Now available from Poppyland Publishing at £12.95.

Mention the name Rider Haggard to the 21st century reader and it is the novelist, Sir Henry Rider Haggard, author of King Solomon’s Mines and She, who comes to mind. His wild adventures and stirring romances held their popularity from the late 19th right through to the later decades of the 20th century.

But the East Anglian might also swiftly call to mind his daughter, Lilias, who was an accomplished authoress in her own right, a columnist for the Eastern Daily Press and a range of national publications. Hers is a very different story. While she had the privilege of sharing in some of her father’s exotic travels Lilias also shared her own generation’s tragic experience of the First World War. As a VAD nurse she watched as the harrowing conflict changed their world. When she returned to her Norfolk home she came back not only with a new depth and compassion but also with a determined affirmation of rural life that soon found its expression in her on countryside matters in many articles and books.

Just zipped through The Paris Wife by Paula McLain – lovely read about Hadley and Ernest Hemingway – she was his first wife – (but then  he was also her first husband!) ….saturated with romance of  time and place. Interesting to know that in Toronto for a short time they lived at the Selby Hotel (is that near Huntley Street?) and then on Bathurst. They endured a very cold winter with their young baby. Chilly memories.

Now on to short stores by women authors of the fin de siecle. Will report back later

Just been given Margaret MacMillan’s History’s People for my birthday. Looking forward to getting into it.

I had a lovely holiday reading Metrostop Paris by Gregor Dallas  (2009) – an interesting  way into the city’s history.  Just makes you want to know more – and go back to walk it.

Into the New Year 2015 with Paul Among the People  by Sarah Ruden (2010) an American academic. Refreshing new take on the man whom we have come to think of as so reactionary.  Ruden reminds her readers of some of the Roman Empire’s more unpleasant habits.

Having spent a week in Findhorn in June  I’ve had a blitz on some New Age writers including David Spangler’s Age of Aquarius.   A bit more down to earth with Men and Women Writers of the 1930s: the Dangerous Flood of History  by Janet Montefiore. About to start on some serious holiday reading : Tom Holt’s Nothing but Blue Skies !