On My Bookshelf – Saints and Scholars

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Saints and Scholars

It was the middle of math class and I was bored as usual. So I surreptitiously opened a book on my lap and began to read. At the front of the class the formidable Mrs. Mulley droned on. She was an extraordinary bent old crone who looked something like a desiccated stick insect. She and her daughter, Miss Mulley, constituted the Math department of my convent high school. They always seemed to walk the corridors together, Miss Mulley, pudgier and straight backed, trailing her mother at a respectful distance. They both wore their hair in elaborately coifed buns that seemed to defy the law of gravity. On this day my transgression did not escape Mrs. Mulley’s eagle eye. I was so absorbed in my reading Continue reading “On My Bookshelf – Saints and Scholars” →

Belgium. Cry, My Beloved Country

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Version 2
Ghent

Belgium is my arcadia, my beloved country of memories and dreams. A different Belgium than my mother knew – a country suffering under German occupation, so poor that her widowed mother had no choice but to place her little brothers in an orphanage. My father was among the British soldiers who liberated the medieval city of Ghent in 1944. Later he inscribed a book: Continue reading “Belgium. Cry, My Beloved Country” →

The Trumping of America

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Trump-Raise-right-hand

I started these Dispatches five years ago with the idea of trying to explain the curious ways of Americans to the English. I viewed the carnival of American politics with the ironic eye of an outsider. In the last Presidential Primary season I wrote this piece imagining the Republican debates as a kind of reality TV show. I presumed I would write in the same vein this year. The 2016 campaign promised another season of harmless entertainment before Continue reading “The Trumping of America” →

On My Bookshelf – Biggles Flies to Work

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Biggles
My copy
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First edition

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found this Biggles book in a London bookshop on one of my visits home. I was surprised to see that Biggles was still popular enough to justify reprints. Perched in the cockpit of his Spitfire in goggles and helmet, silk aviator’s scarf flying, Biggles was the epitome of a thoroughly British war hero. This collection of stories about his post-war exploits with the Air Police was first published in 1963. As you can see from the images above, the early editions had far more appealing covers.

Pilot James Bigglesworth was the creation of Continue reading “On My Bookshelf – Biggles Flies to Work” →

Mr. Jefferson’s Books Go to Washington

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747px-BritishBurnTheCapitol-CoxMural

The British perpetrated many insults upon the American people when they burned Washington in 1814, perhaps the worst to contemporary eyes being the destruction of the Library of Congress. Over 3,000 books went up in flames. But the disaster had the unintended consequence of making the national library better than ever. At his home Monticello in Virginia former President Thomas Jefferson read an account of the loss in the newspaper Continue reading “Mr. Jefferson’s Books Go to Washington” →

On My Bookshelf – The Wayfarer’s Book

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wayfarer's-book2

My father must have bought this little book at a used bookstore because, although it lists no copyright date, it was probably published in the early 1900’s. It goes back to a time when there were no hikers or even walkers, but ramblers and wayfarers. The author belonged to a Rambling Club and wrote this guide to the sights of the English countryside for city and town dwellers who ventured into Continue reading “On My Bookshelf – The Wayfarer’s Book” →