Biography – Page 2 – BooksPlease

Books Read in January 2025

Published on February 2, 2025 by Margaret2 Comments

I read 4 books in January, half the number I used to read. My reading has slowed down considerably over the last 2 years and I no longer write in much detail about them. But this year I’m hoping to get back to something more like normal and I’m aiming to write at least a paragraph or more about each of the books I’ve read each month.

There’s a Reason for Everything (my review) by E R Punshon 4* – I began this book in December and finished reading it in early January. It was first published in 1945 and I read the e-book published by Dean Street Press. It’s the 21st in the Bobby Owen mystery series, in which Bobby has recently been promoted from Inspector to Deputy Chief Constable of Wychshire, a complicated novel with murders, a missing painting allegedly by Vermeer, dodgy fine art dealers and an abandoned country mansion called Nonpareil.

I was perplexed for quite some time until I began to see what was behind the bewildering confusion in Punshon’s narrative. I think this is a cleverly constructed plot, with ingenious puzzles to piece together before all the answers are revealed. I was quite pleased to find out at the end that I’d worked out one of the clues correctly.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen 5* – It’s about the three Dashwood sisters and their widowed mother as they leave their family estate at Norland Park after their father’s death when their half-brother John inherited the estate. This year is the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, so this is an ideal time to reread some of her books and I’m joining Brona at This Reading Life in her Austen 2025 project to reread her books, along with the Classics Club’s Sync Read (or readalong).

I read the annotated edition, edited by David M Shapard that gives Explanations of historical context, Citations from Austen’s life, letters, and other writings, Definitions and clarifications, Literary comments and analysis, Multiple maps of England and London, An introduction, bibliography, and detailed chronology of events and More than 100 informative illustrations.

I’ll write more about this book in a later post.

Signal Moon by Kate Quinn 5* – a short story. I’m not a big fan of short stories, often finding them too short and wanting to know more. But this one is good and it fascinated me. It’s sci-fi involving a type of time-travelling, a mix of historical fiction, links to the code breakers at Bletchley Park and WW2. I loved it. It is, of course, impossible, set in two time periods, 1943 during World War 2 and 2023, but I didn’t have to work hard to believe in it. Kate Quinn’s narrative just drew me in. In 1943, Lily Baines is a Wren working for a “Y” station, picking up signals from German intelligence that were then sent to Bletchley Park for translation. Then she picks up a signal apparently from 2023 – it’s a cry for help from Matt Jackson a young US officer. It’s about an American ship that is taking heavy fire in the North Atlantic. Together Lily and Matt have to work out how to help each other: Matt to convince her that the war she’s fighting can still be won, and Lily to help him stave off the war to come.

Kate Quinn wrote this story to feature the information about the Y stations that she had discovered whilst researching Bletchley Park and hadn’t included in The Rose Code.

Keir Starmer: the Biography by Tom Baldwin 3.5* A Times Book of the Year; A Telegraph Book of the Year; A Daily Mail Book of the Year; A Waterstones Book of the Year

Dsecription from Amazon:

This authoritative – but not authorised – biography by Tom Baldwin provides answers by drawing deeply on many hours of interviews with Prime Minister himself, as well as unprecedented access to members of his family, his oldest friends and closest colleagues.Together, they tell an unexpectedly intimate story filled with feelings of grief and love that has driven him on more than any rigid ideology or loyalty to a particular faction.

The book tracks Starmer’s emergence from a troubled small town background and rebellious youth, through a storied legal career as a human rights barrister and the country’s chief prosecutor, to becoming an MP relatively late in life.Baldwin provides a vivid and compelling account of how this untypical politician then rose to be leader of his party in succession to Jeremy Corbyn, then transformed it with a ruthless rapidity that has enraged opponents from the left just as much as it has bewildered those on the right.

Above all, this is a book that should be read by anyone who wants to understand how someone who has too often been underestimated or dismissed as dull, now intends to change Britain.

