I finally read Helene Hanff’s The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, and it’s a quiet delight. Hanff finally makes her long-dreamed-of journey to London, and records it with the same wit, warmth, and honesty that made 84, Charing Cross Road so beloved.
Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood is a haunting exploration of family dynamics and the lingering effects of unresolved histories. With its subtle, elusive narrative, the book leaves much to the imagination, creating a lasting sense of mystery and intrigue. Read my full review to delve deeper into the complexities of Blackwood’s storytelling.
Last month NYRB Classics released Natalia Ginzburg’s novellas Family and Borghesia in one lovely edition. It’s my year of reading Ginzburg!
Trevor reviews Jean Améry’s 1978 novel-essay, Charles Bovary, Country Doctor: Portrait of a Simple Man, translated from the German by Adrian Nathan West.
Trevor looks at Richard Stern’s Other Men’s Daughters, a complicated and often frustrating look at late 1960s New England from a decidedly 1970s perspective.
It’s always a momentous occasion when a living author gets their work released in The Library of America. It has rarely happened, and I think the only other living author in there now is Philip Roth, but it has recently happened once again. Ursula K. Le Guin, the 86-year-old whose career started over sixty years […]
Trevor reviews the first book in Patrick Leigh Fermor’s three-book project about his walking trip across Europe in the early 1930s, A Time of Gifts.
