In part two of our adventure with The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy we walk out of Dorchester over two bridges and down to a weir, where Michael Henchard can be found considering ending it all and seeing what appears to be a body floating down the Frome. Behind him and up on aContinue reading “The Mayor of Casterbridge Part Two”
Category Archives: Series 2
The Mayor of Casterbridge Part One
We’ve reached the 15th book of our second series of The Curiously Specific Book Club, and it’s one of the most famous books in English publishing history: Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge. Set in the fictional town of Casterbridge in the just-as-fictional county of Wessex, it’s a finely-wrought depiction of real people in realContinue reading “The Mayor of Casterbridge Part One”
Rebecca Part Two
We’re halfway through a walk around the edge of the Menabilly estate in Cornwall, where Daphne Du Maurier lived for many years. We’re trying to work out how closely Menabilly aligns with the fictional house of Manderley, as featured in ‘Rebecca’ We find a gatehouse and driveway on the west side, then repair to theContinue reading “Rebecca Part Two”
Rebecca Part One
“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again…” We’re off to Cornwall to see if the dream-house of Manderley, as featured in Daphne Du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’, could ever be a real place. We start off in Lostwithiel, a town where we think Rebecca’s inquest could’ve taken place. We move to Fowey, the nearest villageContinue reading “Rebecca Part One”
The Remains of the Day Part Two
In part two of our adventure with Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, we have some questions, and make an apology. Our questions include: what the hell are we doing on Dartmoor? And what happened to Day Five? Our apology follows a discovery made thanks to Ship’s Dog. We end on the remains ofContinue reading “The Remains of the Day Part Two”
The Remains of the Day Part One
We’re taking our first Nobel prize winner out for a walk! Actually, it’s more of a drive, as Kazuo Ishiguro’s unforgettable creation, the butler Stevens, drives his boss’s Ford down the backroads from Oxfordshire to Cornwall. In part one we ask where exactly Oxfordshire ends and Berkshire begins (clue: it isn’t where Ishiguro thinks itContinue reading “The Remains of the Day Part One”
Life After Life Part Two
We start Part Two in one of the ritziest parts of London – Holland Park – where both Ursula and her charismatic aunt Izzie from Kate Atkinson’s ‘Life After Life’ are meant to live (alongside Michael Powell and Michael Winner it seems). We scurry off quickly to Soho in search of pubs and clubs featuredContinue reading “Life After Life Part Two”
Life After Life Part One
We’re off in search of Fox Corner, the family home of the Todds, as featured heavily in Kate Atkinson’s time-twisting bestseller ‘Life After Life’. Is Fox Corner a real place or just made up? Or could it be a bit of both? If you want to hear our episodes without ads, as soon as they’reContinue reading “Life After Life Part One”
The Night Watch Part Two
In this episode we follow the extraordinary walk taken by two of the book’s protagonists, Julia and Helen, as they walk across the City of London during an air raid. It’s a landscape of doomed churches and hidden alleyways, now loomed over by gargantuan office blocks. We doff our caps to the intelligence and diligenceContinue reading “The Night Watch Part Two”
The Night Watch Part Two
We’re back, with our second novel set in the Second World War. This time, it’s The Night Watch by Sarah Waters, a passionate and intricate story of doomed love affairs among the falling bombs of the Blitz and the Baby Blitz. In part one we visit Lavender Hill, Wormwood Scrubs and the tall Georgian manorContinue reading “The Night Watch Part Two”
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