Winifred Holtby's South Riding (1936) You know how some people say that they won't read fantasy novels because the long list of characters in the front is just too much? Well, I just checked the list in Guy Gavriel Kay's first book of The Fionavar Tapestry, and the list is
My first Angela Carter read was The Magic Toyshop. Somewhere I'd gotten the idea that I would like this novel without any real understanding of its author, so I was surprised by just how magical that toyshop really was, but I recognized something about Angela Carter that led me to
Pat Barker's Liza's England (Virago, VMC #417, 1986) This month two longstanding reading projects intersect: the Green VMCs and the Orange Prize meet. Historically I believe there are four authors whose writing has been published on the Virago Modern Classic list and has also been listed for the Orange Prize
Dorothy West’s The Wedding VMC No. 431 (1995) I’ve been moving through time on Thursdays in Black History Month, from the mid-19th-Century in Hannah Crafts’ The Bondwoman’s Narrative, through Zora Neale Hurston’s Jonah’s Gourd Vine, through the 1950’s in Paule Marshall’s Brown Girl, Brownstones, and now to the Oval area
Paule Marshall's Brown Girl Brownstones VMC No. 87 (1959) Without knowing anything of it, I chose Paule Marshall's novel Brown Girl, Brownstones to read with Black History Month in mind (along with Hannah Crafts' The Bondwoman's Narrative and Zora Neale Hurston's Jonah's Gourd Vine). It was kind of a random
