By Taylor Jasmine | On December 17, 2017 | Updated January 7, 2019 | Comments (0)
Lois Lenski (1893 – 1974) was an incredibly prolific author and illustrator of children’s books, many featuring regional themes. Children were often shown in terms of the work they did to help their families survive.
The series that put her on the map was the Regional Stories, which began with Bayou Suzette. Strawberry Girl (1945) was the second in the series, and the one for which Lenski is perhaps best remembered. She won the 1946 Newbery Medal for this book. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On December 14, 2017 | Updated February 20, 2020 | Comments (0)
Judith Thurman, author of the National Book Award-winning biography of Isak Dinesen produced thus far the most definitive English language biography of Colette.
Given the French author’s stature as a literary figure and feminist icon, along with her colorful life, it’s remarkable how few full-scale English-language biographies have been written about her. Secrets of the Flesh, weighing in at over 600 pages, gives readers a thorough view of Colette’s long and colorful life.
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By Taylor Jasmine | On December 13, 2017 | Updated February 24, 2019 | Comments (0)
Rumer Godden (1907 – 1998) was a British-born author who spent much of her childhood in India. She lived a multifaceted life and wrote prolifically.
A Time to Dance, No Time to Weep (1987), which came out the year she turned eighty, was the first of a two-part memoir, followed by A House With Four Rooms (1989). Her best-known novels, including Black Narcissus and In This House of Brede explore the religious life of nuns; many of her other novels, including The River, are set in India.
Once, when Godden was a child, the Arabian pony she was riding bolted and threw her. The injuries she sustained included a concussion. But her father compelled her to get back on the horse as soon as she was able to, despite her fear. He told her: ”If you are frightened of anything, you must do it.” And that was exactly how she lived her life. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On December 11, 2017 | Updated February 3, 2024 | Comments (0)
Quentin Bell (1910-1996), the author of Virginia Woolf: A Biography, was the son of Virginia Woolf’s sister, Vanessa Bell. He was an artist like his mother, working across several media, and like his father Clive Bell, he was a writer and art critic.
He once recalled: “Virginia Woolf was my aunt and as a child I illustrated and to some extent inspired some rather fanciful biographies of her friends and relations. Hence the fact that I am mentioned in the preface of Orlando as ‘an old and valued collaborator in fiction.’” Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On November 28, 2017 | Updated May 13, 2023 | Comments (0)
From the 1979 Viking edition of Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy by Rumer Godden: In this novel, Rumer Godden returns to the theme of the religious life, which has inspired some of her most successful novels including Black Narcissus and In This House of Brede.
She now moves to the world of the French Dominican Sisters of Béthanie, who work among the prostitutes, drug addicts, and vagrants of the great cities.
The heroine is Lise, an English girl who, after the liberation of Paris, falls into bad company and, after a period in one of Paris’s smartest brothels, becomes a successful madam — La Balafrée, the Scarred One. Read More→
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