My thoughts

This book was published in February 2024, five months before the General Election. I decided to watch the televised debates between him and Rishi Sunak, the then Prime Minister, and thought Starmer looked uncomfortable in most of them. All I knew about him was that he was the former Director of Public Prosecutions, and, as he often said in interviews, that growing up he lived in a pebble-dashed semi , that his ‘dad was a toolmaker‘ and his ‘mother was a nurse.’ So I hoped that Baldwin’s book would tell me more. Baldwin writes:

Starmer is a private man who has chosen to place himself in the white light of public scrutiny, while showing a determination that is itself exceptional to maintain a semblance of normality … often appearing uncomfortable at being a politician at all. (page xi)

He also describes him as ‘someone who is both extraordinary and very ordinary‘ (page xii). The biography is divided into five parts :

each of which begins by sketching a moment since he became a politician when this tension is most apparent. All of them also include descriptions of sometimes traumatic episodes that have wrenched him back to real life and away from the febrile – often fake – world of Westminster politics. (page xii).

In the first three parts he covers Starmer’s childhood and schooldays, his time as a student at Leeds University, where he was awarded a first-class law degree, and then at St Edmund Hall at Oxford University where he gained a postgraduate Bachelor of Civil Law degree. He then worked as a trainee barrister in London, eventually transitioning from a human rights lawyer into the country’s chief prosecutor. The fourth part describes how he became an MP, a member of the shadow cabinet and Leader of the Labour Party. The fifth part examines the leadership, before assessing what kind of prime minister he would make.

One friend said:

He’ll just turn up at the pub and be a totally normal and genuinely good bloke. But his public persona is very different, I almost don’t recognise him when I see him on TV.

And another said:

There is this enormous gap between Keir the human being and Keir the politician. At Jonny [Cooper]’s funeral, I saw the real one letting himself go – in the best way – to share his grief with his friends. But, when I watched him on TV at the party conference, he had seemed to be almost a different person, holding back and distant, almost wooden compared to the generous, humorous and empathetic man I’ve known for twenty years. (page 323)

It seems to me that he is a conscientious person who believes in working hard and playing hard. He is resilient and driven. He believes in fairness and social justice, putting the country before the party, a serious, clever man, who wants to get things done and change the country for the better.

Top 5 Tuesday: 5 authors I want to try in 2025

Published on January 28, 2025 by Margaret3 Comments

Who are some new authors that you want to read from in 2025

Top 5 Tuesday was created by Shanah at Bionic Book Worm, and it is now being hosted by Meeghan at Meeghan Reads. For details of all of the latest prompts for January to March, see Meeghan’s post here.

Today the topic is 5 authors I want to try in 2025. Who are some new authors that you want to read from in 2025? These books are from my TBRs.

Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally

I was really excited to read Schindler’s List when I bought it as I’d recently watched the film, Schindler’s List for a second time and was very moved by it – it had me in tears. It was first published as Schindler’s Ark. It recreates the story of Oskar Schindler, a member of the Nazi party, who risked his life to protect Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland. He rescued more than a thousand Jews from the death camps.

The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone is a book I’ve been longing to read for years. I’ve had it since 2007. It’s a biographical novel about Michelangelo. The copy I had was impossible to read as it was falling apart so I bought a new copy – but it’s still sitting waiting to be read. Why? Well because I have so many other books I really want to read.

Another book I’ve had since 2007, still waiting to be read for the same reason is 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro. 1599 was the year the Globe Theatre was built and that Shakespeare wrote Julius Caesar, Henry V, As You Like It and Hamlet. it’s full of detail, not just about Shakespeare, his plays and the theatre, but also about the events of his life and times!

The Water Horse by Julia Gregson, a book I’ve had since 2009. It’s historical fiction based on the true story of a young Welsh woman, Jane Evans, a Welsh woman who in 1853 ran off with Welsh cattle drovers and volunteered as a nurse with Florence Nightingale in the Crimea. Catherine Carreg has grown up a tomboy, spending her days racing her ponies with Deio, the drover’s son, in a small Welsh village. But Catherine is consumed by a longing to escape the monotony of village life and, with Deio’s help, runs away to London.

