Tag Archives: Rebecca West

Substack: Interview with author Julia Cooke

Posted on February 15, 2026 by sheila

Julia Cooke’s Starry and Restless: Three Women Who Changed Work, Writing, and the World comes out at the end of this month and I snagged an advance copy. I fell so in love with the book I reached out to … Continue reading →

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2025 Books Read

Posted on December 30, 2025 by sheila

I ended last year with a flurry of Oscar Wilde’s short stories, declaring I’d read all the plays in 2025. I mean, there were only five, sadly, due to the homophobic violence of his own society. I know these plays … Continue reading →

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“I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.” — Rebecca West

Posted on December 21, 2025 by sheila

It’s her birthday today. It is hard to talk about her without referencing the generations of writers she inspired, all of whom admit their debt. Robert Kaplan is the most open about it (in Balkan Ghosts, which launched his career, … Continue reading →

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“I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is toward individuals.” — Jonathan Swift

Posted on November 30, 2025 by sheila

“When a man of true Genius appears in the World, you may know him by this infallible Sign, that all the Dunces are in Conspiracy against him.” — Jonathan Swift I don’t have much time to read for pleasure these … Continue reading →

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“Sunlight on a broken column.” — T.S. Eliot

Posted on September 26, 2025 by sheila

It’s T.S. Eliot’s birthday. Poets like William Carlos Williams and Hart Crane both said that they needed to forcibly divorce themselves from Eliot’s influence in order to be able to write. His voice, his way, became THE way. (Interestingly enough, … Continue reading →

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“I am better able to imagine hell than heaven; it is my inheritance, I suppose.” — poet Elinor Wylie

Posted on September 7, 2025 by sheila

She was born on this day. I am not familiar with the full scope of Elinor Wylie’s work, but what I do know strikes my fancy. Unlike the other free verse modernists of the day, Wylie liked structure and form. … Continue reading →

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June 28, 1914: “But if ever a man went anywhere of his own free will, Franz Ferdinand went to Sarajevo.”

Posted on June 28, 2025 by sheila

June 28, 1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie – setting out in their motorcade in Sarajevo that fateful morning, as the assassins, unseen, move into position. Here are two excerpts from Rebecca West’s towering Black Lamb and Grey … Continue reading →

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“That is no country for old men.” — William Butler Yeats

Posted on June 13, 2025 by sheila

“I thought we might bring the halves together if we had a national literature that made Ireland beautiful in the memory, and yet had been freed of provincialism by an exacting criticism, a European pose.” — W.B. Yeats William Butler … Continue reading →

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For International Women’s Day: Ladies I Love

Posted on March 8, 2025 by sheila

I post edited versions of this every year. I add names. I take names off if I feel like it. I enjoy compiling it. It’s not just about enjoyment. As women’s rights are up for grabs more than ever, like … Continue reading →

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2023 Books Read

Posted on December 31, 2023 by sheila

I think I might have read more books by non-American authors than American this year. Countries represented below: Austria, Hungary, Poland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Croatia, Ireland, France, Russia, Colombia. I revisited some old favorites, which I will continue to do in … Continue reading →

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