrell I was a voracious reader as a child. If it came between endboards, I read it. Too young for me (I loved the Peter Rabbit tales for years longer than I should… Continue reading “The Gift of My Childhood”
A recent, and very enjoyable, perusal of a book review in the Daily Telegraph (apologies if you can't get behind the paywall, but it was of this book: From Utmost East to Utmost West--My Life of Exploration and Adventure, by Colonel John Blashford-Snell**), put me in mind of a post from almost exactly a year… Continue reading Patrick Leigh Fermor: A Gift for Adventure
I can't review it, because I haven't read it yet. But I'm charmed by a lengthy excerpt which the author himself has posted on Lapham's Quarterly. It's the story of an unlikely friendship that developed towards the end of Blake's life, and one which reminds me--as do so many biographies and vignettes of eighteenth century… Continue reading Not A Book Review: William Blake Verus The World, by John Higgs