Ah thank you! Such a wonderful book - worth writing a letter about in fact!

Thank you Enid - really lovely to have your thoughts on it

Jack - that's quite a list of great writers! I'm so glad you hold Elizabeth Taylor in such high esteem . I agree she is the perfect companion for a Cotswolds village (although maybe Laurie Lee's Cider with Rosie would have to have a look in too?). Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and these glorious bits of info.

@@emilyrhodeswriter As a critic you can help us see Elizabeth Taylor's genius. Readers need the help of critics. I think it was E.M. Foster who said that the critic follows the writer as the eye follows the bird's shadow, until it soars away. Who would have predicted that a woman (Frances Wilson) would write the biography of Lawrence and another (Alison MacLeod) would write the novel on Lawrence? Lawrence was off the grid as far as readers went. It is touching to see the dedication of the woman who looked after the small museum in Eastwood in Anthony Burgess's film, The Rage of D.H. Lawrence (KZfaq). Susan Sontag said she had to read everything by Paul Goodman as she had to read all of Lawrence even when both writers drove her mad with their fascist misogyny. Goodman disliked the company of women and rebuffed her on many occasions. Karen Blixen said the Nazi officers who were billeted at her stately home were amused by her wit and informed opinions but did not take them seriously because women were only there to be mothers ... Frau, die sich um ihren Mann kummert. Getting back to Elizabeth Taylor, Saul Bellow in London dismissed her novel (Mrs Palfrey) as too minor for a literary award. This minor-major talk irritates me no end. I ought to have included Barbara Pym & Rose Macaulay in my list. Minor? Who cares? Kingsley Amis said that Elizabeth's funeral was bleak in its lack of ritual. I wonder what she thought of Rose Macaulay's Anglicanism ? If you have not read it do get the biography of B. Pym by Paula Byrne - a book to read in Cheltenham where my sister lives.

Shame on me that I left out Anthony Powell & V.S. Naipaul from my list of essential post-war British novelists.

Or (there is no end to British post-war writers) Margiad Evans : read *The Nightingale Silenced* online. P.J. Kavanagh was instrumental in getting Margiad Evans published again. Kavanagh, who trained at the Old Vic, recited five of his poems for Poetry Archive online. The second poem Beyond Decoration alludes to the death of his wife Sally Wogan Philipps, daughter of Rosamond Lehmann and Wogan Philipps 2nd Baron Milford, the only Communist member of the House of Lords. *The Perfect Stranger* : P.J. Kavanagh tells of Sally's death in Java where he lectured with the British Council. Kavanagh read his poem *Edward Thomas in Heaven* at the Cheltenham Festival. I mention this on your Gavin Maxwell post.

I loved this list, as someone coming rather late to this niche of riches!