John Hopkins
Sweltering Skies
Travels: Collected writings, 1950-93
By Paul Bowles
Sort of Books 480pp £14.99 order from our bookshop
When entering Paul Bowles’s flat in Tangier the first thing you noticed were the suitcases. Piled high, the well-travelled cases were exotically decorated with steamship tags and first-class hotel stickers detailing his worldwide wanderings: Paris, Rome, Madrid, Mexico, Central America, Morocco, Algeria, Kenya, India, Turkey and Ceylon. His friend Brion Gysin quipped that Paul kept those suitcases stuffed with traveller’s cheques in case he had to make a quick exit from Tangier.
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