Alone in the unfamiliar bustle of the city, Catherine finds a position in a rest home for sick governesses in Harley Street, run by Miss Florence Nightingale. Then, as the nation is gripped by reports of the war in the Crimea, Catherine volunteers as a nurse – and her life changes beyond all recognition.

Jeremy Hutchinson’s Case Histories by Thomas Grant – I bought this in February 2020 after watching the BBC series,The Trial of Christine Keeler, the story of the Profumo affair in 1962 as seen from her perspective. Hutchinson was Keeler’s defence barrister.

Born in 1915 into the fringes of the Bloomsbury Group, Jeremy Hutchinson went on to become the greatest criminal barrister of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. The cases of that period changed society for ever and Hutchinson’s role in them was second to none. In Case Histories, Jeremy Hutchinson’s most remarkable trials are examined, each one providing a fascinating look into Britain’s post-war social, political and cultural history.

Top 5 Tuesday: Top 5 books I will definitely* read in 2025

Published on January 21, 2025March 24, 2025 by Margaret9 Comments

Today the topic is Top 5 books I will definitely* read in 2025. What are 5 books you really want to tick off your TBR this year? * Same disclosure every year: you won’t be subjected to punishment (from Meeghan) if you don’t read these.

I have so many TBRs that it is difficult to choose just 5. These are 5 of the books that I’ve had for several years but I’m a mood reader so just like Meeghan when I say “definitely” I mean “maybe, you know, if I feel like it”.

Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch – Book 3 in the Rivers of London series, from Sunday Times Number One bestselling author Ben Aaronovitch.

I’ve read the first two of this series, and loved them, so why haven’t I read any more?

Peter Grant is learning magic fast. And it’s just as well – he’s already had run-ins with the deadly supernatural children of the Thames and a terrifying killer in Soho. Progression in the Police Force is less easy. Especially when you work in a department of two. A department that doesn’t even officially exist. A department that if you did describe it to most people would get you laughed at. And then there’s his love life. The last person he fell for ended up seriously dead. It wasn’t his fault, but still.

Now something horrible is happening in the labyrinth of tunnels that make up the tube system that honeycombs the ancient foundations of London. And delays on the Northern line is the very least of it. Time to call in the Met’s Economic and Specialist Crime Unit 9, aka ‘The Folly’. Time to call in PC Peter Grant, Britain’s Last Wizard.

This Poison Will Remain by Fred Vargas. The 9th book in her Commissaire Adamsberg series. I’ve read some of the earlier books.

After three elderly men are bitten by spiders, everyone assumes that their deaths are tragic accidents.

But at police headquarters in Paris, Inspector Adamsberg begins to suspect that the case is far more complex than first appears.

It isn’t long before Adamsberg is investigating a series of rumours and allegations that take him to the south of France. Decades ago, at La Miséricorde orphanage, shocking events took place involving the same species of spider: the recluse.

For Adamsberg, these haunting crimes hold the key to proving that the three men were targeted by an ingenious serial killer. His team, however, is not convinced. He must put his reputation on the line to trace the murderer before the death toll rises…

Thomas Cromwell: The untold story of Henry VIII’s most faithful servant by Tracy Borman. After reading Hilary Mantell’s historical fiction trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, I want to read this biography about him – just haven’t got round to it yet.

I feel bad about not reading the next two books, both biographies as I’ve had them for so long, I’d love to read both of them this year …

The Brontes by Juliet Barker. I visited the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth, way back in 2014, and have been meaning to read this book about the family ever since.

The story of the tragic Bronte family is familiar to everyone: we all know about the half-mad, repressive father, the drunken, drug-addicted wastrel of a brother, wild romantic Emily, unrequited Anne and ‘poor Charlotte’. Or do we? These stereotypes of the popular imagination are precisely that – imaginary – created by amateur biographers from Mrs Gaskell onwards who were primarily novelists, and were attracted by the tale of an apparently doomed family of genius.

