Bibliography, August 2017

BOTM: A. Bennett, These Twain (1918)

E.M. Brent-Dyer, The Chalet girls in Camp (1932)
J.P. Bean, (ed.) Singing from the floor: a history of British folk clubs (2014)
D.L. Sayers, Five red herrings (1931)

Slim pickings this month because a) I was finishing the doctorate and b) I've started to read Piketty. I also called the winner last month - These Twain  is masterful. Arnold Bennnett is desperately unfashionable now, but I don't really know why. He's capable of drawing character and plot on the domestic stage with great skill and without melodrama. I spent much of Clayhanger and this volume waiting for the business to fail, but it doesn't. The action is elsewhere. There aren't quite as many lovely asides as in the first volume, but it's a brilliant anatomisation of a marriage. It's obviously dated in some ways, but only in a trivial way. There will be more Bennett to come. Honourable mention to Bean's oral history of British Folk. I don't really like oral history, but this really grew on me.

Bibliography, July 2017

BOTM: M.F.K. Fisher, The Gastronomical me (1943)

A. Bennett, Hilda Lessways (1911)
J. Cash, Forever words (2016)
The Detection Club, The Floating Admiral (1931)
C. Hitchens, No one left to lie to (1999)
J. Williams, The Copper promise (2014)

This was a bit of struggle. I'm loving Bennett, but Hilda Lessways doesn't quite do it (spoiler: no problems with the follow up next month). Similarly, the idea of the Detection Club is so conceptually perfect the book, while fun, didn't quite live up to it. I even had issues with my chosen volume. Fisher's writing is lovely, but it did need an editor - there were moments of meandering. However, the good bits were very good.  And her account of Dijon and Burgundian cuisine manged to evoke nostalgia for a place I have never visited. I wonder if I can persuade A that we need a family holiday to eastern France.