Stalky & Co, by Rudyard Kipling

Part of Back To School Week
Hands up all who think that Rudyard Kipling is a jingoistic, unquestioning chronicler of the Empire. Oh good, hardly any of you. He’s much more complicated than that. He is a writer grounded in his time, a chronicler of Empire, certainly, but not at all predictable or [...]

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Back to School Round-Up

For my sins, I volunteered to put together this round-up post of Vulpes Past and…umm…Vulpes short recommendations for our Back to School Week. So, get your jotter, strawberry-smelling eraser and multi-coloured erasible pen-set ready to take down these course notes on Vulpes Roughly School-Themed Books Wot We Reviewed and Short Recommendations.
First Up, one of the [...]

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Kicked, Bitten, Scratched by Amy Sutherland

Beginning Back to School Week on VL

When we think of schools, we don’t picture a classroom containing wild animals. Yet this is exactly what the students find at the Exotic Animal Training and Management program(EATM), where zoo keepers, aquatic park employees and others learn the proper way to treat animals. It’s not only where [...]

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Back to School Week on Vulpes Libris

It’s September, which means students of all ages are heading back to school. Although, with our timing, we are more like the kid in the back of the room who slides into his seat just as the bell rings, but still. We thought we’d look at some of the variety this theme has inspired [...]

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The Tuesday (Saturday) Alternative: Authorial Readings

The Tuesday Alternative – an exploration of all things book, blog and word is back – for one day only and on a Saturday. But never mind about that. As I have a tendency to be a bit of a waffler, I am determined to keep this post to 500 words. So that’s 449 to [...]

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An Interview with Jane Prowse

Following yesterday’s review of Hattori Hachi – Revenge of Praying Mantis – Vulpes Libris is delighted to welcome its author – television director, screenwriter and playwright Jane Prowse – to the big comfy armchair.  You can blame Moira for most of the questions, but she had a bit of help from Hilary and Lisa …
MB:  [...]

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Hattori Hachi: The Revenge of Praying Mantis ~ by Jane Prowse

Fifteen year old Hattie Jackson’s apparently normal life in Camden changes forever when her Japanese mother Chiyoko disappears one night under mysterious circumstances.  Hattie is understandably startled to discover that she and her mother are, in fact, the last in a line of renowned ninjutsu warriors and that, if she is to stand any chance [...]

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The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt

A desire to bring the author regular tea and biscuits and then sit at their feet is probably not the usual – or sane – response to a work of fiction. But that was my response to A.S. Byatt’s Possession and I had a similar reaction to her latest book The Children’s Book. Like [...]

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Past Imperfect by Julian Fellowes: The precision of the journey

Damian Baxter is very, very rich. But he has one concern, which is becoming more urgent as the weeks go by: who should inherit his fortune. A letter from an ex-girlfriend suggests that, as a young man, Damian may have fathered a child, but the letter is anonymous. Finding the truth will not be easy [...]

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The Swansong of Wilbur McCrum by Bronia Kita

This book grabs the reader from the beginning, making one wonder “how did this person get into this situation”? And a strange situation it is. The prologue has Wilbur falling down a well in a dress and continues with flashbacks of his life leading up to that point.
Set in the American Old West of [...]

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