Valerie Grove
Weathering the Dorm
Terms and Conditions: Life in Girls' Boarding Schools, 1939-1979
By Ysenda Maxtone Graham
Slightly Foxed 272pp £17.50 order from our bookshop
Schoolmistresses have two kinds of chest. They have either ‘bosoms out to here’ (vast and shelf-like) or ‘bosoms down to here’ (sagging and fleshless). Bosoms are always a source of fascination for growing schoolgirls. No wonder the women who confide their boarding-school memories to Ysenda Maxtone Graham in this exuberant book invariably begin their reminiscences of teachers with the instantly definable bosoms.
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
For the summer issue of @Lit_Review I wrote about THE GOLDEN RULE, @AmandaPCraig's latest: a lean, high-stakes drama touching on domestic violence, Generation Rent and video game design.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/murder-they-spoke
'He wrote obsessively and at tremendous length – as a youth William drew a witty sketch of his father vigorously beating a dead horse – and frayed his nerves in the process.'
John Banville charts the turbulent life of William James.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-pragmatists-progress
'Everyone talks about the light on Hydra, but sometimes there’s a very good reason why everyone talks about something. The light on Hydra is bronze and blinding.'
Joanna Kavenna on Athens, the Inklings, and why Homer thought sheep were purple.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-call-of-the-wine-dark-sea