The Bloomsbury Set

Uncommon Arrangements, Katie Roiphe

I loved this book right from the very start. It follows seven marriages from 1910 to 1939 in literary london. The marriages are mostly between members of the bloomsbury set and are as follows:

• H. G. & Jane Wells
• Vanessa & Clive Bell
• Ottoline & Philip Morrell
• Radclyffe Hall& Una Troubridge
• Vera Brittain & George Gordon Catlin
• Elizabeth von Arnim & John Francis Russell
• Katherine Mansfield & John Middleton Murray

These marriages all had an element of modernism or the atypical to them – often involving strange love triangles, friendships, affairs and illegitimate children. Katie Roiphe writes in a really easy to read, conversational kind of style and she has done her research (especially considering the selected bibliography at the back).

The period is so interesting with the shift from Victorians to Edwardians and the writers’ marriages reflect these changing attitudes. This book has a real personal feel, almost like you are sitting in the same room as all these fascinating people watching their lives unfold.

Abstinance.

After an entire month of forcing myself not to buy any more books, I celebrated with this little stash:

• Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff
• The Distant Hours by Kate Morton
• The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill
• Uncommon Arrangements by Katie Roiphe

Hello summer reading.