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Paris, May 1968, the student's revolution by Carol Drinkwater
May 1968, ParisThese photos were taken by Bruno Barbey who was a twenty-five-year-old photographer in '68 and a superb visual...
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Frida Kahlo at the V&A by Janie Hampton
Frida Kahlo 1907-1954 Image courtesy of Museo Frida Kahlo. © Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Archives, Banco de México. My oldest grand-daughter, Matilda, is 9 and a self-confessed ‘Victorian Expert.’ So...
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The Devil is in the detail by Rachel hore
Rachel Hore is the author of nine novels, nearly all with historical settings. Last Letter Home was chosen for the Richard & Judy Book Club in association with W.H. Smith. She lives in Norwich...
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Publishing history by Mary Hoffman
This month's "guest post" is a bit unusual. Don't worry - you'll still have a chance to win a book tomorrow; it's not that different!Readers may be aware that I run, with my husband, a small...
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September Competition
To win either of the two books featured yesterday jsut answer the following question in the Comments section:"What book set in a European country, in the past, is your favourite and why?"Then copy your...
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Granddad and The Zeppelins by Susan Price
Recently, we’ve been remembering the two World Wars: rationing, evacuees, bombs, black-outs… I thought I’d jot down a few of the family stories my parents told me about their war-time experiences...
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Waking up in a French cave, by Gillian Polack
This morning I’m dreaming of France. I suspect this is a problem that writers who use history in their fiction tend to have. Not specifically to dream about France, but to wake up mentally in the place...
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The Top Ten Gothic Novels - Chosen by Anna Mazzola
As the nights draw in and the spirits move closer, it’s time to huddle beneath your Victorian counterpane with an unbearably creepy book. Many brilliant Gothic reads are being released in time for...
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The Elf-Mounds of Ireland... (2) by Katherine Langrish
Following on from my last month's post on the mound at Dowth, here I am, thrilled to be standing in front of the magnificent passage grave of Brú na Bóinne or Newgrange, in Co. Meath, Ireland. Another...
View ArticleThe First Stop Motion Animation - Joan Lennon
Coraline, The Box Trolls, Wallace and Gromit, A Town Called Panic, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! Kubo and the Two Strings, Isle of Dogs, and so many more - stop motion animation films...
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Belfast 1918 -- A Poem by Sheena Wilkinson
Today is 50 years since the Civil Rights march in Derry the reaction to which is generally thought to have sparked off the NI Troubles I wrote this poem in response to a photo of Belfast 1918, but...
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A visit to Gladstone's Library.....by Adèle Geras
Early in June, right at the beginning of one of the hottest and sunniest summers on record, I went to spend a couple of days at Gladstone's Library in Hawarden, North Wales with a group of writer...
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'He Loves You like Salt' by Karen Maitland
What do a Medieval dove cote, a Regency rolling pin and the Victorian novelist Charles Dickens have in common? The answer is salt.Medieval Dove Cote, Llantwit Manor, Belonged to the Abbey of...
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Writing Londinium with the Seven Senses
Trying a garland made by Patty Baker (Kent)by Caroline Lawrence[This is a shortened and edited amalgam of two papers I gave in early-October 2018, one for the University of Kent and one for a...
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cod fail - Michelle Lovric
I've done a lot of crazy things in cars on the terraferma of the Veneto. It always seems to go wrong. Some might say that I'm better off never leaving Venice. This post feels like a continuation of Not...
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A wander through the history of Iffley Village
I am lucky enough to live in the village of Iffley, about 2 miles from the centre of Oxford. One route from the centre of Oxford to Iffley runs along the side of Thames, another traverses the ancient...
View ArticleThe Great Courses
Some years ago, in a quest to lose weight, I took up running. Running, as many of you will know, is unbelievably boring - especially for those of us shaped less like runners and more like flat-footed...
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The Etiquette of Apples
by Deborah SwiftJeanne Illenye - The Fateful TemptationI have been lucky enough to be given a huge plastic bag full of apples from my friend's orchard, and have been busy cooking up stewed apples and...
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The Pleasures and Perils of Living Abroad - by Lesley Downer
My Idealed John Bullesses by Yoshio Makino 1912London in 1900 was like New York today, a city where you craned your neck gazing up at the towering stone buildings while all around people rushed hither...
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Sylvia Plath's Letters Volume 2 by Fay Bound Alberti
I have just finished reading the second volume of Sylvia Plath's Letters, published by Faber and Faber. They make for sober reading. The first volume, published in 2017, covered the period 1940-1956....
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