Lucy Ann White

What a fascinating book. When I first heard we would be reading the biography of Pearl Buck for our book group choice I was less than enamoured. I started reading and thought my doubts confirmed...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2012/10/burying-bones-pearl-buck-in-china-by_30.html

I view holidays as the perfect opportunity to devour a few lengthly books, the ones there is never enough time to get through in everyday life. I gave up reading novels during the day years ago w...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-childrens-book-by-asbyatt.html

The sheep's in the meadows the cows in the corn; shades of the Olympic opening ceremony. It is now time to put on my smock, sharpen the scythe and dig out the old wooden hay rake. The native wil...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2012/08/wildflower-meadows.html

The garden is a jungle this July. The warm weather and all the rain we have had has produced growth that makes a tropical rain forest look as if it's underperforming. Quite apart from the stupend...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-joys-of-english-gardening-in-july.html

What do we recall from our own schooldays – not always a great deal in detail. However, reading Jonathon Coe's novel set in the 1970's, which draws on his own teenage schooldays, all those c...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2012/06/rotters-club-by-jonathan-coe.html

Toibin, born and raised in Ireland , was brought up in Enniscorthy, the town he describes in the novel. It is therefore no surprise that he gives the story such a sense of time and place. Brookly...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2012/05/brooklyn-colm-toibin.html

LITERARY AGENTS ARE RARE CREATURES. The official definition for a Literary Agent is: a person who manages business, financial, or contractual matters for a writer. Or, as the free online diction...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2012/04/no-literary-agent-no-publisher-no-book.html

Now, in the south-east of England at the end of March, when our many native and naturalized deciduous trees are not in leaf, it is still possible to see far and wide across the fields and hills. ...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2012/03/trees-in-landscape.html

WOW! What an amazing exhibition. Right from the start the visitor has an over powering sense of positivity – it's as if Hockney has brought all the colour of California that he loves back to ol...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2012/02/david-hockney-exhibition-bigger-picture.html

As an English classic, the story of Tess of the d'Urbervilles is well known. It is, I acknowledge, not one of my favourite Hardy novels (not that you would guess from the well thumbed copy you se...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2012/01/tess-of-durbervilles-by-thomas-hardy.html

This is surely the time to read Mankell's 26th novel, Italian Shoes. Firstly, because the book is shortly to be made into a film starring Judi Dench and, possibly, Anthony Hopkins. (There, you ha...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2011/12/italian-shoes-henning-mankell.html

I did not realise that Brazzaville Beach was a real place in the Congo until I heard it mentioned on the radio the other day. So much for my geographical knowledge. However, it is a slightly conf...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2011/11/brazzaville-beach-by-william-golding.html

The idea of a new modern art gallery in an east coast less-than-fashionable British seaside town was viewed with caution, disbelief, suspicion, if not considered by many as a downright waste of t...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2011/10/turner-contemporary-margate-kent.html

Winifred Holtby was not a well-known figure until a couple of years ago when her novel, South Riding, was televised. This catapulted her into the Austen/Bronte romantic novel stratosphere althoug...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2011/09/testament-of-friendship-by-vera.html

Who hasn't read Rudyard Kipling? Many of us did as a child, some as an adult, but even those who have never read Kipling will probably have heard of him and his stories. The few who have not may ...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2011/08/rudyard-kipling-1865-1936.html

A mysterious and arresting start, an historical and action packed narrative and an enjoyable read. There we are. That's it in a nutshell. A novel dripping with historical details with a bit of se...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2011/07/birth-of-venus-by-sarah-dunnant.html

It is always a lovely surprise to look out of the window, often soon after dawn, and see some unusual visitor on the bird table. Greenfinches are one of them, as are the other finches: chaffinche...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2011/06/birds-of-feather.html

"I really love Ishiguro's books", several of the groupies opined when Never Let Me Go was chosen as out book group novel. I had only tried to read one of his before - not successfully – I had o...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2011/05/never-let-me-go-kazuo-ishiguro.html

When March turns to April I know the time has come when I can procrastinate no longer: my herbaceous borders need me. The seed heads and sheltering dead foliage have done their bit for the wildli...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2011/04/dreamy-garden-borders-in-april.html

Was this going to be another one of those books about the aboriginies of Tasmania? We've read Secret River and The English Passenger and didn't need more of the same. Wanting was promoted as some...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2011/03/wanting-by-richard-flanagan.html

The snowdrops have faded and the daffodils about to burst. Both of them late this year owing to the snow. And in between times aconites, hellebores in all their glory, iris and crocus have flower...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2011/03/garden-in-spring.html

Well, the time has come. The MS is complete enough. Chapters chosen. Agents researched, letter drafted. It just needs that one last little thing: confidence. Because once the first rejection come...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2011/02/writing-is-daft.html

Alan Bennett's monologues Talking Heads are surely classics now, the first of which are as funny today as they were when written and recorded for television in 1987. But what is quite different...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2011/01/alan-bennett-talking-heads.html

The ground is soggy after the snow and nothing looks appealing in the garden. Surely no-one enjoys gardening in the cold, wet, winter weather anyway. I know I don't. Fair weather gardener, me. Bu...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2011/01/planning-on-gardening.html

The first unexpected snowfall in November was magical. A white fluffy blanket covered the landscape, trees were dusted with icing sugar and everything was beautiful. Pure and unsullied. A still a...

http://lucyannwrites.blogspot.com/2010/12/snow-is-for-birds.html