The Land of the Green Man. A Journey Through the Supernatural Landscapes of the British Isles, by Carolyne Larrington
This enchanting, immensely readable book can be read in several ways: it is a vastly entertaining thematic collection of folktales and fairy stories, perfect for autumn reading at a time … Continue reading
Walking by Henry David Thoreau
A VL Classic, first posted in July of 2016 Thoreau is one of America’s quintessential writers. He embodies that independent spirit that is so stereotypical of our image. Not so … Continue reading
Michael Haag’s The Durrells of Corfu
This is an exhaustively researched biography of the Durrell family (Gerry, Larry, Margot, Leslie and Mother, for those who know them from Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals). It’s … Continue reading
Old English with Mandy and Paul of ClickityLit
What Does Þæt Mean?! Ure æghwylc sceal ende gebidanworolde lifes; wyrce se þe motedomes ær deaþe; þæt bið drihtgumanunlifgendum æfter selest. (Beowulf) Old English can seem intimidatingly foreign to the … Continue reading
The Ring of Words by Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall and Edmund Weiner
Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary In his magisterial overview of the history of the Oxford English Dictionary Peter Gilliver touched briefly and tantalizingly on the part J R R … Continue reading
A is for Arsenic. The Poisons of Agatha Christie
It’s astonishing that this book had not been written before. It’s a study of the poisons deployed by Agatha Christie in a selection of her novels, written by a toxicologist … Continue reading
Celtic Mythology by Philip Freeman
In a 1937 letter to Stanley Unwin, J R R Tolkien said he felt a certain distaste for Celtic myths ‘largely for their fundamental unreason. They have bright colour, but … Continue reading
Frank O’Connor: An Only Child & My Father’s Son
I started reading this pair of autobiographies by the Irish short story writer and giant among modern Irish literature, Frank O’Connor, without really knowing much about him. I’d read some … Continue reading
“Daffodils” by William Wordsworth
One of the reasons I like this poem, which you can read here , is because it’s lighthearted. So much poetry is dark and deep, so it’s a lovely surprise … Continue reading
The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Very Short Introduction, by Timothy Lim
In an earlier post for VL, I enthused wildly about The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (see my exhortation here). And now I can wholeheartedly recommend a companion volume, … Continue reading
The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English
As for me, if I stumble, the mercies of God shall be my eternal salvation. If I stagger because of the sin of flesh, my justification shall be by the … Continue reading
Flâneuse, by Lauren Elkin
As soon as I saw this book I knew that reading it was a must, as a companion to Edmund White’s masterly Flâneur, and it absolutely did not disappoint. Lauren … Continue reading
Stoker: The Life of Hilda Matheson, OBE
If you are keen on Bloomsbury and its ramifications, you may already know that Hilda Matheson (1888-1940) was Vita Sackville West’s lover between 1929 and 1931. She wrote to Vita … Continue reading
Manawydan’s Glass Door (d’apres David Jones, 1931) by Heather Dohollau
This is a new poet to me and one I was happy to discover. Though born in Wales, she moved to France as a young woman and lived the rest … Continue reading
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