Tag Archives: Books

On My Bookshelf – The Singing Game

Posted on May 8, 2020 by

Perhaps it was the restlessness induced by quarantine that had me prowling my own bookshelves in search of diversion. I needed a break from the world of Thomas Cromwell in Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light. (I know it … Continue reading →

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Hidden Lives in Victorian England

Posted on April 17, 2020 by

In my final blog for MCPL (my former professional home Montgomery County Public Libraries, Maryland) I discuss The Five, a book about the victims of Jack the Ripper, a wonderful piece of social history that restores dignity to the five women. Other titles … Continue reading →

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The Prostitutes’ Graveyard

Posted on April 9, 2020 by
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Regency Isn’t Just Romance

Posted on August 21, 2019 by

My latest blog for Montgomery County Public Libraries is about the Regency years in England, a decade that compares to the 1960’s, a time of radical politics, war, social change, and literary experimentation. In other parallels, the 1812 assassination of Prime … Continue reading →

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Water Water Everywhere

Posted on July 17, 2019 by

You could be forgiven for mistaking the network evening news for the Weather Channel these days. Night after night scenes of devastating flooding somewhere and everywhere. Hurricanes, cyclones, torrential rainfall, storm surges, rivers overflowing their banks, whole towns inundated, homes … Continue reading →

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Tales of the Asylum

Posted on May 20, 2019 by

One day in the early 1960’s I came home to find that while I was in school my grandmother had been whisked away in an ambulance and taken to a mental hospital. The news followed several unsettling days, days of … Continue reading →

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Gardens of Mystery

Posted on May 4, 2019 by

“Ever since the first serpent slithered into the Garden of Eden writers have imagined the garden as the scene of temptation and evil.” In my latest blog for MCPL I recommend mysteries with a garden setting: Gardens of Mystery Incidentally, … Continue reading →

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