The Bookworm Reviews

Sitting around snuffling, I have been able to catch up reading

This one was great - one of my pupils told me it was his current 'home reader', and I remembered I had a copy in a boxed set of Morpurgo Novels. It is, like all MM stuff beautifully written [see more here] . Set on the Isles of Scilly in 1914, it tells the story of two children learning about friendship and prejudice. I polished it off in an evening, and look forward to chatting about it to my pupil this week.

Then I re-read "The Getting Of Wisdom" by Henry Handel Richardson.

HHR is a stern looking lady! the website of the HHR Society [here] gives biographical details of this Australian, who married a Brit, and wrote a novel set in her own Alma Mater, the Presbyterian Ladies College in Melbourne at the end of the last century.

The story is about Laura, the eldest daughter of a widow, who is sent to boarding school, and her experiences there.

Apparently the PLC were not happy when HHR returned to Melbourne years later, as a successful author, to research for her autobiography - she didn't present the school in a very good light!

My copy has a preface by Germaine Greer, and was the first ever Virago publication I owned [according to my note in the front I bought it in 1981]. It is a clever book, and has some good descriptions of the life of Australian girls and women. But it is not a terribly cheerful book - why do teenage girls have to be so nasty to each other? and why was there no character in the entire book who seemed genuinely pleasant and caring? However I think this is probably a more realistic book about boarding school life than the Malory Towers ones churned out by Enid Blyton!

Finally, another historical murder mystery

I picked this one up on the 'new books' shelf at the library. I hadn't come across 'Thomas Chaloner' Adventures before.

TC lives in Restoration London, and is a spy working for the Earl of Clarendon. I enjoyed this one, and will look out for more of this series.

The writing was not quite as good as CJ Sansom - but a good read nonetheless.

My cold is heaps better - so back to work tomorrow - and that will curtail the "reading for pleasure" for a bit!