Yet there are some pieces, such as a visit to a home for foundlings which seem to simply be there for the sake of showing more society issues, it’s all well and good but haven’t we read this before? Kate Williams has been compared to Sarah Waters,...

In other words, the majority of literary fiction wins awards rather than readers -- or readers who borrow rather than buy books, anyway.*****Meanwhile, writing in this week's issue of the New Yorker, Jonathan Franzen -- that most earnestly literary of...

I did have a brief binge on one after reading Essie’s, which I will be discussing tomorrow, but I think once I have finished of the wonderful letters between Nancy Mitford and a bookshop I think it is time to gorge myself on all things Victoriana. I...

I love Sarah Waters and Emma Donoghue, who are always suggested, but their writing tends to be more literary and heavy and less "romance novel", and when I try to find others, I often just come across erotica meant for the male gaze. I've seen plenty...

Keeping things in the legitimate family was the business of the spectre, who made life intolerable for the descendents until order was restored. How clever of Sarah Waters, then, to set her psychological ghost story at a crucial point in social...

I don’t know how anybody gets anything done at all if they have people coming round or social calls to pay on a regular basis. It’s fun but it all takes up so much time. Still, I can tell you what I am in the middle of reading. I’m three-quarters of...