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librainian_44's reviews
394 reviews
A View Of The Harbour: A Virago Modern Classic by Sarah Waters, Elizabeth Taylor
3.0
Goings on in a small British fishing/tourist village after the second World War. Men and money are scarce but gossip is not. How the various characters face the challenges has more to do with their innate personalities than their circumstances. Taylor is good at drawing characters, who cast a doleful mood over the book.
The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
3.0
Spark writes about young women in London just after the second World War. They are an animated bee hive who laugh, gossip, try beauty tricks, eat, diet, date men, reject men, make due with very little, and have fun. And yet...below the surface are some very sad and lonely stories which are the more poignant for having been set against the surface busyness and gaiety.
The Ramsay Scallop by Frances Temple
4.0
Reread a favorite to get in the pilgrim mindset--Eleanor and Thomas, who are betrothed but not too happy about it, are sent on a pilgrimage from their English village to Santioago de Composteloa in Spain. As you might expect, the transformation is in the journey, not the destination. Rich rendering of the Middle Ages.
New Boy by Tracy Chevalier
4.0
Amazing and powerful and creative retelling of Othello for the Hogarth Shakespeare Series. New Boy sets the story in a 1970s-era elementary school in suburban DC, and the whole story unfolds in a day. Chevalier nails the school subculture, with bullies, good kids, drama queens and outcasts, while staying true to Othello's storyline. Using children as characters in no way diminishes the racism, jealousy and betrayal but distills them to a purer form. I think Shakespeare would be proud.