Poems referenced by The Painted Veil.

 Lift Not The Painted Veil by Percy Bysshe ShelleyLift not the painted veil which those who liveCall Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,And it but mimic all we would believeWith colours idly spread,—behind, lurk FearAnd Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weaveTheir shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear.I knew one who had lifted it—he sought,For his lost heart was tender, things to...

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The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham

The only important thing in a book, is the meaning it has for you.Somerset MaughamThis review contains spoilersThis was my second reading of The Painted Veil, and just like my second read of The Blue Flower I got much more out of it the second time round. The title is taken from a short poem by Shelly,...

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Wlliam Allingham Diaries

William Allingham (1824–1889) was an Irish poet, diarist, and editor, best known for his lyrical poetry and his connections with the literary figures of the Victorian era. Allingham’s education was informal, though he was an avid reader from a young age. After his father’s death, he took up a job...

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The People Immortal by Vasily Grossman

 Vasily Grossman was a Soviet war reporter in WWII, He was born in in 1905, in Berdychiv , Ukraine - also the birthpalce of Joseph Conrad. He studied to be a chemical engineer but decided he really wanted to be a reporter. In June 1941 Hitler invaded the Soviet Union despite his non-agression...

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The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald

This historical novel is based on seven formative years in the life of the German poet, Frederick (Fritz) Hardenberg at the end of the 18th century. He adopted the name Novalis (clearer of new land) and along with Schiller and the Schlegels was a founder of German Romanticism. (Wiki entry...

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Christmas Presents for Young Bookworms

Books have always been at the top of my Christmas wish-lists from an early age – Gene Autry cowboy adventures, The Lion Annual, football annuals and a Biggles Omnibus (I still have a copy) are early memories. If you too have fond memories of tearing off the wrapping round those rectangular parcels and...

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Golden Twins: The Peregrine by J A Baker, & The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd

Here are two books about the natural world, so great in their descriptive power that you are transported from the warmth and comfort of your home either to a frost-rimed field in Essex, with your eyes lifted to a peregrine circling in the winter sky, or to a stoney track in the Cairngorm with the wind...

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Death & The Penguin by Andrey Kurkov

Death & The Penguin tells the story of a failed writer Viktor Alekseyevich Zolotaryov who lives a lonely life in Kviv, scraping by on selling short, very short, stories. He lives with Misha, a King penguin which he rescued from the local zoo because it could no longer afford to keep all its animals....

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Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac

 Who will marry Eugénie Grandet? This short classic novel, set in the town of Saumur in post-revolution France, tells the story of a miser, Felix Grandet and the coming of age of his daughter Eugénie. She will inherit the miser’s millions and make her future husband a wealthy man.  Two young...

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Super Infinite - The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell

 “The power of John Donne’s words nearly killed a man”. Katherine Rundell’s Super Infinite starts with a bang. Will this biography be a bit dry, a bit academic? Not a bit of it. She says: This is both a biography of Donne and an act of evangelism. She is passionate about Donne and looking...

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