To All the Living (1945) by Monica Felton

Book review by George Simmers: This is a big thick example of one of my favourite middlebrow genres. It reminded me of South Riding and National Provincial – big books that take it on themselves to describe a whole community. The community in To All the Living is a new one, brought about by the … Continue reading →

The Parasites (1949) by Daphne du Maurier

Book Review by George Simmers: This very funny and sometimes affecting novel is about the Delaneys, a family of three step-siblings. The frame narrative tells the story of the day when Charles (husband of Maria, one of the three) scornfully tells all of them: ‘You’re just parasites!’ The novel flashes back through their lives. The … Continue reading →

Swan Song (1928) by John Galsworthy

Book Review by George Simmers: Another General Strike novel. Swan Song is the sixth novel in the Forsyte Saga, and the last of the second trilogy ‘A Modern Chapter’. The first trilogy had been an examination of pre-war England, and the second deals with post-war life. One character’s diagnosis is: ‘what happened to the Age—something … Continue reading →

Young Anarchy (1926) by Philip Gibbs

Book Review by George Simmers: Philip Gibbs was the most topical of twenties novelists. The General Strike put the country at a standstill in June 1926, and in September of the same year, Gibbs’s novel about it appeared. Gibbs had been a journalist as well as a novelist since before 1914, and had achieved distinction … Continue reading →

My Days: A Memoir (1974) by R.K. Narayan

Book review by Sue Roe: I hesitate to say this but I had never heard of Narayan. He was a well-known (if not to me!) Tamil Hindu, a writer of over 200 novels, as well as plays and short stories. His memoir, written in 1974, was an easy read and very enjoyable. It records his … Continue reading →

The Cavalry Went Through (1930) by Bernard Newman

Book review by George S: This is an unusual novel, since it imagines a counterfactual history. It gives us an alternative version of the Great War – which it dates as 1914-1917. The abbreviation of the conflict a year earlier than actuality is due to one man, Henry Berrington Duncan. After a grammar-school education and … Continue reading →

Black Mischief (1932) by Evelyn Waugh

Book review by George Simmers: I hadn’t read Black Mischief since I was a teenager, when I remember enjoying it heartily. Since then it is a book that has attracted a lot of opprobrium, as the most prejudiced of Waugh’s novels, containing attitudes and stereotypes offensive to modern sensitivities. In the twenty-first century, I approached … Continue reading →

Buried Alive (1908) by Arnold Bennett

Book Review by George S: Buried Alive is a novel based on a premise that is ridiculously unlikely. The novel’s anti-hero is Priam Farll, a celebrated painter who suffers from almost pathological shyness. He is protected from the world by his servant Henry Leek: and Henry Leek was Priam Farll’s bad habit. While somewhat of … Continue reading →