Gill Hornby
All Hellbent on their Own Destruction
Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women
By Elizabeth Wurtzel
Quartet 432pp £12.50 order from our bookshop
The American poet Anne Sexton – celebrated, like the other American poet Sylvia Plath, for her suicide – once burned her finger a teensy little bit at a dinner party, while she was striking a match. The incident is recalled here by a fellow dinner guest:
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Only in Britain, perhaps, could spy chiefs – conventionally viewed as masters of subterfuge – be so highly regarded as ethical guides.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-spy-who-taught-me
In this month's Bookends, @AdamCSDouglas looks at the curious life of Henry Labouchere: a friend of Bram Stoker, 'loose cannon', and architect of the law that outlawed homosexual activity in Britain.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-gross-indecency
'We have all twenty-nine of her Barsetshire novels, and whenever a certain longing reaches critical mass we read all twenty-nine again, straight through.'
Patricia T O'Conner on her love for Angela Thirkell. (£)
https://literaryreview.co.uk/good-gad