A. Bennett, Smut
E.M. Brent Dyer, The Head Girl of the Chalet School
M. Bulgakov, The White Guard
P. Delerm, The small pleasures of life
W.S. Maugham, The Magician
C. Mieville, Embassytown
S.S. Tepper, Beauty
R. Zelazny, The Guns of Avalon*
R. Zelazny, Sign of the Unicorn*
C. Mieville, Embassytown
S.S. Tepper, Beauty
R. Zelazny, The Guns of Avalon*
R. Zelazny, Sign of the Unicorn*
R. Zelazny, The Hand of Oberon*
R. Zelazny, The Courts of Chaos*
R. Zelazny, Trumps of Doom
R. Zelazny, Trumps of Doom
R. Zelazny, Blood of Amber
R. Zelazny, Sign of Chaos
R. Zelazny, Knight of Shadows
R. Zelazny, Prince of Chaos
A post - baby reading record. Heavily inflated by reading Books 2-10 of the Chronicles of Amber (note: they are all very short). They weren't exceptional. In fact, even the classic first quintet compared unfavourably to others in its genre this month. Tepper was enormously inventive and original - as she reliably is. And I thought the Mieville was too.
However, they were all as pygmies beside Priestley. English Journey is a well known classic, and it deserves to be. It's well observed, with exceptional turns of phrase - I have a forest of bookmarks to dig out for quotations - but it's much more than that. It's intended as a survey of England in the 1930s, which of course it is, but, unlike Orwell's register of poverty that it inspired, it is rooted in the longer term evolution of England and English society. It also contains rather delightfully robust asides from the author on the state of the nation; and on generally held views on the state of the nation. Some of those aren't quite right, but they have a lot less wrong with them than Orwell's (and they take up less space); many are spot on, and a pleasure to read. It's scope makes it still highly relevant today: in a period where we are spending our time questioning the Union and the nation, I would suggest we could all do well to read books like this. Instead, outrageously, it is out of print. Hunt it down.
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