Christena Appleyard
Past Participants
A House Full of Daughters
By Juliet Nicolson
Chatto & Windus 325pp £14.99 order from our bookshop
Love Like Salt: A Memoir
By Helen Stevenson
Virago 289pp £14.99 order from our bookshop
Alive, Alive Oh! And Other Things That Matter
By Diana Athill
Granta Books 144pp £12.99 order from our bookshop
Daughterhood is the subject matter of Juliet Nicolson’s tense, highly personal and beautifully written book. Nicolson is a historian and the daughter of the writer Nigel Nicolson. She spent much of her childhood in the magical surroundings of Sissinghurst. In her foreword, she shows that she is alert to any charges that the people who appear in this family history may be considered too privileged for their struggles to be taken seriously. ‘But’, she writes, ‘I wondered if wealth and class always amounted to privilege in a broader sense.’
Well, yes, it looks that way. Nicolson’s father wrote in his diary on the day she was born that when she was given a spoonful of water she accepted it ‘with the maturity of a marchioness sipping Cointreau’. Her grandmother Vita Sackville-West wrote in her diary, ‘And if she ever
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
'This is entertainment of the highest class.'
@NJCooper_crime reviews new thrillers by Mick Herron, Kassandra Montag, @LVaughanwrites, @AuthorSJBolton, @ajaychow, @tombradby, @SaraParetsky, @writejemmawayne & @GillianMAuthor.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/may-2022-crime-round-up
'The day Simon and I Vespa-d from Daunt to Daunt to John Sandoe to Hatchards to Goldsboro, places where many of the booksellers have become my friends over the years, was the one with the high puffy clouds, the very strong breeze, the cool-warm sunlight.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/temple-of-vespa
Some salient thoughts on book collecting from Michael Dirda with a semi tragic conclusion that I suspect many of us can relate to from the @Lit_Review #WednesdayMotivation