Book review Archives - Huguenot Jo

The Essex Serpent – streaming on Apple TV+

Huguenot Jo — Sun, 15 May 2022 15:41:12 +0000

Clare Danes and Tom Hiddleston star in the TV adaptation of Sarah Perry’s novel The Essex Serpent.

It’s getting good write-ups..

Read a review of the book here and more information about Sarah Perry here

The Essex Serpent TV Mini …

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The Buddha and a calming colouring book

Huguenot Jo — Sun, 19 Dec 2021 15:12:01 +0000

A new Buddhist temple has recently opened near our house, and free meditation classes are always on offer. It’s a pleasant way to spend half an hour, and following a guided fantasy led by one of the orange-robed monks is …

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To be disreputable, disrespectful, disobedient

Huguenot Jo — Sat, 16 Jan 2021 16:35:20 +0000

Sarah Perry’s latest publication, “Essex Girls: For Profane and Opinionated Women Everywhere”, is a tiny little book based on a Harriet Martineau lecture she gave; it’s an entertaining read for any woman who doesn’t like to shut up.

Sarah Perry …

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In the secret places of the heart: The Mirror And The Light

Huguenot Jo — Sun, 26 Apr 2020 12:45:31 +0000

It was comforting to slide back into the familiar mind of Thomas Cromwell as imagined by Hilary Mantel. If you haven’t tackled Mantel’s Tudor trilogy, it’s a very apt project for the lockdown – three enormous tomes, all of them …

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Shut out from a mystery: Guest Blog reviewing “Educated” by Tara Westover

Huguenot Jo — Sat, 20 Apr 2019 11:32:37 +0000

Biographer Monique Goodliffe has contributed a review of Tara Westover’s stunning memoir “Educated”:

When I was little, I lived at an Anglican mission in the high veld in South Africa. My parents, both doctors, worked at the hospital there. We …

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Cancer ward

Huguenot Jo — Sat, 23 Mar 2019 14:37:52 +0000

I’ve been sitting in a cancer ward at the Royal Marsden Hospital, desperately relying on a Tudor detective novel to distract me. Nurses are putting cancer drugs into my child and it’s almost impossible to bear.

One of them catches …

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Half-Hanged Mary and The Handmaid’s Tale

Huguenot Jo — Sun, 15 Jul 2018 10:56:11 +0000

Margaret Atwood dedicated her novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” to Mary Webster – “Half-Hanged Mary”. Webster was hanged from a tree for witchcraft in 17^th century Puritan New England, yet – remarkably – survived overnight, was cut down, and subsequently …

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Versailles Series III: The Sun King and the Huguenots

Huguenot Jo — Sun, 24 Jun 2018 12:27:22 +0000

…

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An Englishman’s history of France

Huguenot Jo — Sun, 17 Jun 2018 13:52:13 +0000

The writer, broadcaster and popular historian John Julius Norwich died on 1 June 2018, aged 88, just after publishing “France: A History from Gaul to de Gaulle”. Poignantly, the author says in the preface:

“I know I have said it …

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Cardinal Richelieu and the Devils of Loudun

Huguenot Jo — Sun, 03 Jun 2018 14:23:06 +0000

I had to buy a second-hand copy of Aldous Huxley’s “The Devils of Loudon” from Amazon Marketplace, having searched unsuccessfully in independent bookshops for a current edition. “Do people no longer read it?” I wondered. When the vintage Penguin paperback …

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Corrag, The Highland Witch

Huguenot Jo — Mon, 28 May 2018 13:59:11 +0000

Susan Fletcher’s novel “Witch Light” is set in 1692, a handful of years after my Huguenot ancestors fled France and landed in England – hopeful of a warm welcome, since the Glorious Revolution of 1688 had ousted James II (a …

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Dreams, nightmares and the possibility of flight

Huguenot Jo — Mon, 21 May 2018 09:23:02 +0000

The stand-off between pagan superstition, Christian rationalism and science is a central theme in Sarah Perry’s second novel The Essex Serpent. Perry was brought up a Strict Baptist; Strict Baptists, like monks, live in the world but not of …

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The fear that someone, somewhere may be happy

Huguenot Jo — Mon, 07 May 2018 15:48:34 +0000

I read Puritanism: A Very Short Introduction with a sense of recognition. Here were my people, all down in black and white. Strict Baptists – the sect I was brought up in – must be the rump, the tiny remainder, …

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