England

Family History: A Short History of the Tractor in Ukrainian

The trials of family love are on full display in A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marin Lewycka, along with the pains of romantic longing, sexual desire (at all ages), and insecurity (again, at all ages). Underlying…

Major Pettigrew: A Last Stand Kipling Could Acknowledge (And We Can Love)

Searching for Satisfaction

I finished The Distant Hours by Kate Morton a few days ago but I’ve hesitated in writing a review because my reactions to this book are diverse and even opposing. I liked The Distant Hours and I can recommend it for those times when a reader wants to just fall deeply into a book…

God on the Rocks: Looking for Order in a Child’s Universe

God on the Rocks by Jane Gardam was nominated for the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1978 and has just been issued here in the United States by Europa Editions. Gardam’s popularity in the United States is late-coming but wildly…

H.V. Morton: Enchanted Travel

H.V. Morton wrote more than thirty travel books over a span of fifty years, chronicling his travels across the Middle East, through Europe, and up and down the British Isles. His books are the most charming and engaging travel books I’ve ever read. They are full not only of…

Old Filth by Jane Gardam

Jane Gardam’s Old Filth relates one man’s life, enclosing within the history of Sir Edward Feathers the story of Great Britain in the twentieth century. Both Feathers’ story and the story of Britain offer a sharply accurate illustration of justice, responsibility, and legacy, and of…

Resplendent Wild Beauty

The Peregrine by J.A. Baker is the most beautiful piece of nature writing I have ever read. It is the account of the six months Baker spent following a pair of peregrine falcons along their hunting routes in the east midlands English countryside, but it is more than that: it is an…