This week's reading

     Have you read Tristram Shandy - or to give it its full title, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne?

     First published in 1759, "extravagantly praised for its humour and roundly condemned for its indecency", I have to read it by the end of next week so I think I shall do it in fifty-page chunks rather than one big bite, and alongside it I'll be reading

Love in Winter by (the wonderfully named) Storm Jameson - another author I haven't read before. This 1935 novel begins in the early 20s and features Hervey Russell whose burgeoning literary career is not enough for her. Living with an unloving husband "makes her long for a new beginning" and then she meets ...

I'm looking forward to it!

Comments

[Lindsay]

I upset Harriet D by being less than wholeheartedly enthusiastic about Tristram Shandy, though I loved A Sentimental Journey. You're on a long and confusing road, good luck!

[Simon T]

I'm a little scared at the thought of Tristram S... but I would like to read some Storm Jameson. In fact I *did* read an essay/book the other day by her, called The Georgian Novel and Mr. Robinson. An interesting look at which books were popular in the 1930s.

[Jennifer Dee]

I have read this book by Storm Jameson and loved her writing. On my TBR pile is 'In the Secon Year', can't wait to get to that one. I also have on my wish list the biography 'Margaret Storm Jameson: A Life' by Jennifer Birkett.

[Sarah Cuthbertson]

Will be interested to know if reading Tristram Shandy in fifty-page chunks works for you. I really want to read this book and have managed to start it twice without getting even a quarter of the way through. Perhaps I was trying to digest it in over-large lumps. I loved the film "A Cock and Bull Story"(not the film of the book as that's clearly impossible) with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. It was worth watching just for this line: "It [TS] was postmodern before there was anything to be postmodern about."