Reading Page

What I read

Finished Dance and Skylark, which was a bit slight (felt there was a certain unresolved slashy subtext going on between Stephen and his former Greek-American wartime comrade in arms, hmmm) though I marked it up for the women characters looking as if they might be a bit one-dimensional and then revealing other facets.

Katherine V Forrest, Delafield (2022) - Kate Delafield, still retired, dealing with a stalker who is a woman who her poor handling of a case way back in her career led to being falsely imprisoned, and now released through the Innocence Project, also her PTSD issues, etc, also old relationship stuff.

Long Live Great Bardfield: The Autobiography of Tirzah Garwood - Persephone edition, 2016, initially published in limited edition 2012 - her memoir written when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastectomy in the 1940s, for her family, edited with some supplementary material by her daughter. Said a bit about it here.

Ursula Whitcher, North Continent Ribbon (2024) - v good.

KJ Charles, The Henchmen of Zenda (2018), re-read because not feeling up to much.

On the go

Still dipping into Melissa Scott, Scenes from the City.

Have started the other book for review - wow there is a lot of insider baseball stuff about the Parliamentary toings and froings over the legislation in question, or maybe I mean, how the sausage got made - and maybe my general state at the moment is not quite in the right space.

Just started, Kris Ripper, The Life Revamp (The Love Study #3) (2021) because it was on offer in my Recommended for You on Kobo today.

Up Next

New Literary Review.

Otherwise, not sure.

Since we are hoping to get to the Tirzah Garwood exhibition at Dulwich before it closes, I have finally got round to reading Long Live Great Bardfield: The Autobiography of Tirzah Garwood (Persephone 2016).

I think my original interest was because I thought her arty circles would intersect a bit more with my fubsy progressives, but although a few familiar names surfaced less so than I had anticipated.

However, in an episode rather counter to the kind of narrative one expects in arty boho circles of the period, in 1942 she had a therapeutic abortion in the local hospital, which is a thing I have never come across among all the tales of pills, backstreet operators, sleazo Harley street docs, dodgy nursing homes, etc, pre the 67 Act. She had just had a mastectomy - this was in fact what led her to start writing the autobiography for her family - and became pregnant only a few months later (!!!???). This was deemed entirely grounds for a termination, but even so, doing ward rounds with medical students, the surgeon remarked that it was 'illegal' but that provided medical opinion agreed that continuing pregnancy and childbirth would be dangerous, No Jury Would Convict. This was very few years after the high-profile Aleck Bourne case, that docs were justified if the woman would be left a 'physical or mental wreck'.

I also find this rather resonant, in view of the current situation with women getting charged under the 1861 Act.

The other thing that struck me was that Garwood and her circles could easily be hanging out on the periphery of Dance to the Music of Time - every so often they get invited to a country house or interact with the local gentry, and at one point have to do with a socialist peer who has an encampment of Basque refugees on his estate....

(Larfs liek a hysterykle drayne.)

Life and work of Thomas Hardy to be performed at Stonehenge: Readings and performances will be staged at the ‘misfortune of ruins’ that long fascinated the writer.

The novelist and poet Thomas Hardy was fascinated by Stonehenge, using what he described as “the temple of the winds” both as a setting for one of his most striking scenes and as a lifelong inspiration, a pathway back into ancient times.
In what is being billed as a unique performance, the life and work of Hardy is being showcased at the great stone circle in Wiltshire as part of Salisbury international arts festival.
....
An orchestra will play music, ranging from the sort of folk tunes Hardy may have been familiar with to pieces by Gustav Holst and Peter Warlock.
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It is believed to be the first time that a performance incorporating Hardy’s life and work has been staged at Stonehenge.
Lesser said: “Hopefully* it’ll be lovely weather and you’ll have this marvellous atmosphere as the evening develops with the light changing and these wonderful words of Hardy.”

I don't suppose they are going to represent Hardy in his lighter and realistic vein:

Last week's bread held out very well, right up until the point when it did something quite spectacular in the mould department, fortunately there was still a roll left from the weekend.

Friday night supper: (I had been hoping it would hold out for frittata, sigh) ven pongal (South Indian khichchari).

Saturday breakfast rolls: basic buttermilk, 3:1 Marriage's Light Spelt Flour (end of the bag), and Marriage's Golden Wholegrain Bread Flour, which worked rather well.

Today's lunch: sweet potato gratin, shallots rather than onion as I had some left from the other week, and kalamata olive tapenade; served with spinach sauteed more or less according to Dharamjit Singh's recipe in Indian Cookery (really doesn't need added water), and gingery healthy-grilled baby courgettes (teriyaki rather than tamari, and I really didn't think marinade needed extra salt).