Toby Lichtig
Up The Creek
The Wikipedia entry for John Irving has a useful anorak’s checklist of the recurring motifs in the author’s eleven novels to date. This diverse array includes bears; severed body parts; New Hampshire; wrestling; absent parents; mortal accidents; and characters who are also writers. All feature prominently in his new, twelfth, novel, as do many other favourites, such as Phillips Exeter Academy (where Irving grew up), sex between young boys and older women (see Irving’s disclosure of his abuse as a preteen), and the city of Iowa (where Irving studied). Along with a good knotty yarn, you know what you’re getting with John Irving.
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'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