The 1p Book Review

Nige recommends another overlooked literary gem, available for a mere penny… After I’d read Philip Larkin’s A Girl In Winter, it was a natural step to read another Barbara Pym. Larkin was a big Pym fan and, along with Lord David Cecil, responsible for the revival in her fortunes after a fallow period … Read More…

Nige reads one of the great poet’s rare attempts at prose… I don’t know what kept me so long away from Philip Larkin’s novels – heaven knows I’ve been reading his poetry long enough. I think I lazily assumed that his two published novels, both written in his early 20s, were juvenile … Read More…

Nige recommends the short fiction of A.E. Coppard – a writer who deserves a revival… I recently mentioned A.E. Coppard, a writer whose name was unknown to me when I came across it – and seems to be generally forgotten, though a book of selected stories, Weep Not My Wanton, was issued only … Read More…

Seamus Sweeney reads God’s Fifth Column: A Biography of the Age 1890-1940 – an unusual work by an author who at one time looked like becoming one of the greats… William Gerhardie has achieved an odd kind of fame; famous for not being famous. He is a writer whose champions specifically focus on … Read More…

Dabbler editor Brit has written a piece about The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald here – and in a fine example of great dabbleminds thinking alike, later recalled that we’d featured the book on this site back in 2010. Here’s ZMKC’s 1p book review… The Bookshop, by Penelope Fitzgerald (available at 1p here) … Read More…

Resuming our 1p Book Review feature, guest contributor and longtime Dabbler reader Joey Denham recommends a recent anti-western novel… Occasionally I’ll pick up a book because of its cover. It’s only natural. I did this a few years ago with Patrick deWitt’s The Sisters Brothers (2011), and again later with The Flame Alphabet (2012) by … Read More…

Nabokov’s ‘page-turner of exceptional literary quality’ is very like a masterpiece, argues Nige… The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (published 1941) was the first novel Nabokov wrote in English. My copy is a Penguin reprint dating from 1971 – that handsome set with the Nabokov signature aslant the cover – and … Read More…

The Lost Leonardo, which appears in the short story collection The Terminal Beach (available to buy for 1p) is Seamus Sweeney’s favourite J G Ballard story, despite (or perhaps because of) its being the most unBallardian. Here he explains why… Clive James did not care much for Jean Paul Sartre, although … Read More…

Nige discovers the extraordinary short stories of ‘the American Chekhov’… I must admit I had never heard of the American short story writer Peter Taylor until, last Christmas, Mrs N gave me a volume of his – The Old Forest and Other Stories (available for a penny, and indeed a cent on Amazon) – … Read More…

Nige digs out a nearly-forgotten foreigner’s eye view of the British… The Hungarian-born British writer George Mikes (15 February 1912 – 30 August 1987) is best known (if he is remembered at all) for his gently humorous foreigner’s-eye view of the English, How to Be an Alien. First published in 1946, it … Read More…