Juliet Barker’s landmark book was the first definitive history of the Brontes. It demolishes myths, yet provides startling new information that is just as compelling – but true. Based on first-hand research among all the Bronte manuscripts, many so tiny they can only be read by magnifying glass, and among contemporary historical documents never before used by Bronte biographers, this book is both scholarly and compulsively readable. THE BRONTES is a revolutionary picture of the world’s favourite literary family.

And I’ve had Thomas Hardy: The Time Torn Man by Claire Tomalin, even longer – over 15 years.

Paradox ruled Thomas Hardy’s life. His birth was almost his death; he became one of the great Victorian novelists and reinvented himself as one of the twentieth-century’s greatest poets; he was an unhappy husband and a desolate widower; he wrote bitter attacks on the English class system yet prized the friendship of aristocrats.

In the hands of Whitbread Award-winning biographer Claire Tomalin, author of the bestselling Charles Dickens: A Life and The Invisible Woman, Thomas Hardy comes vividly alive.

Spell the Month in Books – December 2024

Published on December 13, 2024 by Margaret2 Comments

Spell the Month in Books is a linkup hosted by Jana on Reviews From the Stacks on the first Saturday of each month. The goal is to spell the current month with the first letter of book titles, excluding articles such as ‘the’ and ‘a’ as needed. That’s all there is to it! Some months there are optional theme challenges, such as “books with an orange cover” or books of a particular genre, but for the most part, any book you want to use is fair game!

The optional theme this month is Christmas or Nonfiction and I’ve chosen the Nonfiction option as I don’t read many Christmas-related books. The descriptions are taken from my posts on the books, where they exist.

D is for The Dancing Bear by Frances Faviell, the pen name of Olivia Faviell Lucas, painter and author.

After the war, in 1946, she went with her young son, John, to Berlin where Richard Parker, her second husband, had been posted as a senior civil servant in the post-war British Administration. It was here that she befriended the Altmann family, which prompted her first book The Dancing Bear (1954), a memoir of the Occupation seen through the eyes of both occupier and occupied.It covers the years from Autumn 1946 to Autumn 1949, with an Epilogue dated Autumn 1953. Her memoir is mainly about her friendship with the Altmann family – Frau Maria Altmann, her husband, Oskar and her children, Ursula, who works for a group of American service men, Lilli, a ballet dancer and son, Fritz, who was a member of the Hitler Youth and is now involved in the Black Market. Their eldest son. Kurt. is missing in Russia. Berlin had been divided into four sectors by the Allies – Britain, the United States, France and the Soviet Union – and Frances is horrified by the conditions she found. There were deaths from hunger and cold as the winter approached and queues for bread, milk, cigarettes, cinemas, buses and trams.

E is for Elizabeth Macarthur: a Life at the Edge of the World by Michelle Scott Tucker

This is an extremely readable biography of a fascinating woman. It’s well researched and provides an insight into the early years of Australia’s colonial history. Elizabeth was born on 14 August 1766 in Devon, England and she married John Macarthur in October 1788. In June 1789 they sailed with their first child, Edward, to New South Wales where John joined his regiment, the New South Wales Corps, in the recently established colony of New South Wales.

For sixty years, Elizabeth ran the family farm in Parramatta, west of Sydney town – on her own during her husband’s long absences abroad, when she was responsible for the care of their valuable merino flocks, as well as the Camden Park estate and the direction of its convict labourers. By the time Macarthur came back from his second absence, he was overwhelmed by mental illness, and they spent the last few years of his life apart. He died in 1834. The house and gardens of her farm, aptly named ‘Elizabeth Farm’ is now an ‘access all areas’ museum. In 1850, she died in her daughter and son-in-law’s house at Watson’s Bay outside Sydney, overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

C is for Come Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowan

Agatha Christie had visited the Middle East in 1929 travelling on the Orient Express to Istanbul and then on to Damascus and Baghdad. She visited the excavations at Ur and returned there the following spring where she met archaeologist Max Mallowan – by the end of the summer they had decided to marry, which they did on 11 September 1930.

