Authors Electric

Thanks to a clever company called Slightly Foxed , I find myself reading a lot of memoirs nowadays. For those who haven’t yet discovered it, Slightly Foxed brings out a quarterly magazine  of essays about books - fiction, non-fiction, all genres - particularly prized by the contributors. Not recently published ones, no Booker shortlist here, but ones that have stood the test of time and become personal favourites. Reading these articles have not only reminded me of much-loved titles, but got me tracking down others I’d never heard of before.  Slightly Foxed Editions: pleasingly harmonious. (from foxedquarterly.com)  It was a natural progression, then, for Slightly Foxed to start its own imprint, Slightly Foxed Editions, a delightfully produced series of pocket hardback reprints of classic memoirs, unjacketed, each with a different colour binding, so that a whole shelf of them gives a pleasingly harmonious look. I know this because we have two and half shelves full, and ...

                                                          My Life in Libraries Moving from the junior to the senior library at the age of 13 was for me a rite of passage. I can remember the first book I borrowed from there,  Nancy Wake  by Russell Braddon, pictured. It didn’t have that vivid book jacket illustration, just a black and dusty cover with the title and author at the top of the spine. I had already read Russell Braddon’s  The Naked Island , a memoir about the author's trials in a Japanese POW camp, so I was keen to read more.   Nancy Wake, however, was somewhat different to my usual fare, causing my mother to raise a quizzical eyebrow when she asked to see what I had borrowed - a rite of passage indeed. Garston Library in Liverpool, near my then home from where I borrowed the book, was a place I frequently visited...

A recent newspaper headline caught my eye: ‘TV’s next Downton will be the American novel that inspired it.’ ( The Times , 14 th  May 2020.) Any guesses?  Highclere Castle (aka Downton Abbey) Intrigued, I read on to discover the novel in question is The Custom of the Country by one of my favourite authors, Edith Wharton.  Now, this is a great book, but I would never in a million years have related its theme of unscrupulous social climbing to the golden atmosphere of benign overlordship that suffuses Downton Abbey . (Which isn’t meant as a criticism of  Downton Abbey – I’ve basked in the cosy escapism provided by all 6 series.) Here, in all the plotlines featuring good or bad behaviour, whether among the upper or the servant classes, I can’t remember a single one in which a ruthless, ambitious, hard as nails nobody sets out to topple the ancient social order and succeeds . There are a couple of devious valets, one Irish nationalist chauffeur, some bra...