"When Arnold helped me prepare the new apartment, he was preparing it as if he wanted it to be my last resting place. When he furnished it so expensively, he might just as well have been lining my coffin with velvet." readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2024/09/10/the…

Just placed an order for this collection of stories from the one and only Celia Fremlin. Looks wonderful! Published by Faber on 10 October.

New blog post! Rhine Journey - Ann Schlee readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2024/09/13/rhi…

New on my blog, I've written about RHINE JOURNEY by Ann Schlee - a stunning novel on desire, memory and awakening set in 19th century Prussia. I loved this novel so much, I had to have both editions! readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2024/09/13/rhi… McNally Editions DauntBooksPublishing #bookreview

Radz Pandit 📚 Chappell Rhône McNally Editions LOVELY comp. I like to think there's something of Room with a View's Cousin Charlotte (poor Charlotte! Poor, poor Charlotte) - the economic vulnerability, the dependency on family

the second bit went in our cover brief, it is SO atmospheric

"And all the time - so oddly the mind veers - she pictured to herself those whitened cottage rooms where she might quietly extend herself, and moving from room to room, meet and recognise herself in forms unaltered by the pressures of others upon her." readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2024/09/13/rhi…

Today's #WaferThinBook: The Life and Death of Harriet Frean by May Sinclair (1922, 183p. but really shorter) A case study in how being a good and proper Victorian daughter could ruin your life without your even knowing it. #SpinsterSeptember

Off on a short holiday and taking these books with me (plus my Kindle).

#NYRBWomen24 Our next book begins tomorrow!! I've been looking forward to this one — Diana Athill's DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT, published by NYRB Classics last year. "Athill skillfully blends diffidence & pathos to produce a story at once all too familiar & unique."-Catherine Taylor

Night stroll by the beach.

A novel of childhood and the mysteries of memory which unfolds more darkly than the reader might expect, Michele Mari's Verdigris (translated by Brian Robert Moore): 1streading.wordpress.com/2024/09/17/ver… And Other Stories

Mauro Javier Cárdenas The only Booker win I was excited to see was Damon Galgut's The Promise. A Woolfian inspired narrative that is unrestrained, daring, snarky—just brilliant.

Morning calm.

Evening clicks.