It’s her memoir in answer to her friends’ questions about what life was like when she accompanied Max on his excavations in Syria and Iraq in the 1930s. The emphasis in the book is on the everyday life on a dig and Agatha took an active part, helping to catalogue, label and clean the items they found as well as taking photographs and developing them. She also found time to spend on writing her books. So, although she gives a detailed account of how they worked, how they employed workmen for the excavations and servants who looked after Max and his team of archaeologists, there is not much about what they found.

She described the local people in her Epilogue as people, who know how to laugh and how to enjoy life, who are idle and gay, and who have dignity, good manners, and a great sense of humour, she also recorded their disputes: ‘Quarrelling is, in any case, almost continuous.‘ And ‘Syria is full of fiercely fanatical sects of all kinds, all willing to cut each other’s throats for the good cause! ‘

E is for Elizabeth’s Rival: The Tumultuous Tale of Lettice Knollys, Countess of Leicester by Nicola Tallis – I haven’t read this yet, it’s one of my TBRs.

Cousin to Elizabeth I – and very likely also Henry VIII’s illegitimate granddaughter – Lettice Knollys had a life of dizzying highs and pitiful lows. Darling of the court, entangled in a love triangle with Robert Dudley and Elizabeth I, banished from court, plagued by scandals of affairs and murder, embroiled in treason, Lettice would go on to lose a husband and beloved son to the executioner’s axe. Living to the astonishing age of ninety-one, Lettice’s tale gives us a remarkable, personal lens on to the grand sweep of the Tudor Age, with those closest to her often at the heart of the events that defined it.

In the first ever biography of this extraordinary woman, Nicola Tallis’s dramatic narrative takes us through those events, including the religious turmoil, plots and intrigues of Mary, Queen of Scots, attempted coups, and bloody Irish conflicts, among others. Surviving well into the reign of Charles I, Lettice truly was the last of the great Elizabethans. (Amazon UK)

M is for The Mystery of Princess Louise by Lucinda Hawksley.

Princess Louise was Victoria’s sixth child – her fourth daughter, born on 18th March 1848. It was an agonising and terrifying birth in a year of revolution and rebellion, a time when royal families throughout Europe were being deposed and in Britain the working classes were agitating for higher pay, better working conditions and more legal rights. There is so much detail about her life in this book, packed with intrigues, scandals and secrets.

She had a difficult childhood, disliked and bullied by her mother and she often rebelled against the restrictions of life as a princess. She had an unhappy marriage to John Campbell, the Marquess of Lorne, later the 9th Duke of Argyll, a homosexual, and went with him to Canada in 1882 when he was appointed as Governor-General. Her relationship with Canada became a love-hate one, but began and ended with Canadian adoration.

The scandals arose about whether she had had an illegitimate child and her long term love affair with the sculptor Joseph Boehm. The mystery is still unresolved as Louise’s files in the Royal Archives are closed and her husband’s family archives are inaccessible.

B is for Breathtaking by Rachel Clarke, a palliative care doctor.

Her book recounts her experiences during the first four months of 2020, when she worked on the Covid-19 wards in the Oxford University Hospitals system. Taken from her diary that she kept at the time it has an immediacy as she records her insomnia, her fears for her family and also the tremendous resilience, courage and empathy that she and the rest of the hospital staff had. Although it is a grim account, it is also uplifting to know the care they took of their patients and the attentiveness to their patients’ needs despite the fact that many of the staff were not trained in intensive care and had never dealt with anything like this before. Breathtaking records the compassion and kindness of numerous people, and pays tribute to both NHS staff and volunteers in dealing with such a distressing and immensely horrific situation.

E is for The English: a Portrait of a People by Jeremy Paxman

I like Paxman’s style of writing, I could almost hear him speaking as I read. He’s a person who has grown on me over the years and lately I’ve enjoyed his TV documentaries too. It’s always been entertaining to watch his interviews, even if I didn’t agree with his views – or his aggressive approach. It’s toned down in this book, but every now and then his acerbic nature comes across. He writes about food, sport, football hooligans, language, individualism, education, religion, ‘John Bull’, cities and the countryside – the English idyllic village, class structure and social tone, attitudes to women, business and trade to name but a few topics. It’s well researched and very readable, with a bibliography listing all the books he mentions plus others that presumably he has used. It seems there really is no such thing as ‘the English’ – we’re a mixture of all sorts, or as Paxman puts it, The English are a mongrel race‘. (page 59)

