Review of Angela Carter: The Bloody Chamber, Wise Children, Fireworks with Introduction by Joan Acocella
Review of Angela Carter: The Bloody Chamber, Wise Children, Fireworks with Introduction by Joan Acocella (Everyman’s Library, £12.99)
Gossipy and biased new biography of Mary Shelley
In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein
The search for a terrible truth: review of The Accident On The A35 by Graeme Macrae Burnet
The Accident On The A35
Books: 'Celebratory study of female desire that embraces its reactionary as well as progressive aspects'
Heartthrobs: A History of Women and Desire
'Fluent and warm and human' – The Purple Swamp Hen And Other Stories, by Penelope Lively
The Purple Swamp Hen And Other Stories
Book review: Autumn by Ali Smith
As with her last novel, How To Be Both, which also focused on an artist, in that case, 15th-century painter Francesco del Cossa, Ali Smith’s latest work brings to our attention Pauline Boty, the only woman artist in the Pop Art movement of the 1960s. Boty, known as the ‘Wimbledon Bardot’ for her resemblance to the French actress, died aged 28, after being both feted and critiqued, and it’s no coincidence Smith references Keats throughout, as yet another ‘bright star’ who died tragically young.
