Virago 50th Anniversary Reading Project 2023 - October

2023 sees us celebrating 50 years of our favourite publisher, Virago!

We have set up a reading project to choose books from a section of the VMC catalogue in sequential order, and after some discussion on other threads, have decided to go for equal sections rather than trying to divide up the 50 years and fit books into this by publication date!

To aid us, we will be using our Virago Collection Tracker which can be found in the Group Wiki.

In October, our eighth month, we can choose from books numbered 561-630. These run from An Academic Question by Barbara Pym to The Lady and the Unicorn by Rumer Godden. This is possibly going to be one of our more challenging months as, at this point, Virago appeared to be releasing books in batches by particular authors. So if you love Patricia Highsmith, Rumer Godden and Lucy M Montgomery, for example, you will be very happy! If you prefer a wider range of choices, you may not...

However, as always, it will be wonderful to hear what you choose to read, and please do share your thoughts in the monthly threads! :D

My plan is to read Crampton Hodnet by Barbara Pym, #568. It's an early work that went unpublished until after Pym's death.

>2 NinieB: excellent! There are a couple of Pym in the list! 😊

I intend to read High Rising by Angela Thirkell. I'll probably read some of her other books also.

By a lucky chance I started reading The glass cell by Patricia Highsmith yesterday, which happens to fall into this month's category!

I will also read A fugue in time, one of the few Rumer Godden's I haven't yet read.

I'm very happy I chose to read Crampton Hodnet. It's a funny, sweet novel set in pre-WWII Oxford.

I've read both The glass cell and A fugue in time.

The Highsmith was a typically gripping read, although I found the first half which showed the protagonist's life in prison to be more interesting than the suspense plot which kicks off after he is released. The author corresponded with a prison inmate while she was writing which must account for the visceral reality of these chapters.

A fugue in time won't become one of my favourite Goddens but I did enjoy it. It's one of her "house" books where the house is as much a character as the family who lives there. The stories of the generations bleed into each other through time.