#viragobooks

[professorpski]

Clothing coupons which looked such an imposing array when issued melted to nothing before the onslaught of a coat and skirt, or a winter overcoat. A new kind of gold-digging was evolved by women of all ages, who took up the attitude that their husbands, sons, brothers and men friends would never need any new clothes and so might as well let them have their coupons.

This passage was written by Angela Thirkell in her novel Marling Hall set in the countryside of England which came out 1942 in the midst of World War II. In order to prevent the price of goods from skyrocketing, the British instituted a rationing system whereby people got an assortment of coupons that would allow them to legally buy clothing. Thirkell saw the humor in the scramble to keep well-dressed and within the law. Gold-digger is an insult usually directed at younger women who cultivate older men with money in order to share some of their gold via marriage or other means. Here, Thirkell made every woman into a gold-digger, or at least a coupon- digger.

Clothing for public wearing was more formal, more detailed, and as a result more expensive than what we wear now, so the value of coupons to women was far more than it would be today. True, men's fashions evolved very slowly, but the fabric wore out just the same.

You can find Thirkell's novels at Virago Books: https://www.virago.co.uk/?s=thirkell

[weefie]

My membership letter from #tatemodern given a bit of #weefcreates art. Head of a girl. #art #artistsoninstagram #artist #artonpaper. #worksonpaper #artoftheday #tategallery #tate #book #viragobooks #muse https://www.instagram.com/p/CoHiX8vIBXA/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[kaggsy59]

Celebrating a trail-blazing feminist publisher - over @ShinyNewBooks :D #furies @ViragoBooks

A little belatedly, I want to share a new review I have up at Shiny New Books today! The title in question is “Furies: Stories of the wicked, wild and untamed” and it’s a marvellous volume, introduced by Sandi Toksvig and featuring tales from a wonderfully wide array of women authors, from Margaret Atwood to Ali Smith and many, many others. The publisher being celebrated is, of course, Virago…

[bahhumpug]

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim is a light & charming read, though I must confess that I was hoping to enjoy it more than I actually did. * #funaekreads #funaekbooks #instabooks #instareads #pugsandbooks #theenchantedapril #elizabethvonarnim #viragobooks #viragomodernclassics #vmc https://www.instagram.com/p/B-8evZmAVo1/?igshid=1ltammiapq9sl

[returntocatmountain]

The Enchanted April — A Wistfully Welcome Discovery

The Enchanted April — A Wistfully Welcome Discovery

by Princess Indigo

I found Elizabeth Von Arnim’s novel The Enchanted April amid a frantic summer of house hunting, intending to read it on my travels. These good intentions were not kept and instead I began reading it long after my house hunting and moving were well and truly done...

Read the rest of the story on Medium

[arambling]

"...the couple whose divorce was so painful that it was memorialised in both literature and film." Rory Gilmore S7:E4 . And this was the literature one, and I loved it, and it was painful but also funny and moving and hopeful ❤🌞 . . . . . #bookstagram #booksofinstagram #readingmybookshelf #readingcorner #oootd #fermliving #viragobooks #edinburgh #morninglight #aquietplace #lockdownstories #52booksin52weeks #buylocal #smallbusinesssupport (at Edinburgh, United Kingdom) https://www.instagram.com/p/CMl89Hdj60z/?igshid=ic76avq7gna3

[calturnerreviews]

#BlogTour - #BookReview of #MyJudyGarlandLife by Susie Boyt @SusiBoyt @ViragoBooks @annecater #RandomThingsTours

#BlogTour - #BookReview of the unique and irresistible #MyJudyGarlandLife by @SusiBoyt. Thanks to @ViragoBooks and @annecater for the opportunity. #RandomThingsTours #bookblogger #bookreviewer #bookrec #memoir #wordpress #nonfiction

I’m pleased to welcome you today to my stop on the blog tour for the unique and irresistible My Judy Garland Life by Susie Boyt. Thank you to Anne Cater and Virago Books for giving me the opportunity to read and review this fascinating book.

