Book of the month

    Virago Modern Classics Book Club January 2020 Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady by Florence King We are kicking off the Virago Book Club for 2020 with a touch of humour in the form of Florence King’s biography Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady.   The witty woman is a tragic figure in […]

    Virago Modern Classics Book Club December 2019 Little Women by Louisa May Alcott This December, our Book of the Month is Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. We decided it was high time to revisit this classic, ahead of the new film releasing this month! ‘I am not afraid of storms, for I […]

    Virago Modern Classics Book Club November 2019 Wave Me Goodbye Edited by Anna Boston This November, our Book of the Month is Wave Me Goodbye edited by Anna Boston. Published to mark the 80th anniversary of the start of the Second World War, these are powerful wartime stories written by the finest women […]

    Virago Modern Classics Book Club October 2019 Corregidora by Gayl Jones This October, our Book of the Month is Corregidora by Gayl Jones. Upon publication in 1975, Corregidora was hailed as a masterpiece, winning acclaim from writers including James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and John Updike. Exploring themes such as race, sexuality and the long repercussions […]

  Virago Modern Classics Book Club September 2019 The Wedding by Dorothy West   This September we are celebrating the reissue of Dorothy West’s classic novel, The Wedding.    In her last novel, Dorothy West, an iconic member of the Harlem Renaissance, offers an intimate glimpse into African American middle class. With elegant, luminous prose, Dorothy […]

  Virago Modern Classics Book Club August 2019 The Sleeping Beauty by Elizabeth Taylor Our book of the month this August is The Sleeping Beauty by Elizabeth Taylor.   Elizabeth Taylor was an English novelist and short-story writer, whom Antonia Fraser called ‘one of the most underrated writers of the 20th century’. The Sleeping Beauty, her sixth […]

Virago Modern Classics Book Club, November 2018 The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West   This November in commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of Armistice we are reading The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West. The soldier returns from the front to the three women who love him. His wife, Kitty, with her […]

Virago Modern Classics Book Club, September 2018 Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston   This September we are reading Zora Neale Hurston’s classic: Their Eyes Were Watching God,  perhaps the most widely read and highly regarded novel in the entire canon of African American literature.     She was stretched on her […]

  Book of the Month: The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter Our Book of the month this July is Angela Carter’s brilliant The Magic Toyshop. One night Melanie walks through the garden in her mother’s wedding dress. The next morning her world is shattered. Forced to leave the home of her childhood, she is sent to live […]

Book of the Month: Crewe Train by Rose Macaulay This April our book of the month is Rose Macaulay’s brilliant Crewe Train.  Denham Dobie has been brought up in Andorra by her father, a retired clergyman. On his death, she is snatched from this reclusive life and thrown into the social whirl of London by her sophisticated relatives. […]

Our Book of the Month for December is a childhood favourite: Carrie’s War by Nina Bawden. ‘A touching, utterly convincing book’ Jacqueline Wilson ‘I did a dreadful thing, the worst thing of my life, when I was twelve and a half years old, and nothing can change it’ It is wartime and Carrie and her […]

Our Book of the Month for October is Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner ‘The novel sharply undercuts its genteel appearance to reveal a dark and visceral heart… An elegantly enchanting tale that transcends its era’ – Observer Lolly Willowes is a twenty-eight-year-old spinster when her adored father dies, leaving her dependent upon her brothers and […]