Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley is remembered above all for creating a monster – the grotesque but perceptive creature from her 1818 novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.
Non-Fiction
BOOK REVIEW: A Chill in the Air: An Italian War Diary 1939–1940
Iris Origo was known to me as being one of the finest diarists of the 20th century for her moving and compassionate journal detailing Italy’s disastrous involvement in the same conflict.
BOOK REVIEW: House of Fiction: From Pemberley to Brideshead, Great British Houses in Literature and Life
Phyllis Richardson is the author of several books on architecture and design, and in this, her latest compendium, she writes knowledgeably about the great fictional British houses we have come to know intimately over the last four hundred or so years.
BOOK REVIEW: Shooting Stars Are the Flying Fish of the Night
What a fabulous title, was my initial reaction to receiving Shooting Stars are the Flying Fish of the Night from Linen Press.
THOUGHTS ON: The Outrun
Without a doubt, this book has been my favourite read of 2017.
Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Words: The Authorised Biography #ToveTrove
Tove Jansson, author of the Moomins and one of the great idiosyncratic talents of the 20th century, must surely have found her ideal biographer in Boel Westin.
Book Review: The Novel Cure: An A to Z of Literary Remedies
You know you’ve morphed into a literoholic when you start reading books about books – and having just finished The Novel Cure, I must also confess to being something of a literary valetudinarian.