R is for The Riviera Set by Mary S Lovell

This is the story of a house and those who peopled it between the years 1930 and 1960. In 1930 Maxine Elliott, an American, commissioned the architect Barry Dierks to build the Chateau de l’Horizon on the land she had bought on a narrow stretch of rocks with a small promontory between Cannes and Juan-les-Pins. This is the part of the book I enjoyed the most, first of all about Maxine herself, then the description of the construction of the Chateaux and the years that Maxine owned it and lived there. Maxine really came into her own there as a superb hostess. Regular visitors included Winston Churchill, Cole Porter, Noel Coward, Somerset Maugham among many others – famous actors and actresses as well as members of the aristocracy and politicians.

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, who lived nearby before the Second World War, were also visitors. The picture painted of them is not flattering – and there was much talk about how to address Wallis and whether the women should curtsy to her. By the time the War approached Maxine had lost her sparkle, suffering from ill health and she died in March 1940.

The Chateau was bought by Aly Khan, the Aga Khan’s heir presumptive at the time. There is quite a lot about his time there, his womanising, his marriage to Rita Hayworth and the social scene of the post-war period up to 1960. It is a fascinating and entertaining book about a pampered, luxurious and decadent world.

The next link up will be on January 4, 2025 when the theme will be: New; this could be new-to-you books, new additions to your TBR list, recently published books, or something else that you connect with the word ‘New’.

Spell the Month in Books June 2024

Published on June 3, 2024 by Margaret13 Comments

This month’s theme is History. I don’t think that the books you choose have to be books that you’ve read, but where possible I like to do that, or at least choose books that I want to read and and this month I’ve managed to find enough nonfiction books about different aspects of history that I have read with titles beginning with each of the letters to spell JUNE.

J is for Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley

I think it was a foregone conclusion that I would really enjoy historian Lucy Worsley’s Jane Austen at Home. I have loved Jane Austen’s books for many years, going back to when I was about 12 and read Pride and Prejudice for the first time. I’d previously read Carol Shields’s biography Jane Austen and Claire Tomalin’s Jane Austen: a Life so there was really very little I learned reading Jane Austen at Home that surprised me or that I hadn’t known before.

I suppose what was new to me was the emphasis on what home life was like during the period of Jane’s life and seeing photos of the houses and places that she had lived or stayed in as a visitor. And I think I gained a better understanding of the social history of Georgian England and of Jane’s wider family connections and what her family and friends thought of her both as a person and as an author.

Jane Austen at Home is both very readable and very detailed, which is not an easy thing to achieve. There is an extensive section at the end of the book, listing sources, a bibliography, notes on the text and an index. There are two sections of colour plates.

U is for Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes

In this book the author describes how she bought and renovated an abandoned villa. It’s full of the pleasures of living in Tuscany – the sun, the food, the wine and the local people. It makes me want to do the same! It’s nothing like the film they made of it – the book is much better. Bella Tuscany is the follow up book with more details about the restoration of the villa and its garden, plus recipes.

I read this book before I began blogging, so no review. And I no longer have my copy, which just shows the dangers of recycling books as I’d love to re-read it!

N is for Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War by Susan Southard

The facts are horrendous – on August 9th 1945, two days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, a five-ton plutonium bomb was dropped on the small coastal town of Nagasaki. The effects were cataclysmic.

This must be one of the most devastatingly sad and depressing books I’ve read and yet also one of the most uplifting, detailing the dropping of the bomb, which killed 74,000 people and injured another 75,000. As the subtitle indicates this book is not just about the events of 9 August 1945 but it follows the lives of five of the survivors from then to the present day. And it is their accounts which make this such an emotive and uplifting book, as it shows their bravery, how they survived, and how they were eventually able to tell others about their experiences. Along with all the facts about the after effects of the bombing, the destruction, and radiation, it exposes the true horror of atomic warfare, making it an impressive and most compelling account of pain, fear, bravery and compassion.

