Tag Archives: Siegfried Sassoon

A.S. Byatt, “The Children’s Book”

Posted on November 4, 2009 by carolwallace

What an ambitious book this is! And a puzzling one as well. There’s sometimes something quite dull about Byatt’s writing — I think it has to do with the distance she maintains from her characters. And yet it’s also completely … Continue reading →

Posted in literary fiction | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Margot Asquith, “Octavia”

Posted on June 23, 2009 by carolwallace

I am so happy that I live in a place where the communal book shelf in the laundry room (recent source of that Simenon novel) also yielded Margot Asquith’s Octavia. I read her autobiography years ago, while researching the heiresses … Continue reading →

Posted in anglophilia, horses | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Dorothy Sayers, “Whose Body?”

Posted on February 6, 2009 by carolwallace

I went to Columbia to watch the Inauguration.  They had a Jumbotron below the steps of Low Library and as we all stood there in the brilliant snowy cold listening to Obama’s speech, the bells at Riverside Church began to … Continue reading →

Posted in anglophilia, mystery | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Siegfried Sassoon, “Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man”

Posted on February 3, 2009 by carolwallace

This book has been on my radar for decades, ever since my teenage horsey phase. I vaguely remember trying to read it, but grasping that it wasn’t really about horses. Then of course when I read Vera Brittain’s Testament of … Continue reading →

Posted in classic, horses, letters, memoir | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments