Georgette Heyer: Biography of a Bestseller, by Jennifer Kloester

Guest article by Kate Macdonald I am a Georgette Heyer fan. I’ve been one since Aunt Jeanette lent me These Old Shades when I was bored on a visit to my granny’s. I was round at Aunt Jeanette’s every day that holiday borrowing another Heyer each time, and now I’ve got my own copies of [...]

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Fire Season by Philip Connors

The job of fire lookout always seemed as if it might be a good fit for me. Looking at forests, plenty of time for reading and painting, peace and quiet, far from the maddening crowd. Never mind that smoke sets off my asthma or that I have trouble doing without my computer whenever it’s in [...]

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Coming up this week on Vulpes Libris …

The Foxes have come up with their usual mixed bag this week – from forest fires to stroppy adolescents via a reworking of a wicked classic and a new biography of a much-loved author. As there isn’t any discernible theme to the week, I’m using Monday’s review of a book about about the job of [...]

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Royal Manuscripts: The Genius Of Illumination. Exhibition at the British Library 11 November 2011 – 13 March 2012

This is a book review of sorts, as, once this exhibition is over, the catalogue will remain to remind us of its beauties, and at the moment it is a tremendous bargain with online booksellers. The catalogue has three informative essays on the context and provenance of the manuscripts from the Old Royal Library on [...]

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Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon Van Booy: of beautiful beginnings and fading finishes

Rebecca is young, lost, and beautiful. A gifted artist, she seeks solace and inspiration in the Mediterranean heat of Athens – trying to understand who she is and how she can love without fear. George has come to Athens to learn ancient languages after growing up in New England boarding schools and Ivy League colleges. [...]

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The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories by Alisa Surkis and Monica Nolan

There’s a reason I decided to get hold of a copy of The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories, and before I go any further, I’ll share it with you. As you probably know, when you run a blog  you can ferret around in the bowels of the thing and see the search terms that [...]

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Books Which Aren’t All That

Last summer when I reviewed Sideways On a Scooter , I mentioned that one of the cover blurbs said it was akin to Eat, Pray, Love, which thankfully wasn’t the case. Fellow Book Fox Anne, summed up it up perfectly in the comments “I’m glad you noted how different it is to the quite dreadful [...]

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Coming Up This Week

As February winds down, the Foxes find themselves dealing with disappointments.Is it cabin fever, broken New Year’s resolutions or substandard Valentine’s gifts causing such irritation amongst us? Whatever it is, we’ve expressed it in two different ways this week, but things take a glorious upswing by the weekend.And we also have a long awaited review [...]

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The Gentry by Adam Nicolson, plus exclusive interview

Guest review and interview by Kate Macdonald So much of twentieth-century British fiction written before and after the Second World War is about the decline of the gentry class, about the loss of homes, history and a more leisured way of life. Very often these novels are sad, and sometimes, as in Angela Thirkell’s novels, [...]

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Midnight Inspiration and a book link round-up

Well I *was* (I promise! I promise!) going to bring you a rather fine and thoughtful book review on the latest tome I’ve been reading…But having been up with the lurgy all night the book remains only three quarters finished so that pleasure will have to wait for another day. So, instead, I have for [...]

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