E is for Elizabeth Macarthur: A Life at the Edge of the World by Michelle Scott Tucker

This is an excellent biography because it is thorough, well researched and it provides an insight into the early years of Australia’s colonial history. It is an extremely readable biography of a fascinating woman. Elizabeth was born on 14 August 1766 in Devon, England and she married John Macarthur in October 1788. In June 1789 they sailed with their first child, Edward, initially on the Neptune, and then on the convict ship Scarborough to New South Wales where John joined his regiment, the New South Wales Corps, in the recently established colony of New South Wales.

For sixty years, Elizabeth ran the family farm in Parramatta, west of Sydney town – on her own during her husband’s long absences abroad, four years during her husband’s first absence, and nine years during the second, when she was responsible for the care of their valuable merino flocks, as well as the Camden Park estate and the direction of its convict labourers.

The book is packed with detail about the landscape, the indigenous population, the disputes between various sections of the colony, about farming and the establishment of the wool industry, not forgetting the details of the Macarthur family members, illnesses, and the position of the women within the community.

The next link up will be on July 6, 2024 when the optional theme will be Stars/Sky

Maiden Voyages by Siân Evans

Published on April 15, 2024April 17, 2024 by Margaret2 Comments

I first read about Maiden Voyages: Women and the Golden Age of Transatlantic Travel by Siân Evans on Cath’s blog Read-Warbler. I thought it sounded excellent, so I reserved a copy from the library. It covers a wide range of topics that fascinate me – not just travel, but also social history, both World Wars, the sinking of the Titanic, emigration, the impact that the ocean liners had on the economy. and on women’s working lives and independence, adventure and so much more besides.

It is a ‘collection of selected biographical tales, both cautionary and life-affirming, about dynamic women on the move, set primarily between the two World Wars, during the golden age of transatlantic travel.‘ (page 25)

It is well written, and thoroughly researched. Like all good non-fiction it has a bibliography and an index. For more detail about the contents of this book I think this description on Amazon UK summarises it very well and I need say no more:

Summary:

Migrants and millionairesses, refugees and aristocrats all looking for a way to improve their lives. After WW1 a world of opportunity was opening up for women … Before convenient air travel, transatlantic travel was the province of the great ocean liners and never more so than in the glory days of the interwar years. It was an extraordinary undertaking made by many women. Some traveled for leisure, some for work; others to find a new life, marriage, to reinvent themselves or find new opportunities. Their stories have remained largely untold – until now.

Maiden Voyages is a fascinating portrait of these women, and their lives on board magnificent ocean liners as they sailed between the old and the new worlds. The ocean liner was a microcosm of contemporary society, divided by class: from the luxury of the upper deck, playground for the rich and famous, to the cramped conditions of steerage or third class travel. These iconic liners were filled with women of all ages, classes and backgrounds: celebrities and refugees, migrants and millionairesses, aristocrats and crew members.

Full of incredible gossip, stories and intrigue, Maiden Voyages has a diverse cast of inspiring women – from A-listers like Josephine Baker, a dancer from St Louis who found fame in Paris, Marlene Dietrich and Wallis Simpson, Violet ‘the unsinkable’ Jessop, a crew member who survived the sinking of the Titanic, and entrepreneur Sibyl Colefax, a pioneering interior designer.

Whichever direction they were travelling, whatever hopes they entertained, they were all under the spell of life at sea, a spell which would only break when they went ashore. Maiden Voyages is a compelling and highly entertaining account of life on board: part dream factory, part place of work, independence and escape – always moving.

Siân Evans is a Welsh author, journalist, commentator, speaker, publicist and film consultant specialising in social history. She is the author of a plethora of popular social histories, including Mrs Ronnie: the Society Hostess Who Collected Kings; The Manor Reborn (tied in to a major four-part BBC1 TV series); Life Below Stairs in the Victorian and Edwardian Country House; Ghosts: Mysterious Tales from the National Trust; seven National Trust Guidebooks between 2008 and 2014 and Queen Bees, a book examining the role of six influential interwar society hostesses.