JacquiWine's Journal

Through sharply observed novellas such as The Driver’s Seat and The Ballad of Peckham Rye, the Scottish writer Muriel Spark has shown herself to be an inventive writer, often teasing out the idiosyncrasies and absurdities of everyday life.

Born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1917, the esteemed author Carson McCullers is well known for her stories of loneliness and isolation.

If you follow Karen (Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings) and Simon (Stuck in a Book), you’ll know that another of their hugely enjoyable ‘Club’ weeks is about to begin.

The Innocent Party is the fifth book I’ve read by the British writer Celia Dale, and I’m starting to wonder whether her novels fall into two distinct but closely related groups.

Later this month, Karen and Simon will be hosting another of their hugely enjoyable ‘Club’ weeks, focusing this time on 1949.

Slowly but surely, I’m working my way through Anita Brooker’s exquisitely written novels in publication order – they really are jewel-like in construction.

Praised by Raymond Chandler as one of the best suspense writers of her era, the American writer Elisabeth Sanxay Holding produced eighteen crime novels and many short stories over the course of her career.

If you follow Nora (Pear Jelly) on Bluesky or Instagram, you’ll know that she’s currently hosting #SpinsterSeptember, a themed reading event showcasing books featuring unmarried women, from the classic spinsters found in 19th– and 20th-century novels to t…

I love Barbara Pym, an underappreciated writer whose gentle comedies of manners and unrequited love among the genteel middle classes are charming and quietly poignant.

Stephen Benatar’s remarkable, deeply unsettling novel features one of the best depictions of the inner life of an unstable woman I’ve ever encountered in fiction.

Born in Saint Petersburg in 1901, Nina Berberova emigrated from Russia to the Weimar Republic in 1922, where she lived for three years before moving to Paris.

First published in 1958, The Bell was Iris Murdoch’s fourth book, a sophisticated, richly textured novel that explores complicated feelings between complex individuals, encompassing faith, guilt, resentment, anger, fear, and perhaps most importantly, love.

Today, for Women in Translation Month, I’m showcasing six books by women writers in translation, all published in the UK by Daunt Books.

Widely regarded as one of the most influential Catalan writers of the 20th century, Mercè Rodoreda was born and raised in Barcelona.

Back in 2023, I read and loved Claire Kilroy’s Soldier Sailor, a superb novel in which ‘Soldier’, a married woman in the early months of motherhood, experiences a loss of identity, an erasure of her sense of self.