About the book:

Reissued in Virago Paperback in September 2019

June 2019 is the 50th anniversary of Judy Garland’s death

August 2019 is the 80th anniversary…

[minhyowon]

#currentlyreading The Enchanted April. I'm liking it so far. It's a bit of a slow read for me because it's written at a relaxed pace and it's not action packed. What are you reading? . . . . #bookstagram #bibliomania #bibliophile #viragomodernclassics #theenchantedapril #elizabethvonarnim #igreads #bookcover #booklover #booknerdigans #nailpolish #opi #gelatoonmymind #cajunshrimp #beautifulbooks #bookishfeatures #booksofinstagram #booksofig #viragobooks

[bibliobeque]

Just a few books today 😊 #bookhaul #bookstack #bookspines #viragobooks — view on Instagram https://ift.tt/2lbU7Rl

[professorpski]

Doris Phipps and Lily-Annie Pollett, though they looked incredibly plain and depraved in oyster satin blouses, tight-seated bell-bottomed trousers, red nails on dirty hands, greasy curls hanging on their shoulders, a cigarette forever glued to their lips, were really very nice, kind girls.

This description of a pair of women train porters assigned to a town stop in England during World War II comes from the mind of the stationmaster Mr. Beedle. He, like many older people in the novels of Angela Thirkell, is upset by changes brought by the war: here, the disappearance of the squad of male porters he had commanded before the war broke out. Even though trousers make perfect sense for the physical job of hefting and toting bags and trunks, and pushing carts piled up with boxes and bags, they are part of the reason that the young women seem depraved to Beedle. And one would hardly expect their hands or hair to stay clean in the midst of all this dust and dirt.

Of course, women had been doing dirty work for time out of mind, think farm women and scrub women, and doing some of it in trousers, but that did not shake belief in the rule that women should not be wearing pants in public places. It was not until the 1960s, and only after a drawn-out public debate, that pants on women in the North Atlantic world were seen as anything but sloppy or overly sporty. So it was a big shift when by the late 1960s, women were wearing all kinds of pants whether or not they were embarked on a dirty job at a train station.

This fashion in fiction is from Growing Up published in 1943. You can find reprints of Thikell's works at Virago Books: https://www.virago.co.uk/?s=thirkell

[weefie]

My membership letter from #tatemodern given a bit of #weefcreates art. Head of a girl. #art #artistsoninstagram #artist #artonpaper. #worksonpaper #artoftheday #tategallery @tate #book #picassomuseumparis #viragobooks #muse (at Bridport) https://www.instagram.com/p/CnOv-bSIsba/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[frimleyblogger]

Some Tame Gazelle

An impressive debut novel from Barbara Pym reissued by @ViragoBooks #amreading

A review of Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym To my shame, I had never come across the early 19th century poet, Thomas Haynes Bayly, before I picked up Barbara Pym’s first published novel, which appeared in 1950. Bayly’s couplet “Some tame gazelle, or some gentle dove:/ something to love, oh, something to love!” provides the book’s title and also gives a sense of the themes of this entertaining,…

[bahhumpug]

Haul from the last weekend of book sales for the fall season. * #funaekreads #funaekbooks #instabooks #instareads #librarybooksale #bookhaul #booksale #usedbooks #usedbooksale #nyrbclassics #viragobooks #viragomodernclassics https://www.instagram.com/p/B4X16NTAl2c/?igshid=dbjyd2avvqsn

[kaggsy59]

"Change will not come from above" @ViragoBooks #GeneralStrike #JarrowMarch

“Change will not come from above” @ViragoBooks #GeneralStrike #JarrowMarch

Clash by Ellen Wilkinson

So…. I’ve managed quite well with #WITmonth during August I feel – three titles so far – but needless to say I am *not* sticking with my plans… I had wanted to read at least one Virago this month and had pencilled in “A Fine of Two Hundred Francs” by Elsa Triolet. Not only is it a book I’ve intended to read for ages, but it would have also fitted in with WITmonth and…

[arambling]

"...the couple whose divorce was so painful that it was memorialised in both literature and film." Rory Gilmore S7:E4 . And this was the literature one, and I loved it, and it was painful but also funny and moving and hopeful ❤🌞 . . . . . #bookstagram #booksofinstagram #readingmybookshelf #readingcorner #oootd #fermliving #viragobooks #edinburgh #morninglight #aquietplace #lockdownstories #52booksin52weeks #buylocal #smallbusinesssupport — view on Instagram https://ift.tt/2PbsCte

[unlimitedshoutouts]

.@unlimited_shout @commutingreader @ViragoBooks A depression origin story, a candid look into a hurt mind.https://t.co/uMb4D4fN27

— Nick Haines (@01Bizkit) June 23, 2017