Never read a Bronte. Seen a couple of movies though. Not a factor in any travel plans.
Shirley was taken up by the feminist movement, why the name became popular in a period in time of the campaign for female equality.
Vera Brittain the writer named her daughter Shirley, the one who went on to figure in English politics as Shirley Williams.
Played by Alice Vikander in Testament of Youth, also starring Jon Snow (Kit Harington).
Vera Brittain, that is.
The better 1979 TV series had Cheryl Campbell as Vera and Jane Wenham as Mrs Brittain.
I read Vilette not long ago. Underwhelming, I thought.
And Jane Eyre was a fabulous novel. It deteriorates a bit towards the end after the climax, but the first part in particular, about her childhood, is incredibly powerful.
I thought Sargasso Sea was okay, but that’s all.
I briefly knew Francis Wyndham who led me to Jean Rhys and I read most of her books. She was a fragile person, allegedly stole Ford Madox Ford from Stella Bowen,an Australian War Artist and writer. Which led me to Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier ( with an intro by Graham Greene) and his other works, the pre Raphaelites and his literary society with the likes of Conrad. Through his grandfather he was immersed in music.
I did read The Good Soldier quite recently, but I can’t remember it at all. I think it was a novel that was written to make a moral point. Like Eyeless in Gaza, which I just finished reading. It’s worth reading if you haven’t done so already.
The only thing I know about Ford Madox Ford is that he has a very memorable name.
I read all the Huxleys along time ago, I think I culled them when I moved house. I did keep a complete set of my Conrads, B Traven, Eleanor Dark , Le Carre and too many others , a lot of autobiography or biography sets like Vera Brittain, Bloomsbury Set and the Boyd books, history and art reference books. I did cull ten times, but shelves still heavy with books I’ll never reread.
I feel your pain.
I’ve also had a huge cull or two of my DVD’s, usually to retirement homes. They don’t want the books unfortunately because they’re not Large Print.
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Fordie as he was known to his mates. He didn’t use his family name of Hueffer, partly because he wanted to be known as an Englishman.
You won’t find any conversations between the persons on his novels. When asked the reasons for this, he said it was because people rarely listened to each other in conversation mode.
Interesting, but I don’t agree with him
Just finished The Crag by Claire Sutherland about a murder near Mount Arapiles, a prominent rock-climbing geographic feature near Natimuk , just west of Horsham, so @wimmera1 may well be familiar.
Skye, an ambo in Horsham, is walking her dogs when she discovers a young woman’s body in a depression at a farm 5kms from Arapiles. She’s seconded into the police investigation and it follows through to the discovery of another body.
Got a few twists and turns, but it’s a good read, better as a rock-climbing story than the recent Hayley Scrivenor novel, Girl, Falling, which had a little too much narcissism and psychological angst for my tastes.
It’s less than 200kms from here, so I thought I might find out more about Mt Arapiles on Youtube. Watched a bushwalking one from an old ABC video and another starring Stuart Faichney, the silver-haired dude who used to be the face of State Bank ads before its collapse and sale to the Commonwealth Bank. “State Bank, No Risk” which proved to be unfortunately way off the mark. “Straight Wank, No Wrist” may have been more appropriate. And now I’m copping new rock-climbing videos on Youtube every day.
Mt Arapiles is on the international map as a must for serious rock climbers, but some parts have been closed off. I think it was featured in Backroads.
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There were certainly a few ABC shows in the offerings on YouTube.
In other news, I picked up Richard Osman’s new offering, We Solve Murders, not a Thursday Murder Club.
And I hear they’re filming the sequel to Scrublands, with Jock Serong involved in the script as he was for Scrublands.
The new Chris Hammer and the new Michael Connelly drop October 1.
I’ll be interested to see what you think of the Richard Osman. I was not all that excited about the last one.
Just been to the regular doctor appointment, and after discussing aspects of Portugal…the hills, the cobbled streets etc…he told me of a book he’d recently loved, Pereira Maintains, set just before WW2 in the reign of Salazar. So I use a credit on Audible to line it up.
Coming soon…Chris Hammer, The Valley, Oct 1
Ian Rankin (Rebus), Midnight and Blue, Oct 8
Michael Connelly, The Waiting, Bosch/Ballard, Oct 15
Patricia Wolf, Opal, Sep 30
I also had a Robert Harris book Precipice, set in the time running up to WW1 recommended so grabbed that on Audible too.
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Finished Richard Osman’s We Solve Murders last night.
First thoughts…it was a tad long (about 440 pages) and tried a little too hard to maintain the witty writing.
The main characters are Steve, a widowed ex-cop working as a very lightweight PI, finding dogs and the like. His daughter-in-law, Amy, a close personal assistant aka bodyguard. And Rosie, the world’s most successful author, a lady of undisclosed age who’s currently hiding on an island off North Carolina, being protected by Amy because Rosie slighted a Russian oligarch in a book.
Everyone seems to have a contract out on the them, but the good guys solve it all.
I’m not sure what to make of this one. It took a long time to get going and I felt that it dragged a little in places and was too predictable in others.
Despite Osman’s trademark cosy style and whimsical humour, at times I found it a bit of a chore to keep reading. His editor could have been more active with the blue pencil, I reckon.
I’ve read worse, but I’ve read much better. No more than a 7/10 for me.
Just finished The Survivors by Jane Harper… i enjoyed it.
Now reading A Line To Kill by Anthony Horowitz… book 3 in his Hawthorne Horowitz series. I have been reading them out of order which doesnt really matter. I love the relationship between the two very different characters, the gruff, complex Hawthorne (ex police detective) and the proper, needy Horowitz (author).