Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
The L-Shaped Room
The L-Shaped Room | Lynne Reid Banks
6 posts | 6 read | 19 to read
'Lynne Reid Banks' compassionate first novel examines the stigma of unmarried motherhood in pre-pill, pre-Abortion Act Britain... While the social climate has changed drastically since publication, a transgressive frisson still crackles from the pages' The Guardian Pregnant by accident, kicked out of home by her father, 27-year-old Jane Graham goes to ground in the sort of place she feels she deserves - a bug-ridden boarding-house attic in Fulham. She thinks she wants to hide from the world, but finds out that even at the bottom of the heap, friends and love can still be found, and self-respect is still worth fighting for.
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
blurb
LeahBergen
The L-Shaped Room | Lynne Reid Banks
post image

A couple of oldies that I found at the bookshop this weekend (and that I‘ve somehow never read 🤷🏻‍♀️).

Leftcoastzen Cool! 5mo
BarbaraJean I have that same edition of Goodbye, Mr. Chips! The L-Shaped Room was the first (maybe only) “adult” book I read by Lynne Reid Banks. Quite different than the books of hers I read as a child! 😆 5mo
merelybookish Great covers! 5mo
See All 18 Comments
Tamra What iconic covers! 5mo
Ruthiella I‘ve long had The L-Shaped Room on my TBR because of your book twin Simon Thomas! 😅 5mo
LeahBergen @Leftcoastzen @merelybookish @Tamra I‘m quite liking the pink and black. 😆 5mo
LeahBergen @BarbaraJean I liked this Mr Chips because it‘s illustrated! And yes, the subject matter of this Banks is a bit different than her children‘s stories. 😆 5mo
LeahBergen @Ruthiella Haha! It‘s long been on my TBR, too (maybe because of Simon Thomas? I can‘t remember now 😆). This is actually a replacement of an uglier old edition - maybe I‘ll actually get to it now?? 5mo
MemoirsForMe Love these vintage covers. What treasures! 😍 5mo
Cathythoughts You found two good oldies ♥️♥️ 5mo
LeahBergen @UwannaPublishme @Cathythoughts I‘m always drawn to these oldies. 😆 5mo
Centique Oh they‘re glorious! I will have to look out for that edition of L Shaped Room, it was my mother‘s favourite book ❤️💙 5mo
Centique @LeahBergen @Ruthiella its worth a read, pretty ground-breaking for the time! But there is a really nasty racist remark or two in there about one of the other boarders in the house. Maybe its part of the protagonist‘s naïveté but yikes. ? 5mo
LeahBergen @Centique It was your Mother‘s favourite? Now I really must get to it soon. 🥰 5mo
rubyslippersreads Great covers! 5mo
AnishaInkspill I;ve not read goodbye Mr Chips but seen a couple of screen adapatations, and this fictional biography of the Brontes by Lynne Reid Banks got me better aqcuainted with the 3 sisters. 1mo
LeahBergen @AInkspill I have a copy of Dark Quartet waiting on my shelves! 1mo
AnishaInkspill @LeahBergen awww fanstastic!!! 1mo
67 likes18 comments
review
Centique
The L-Shaped Room | Lynne Reid Banks
post image
Pickpick

I‘ve been meaning to read this 1960 book for years as it was a favourite of my late mother. It‘s about Jane, a 27 year old woman living at home with her father, who is thrown out when she announces she is pregnant. She goes to live in a dilapidated London boarding house. The people she meets are unexpectedly supportive and that‘s great BUT my god the racism in here is So Bad. I think that Banks was emphasising ⬇️

Centique How much Jane‘s “class” of people looked down upon the people in the boarding house, but holy cow it‘s rough to read. Still a reminder of the kind of hateful speech that was widely accepted in 1960. On the other hand the maligned characters are the best and most supportive to Jane. ⬇️ 3y
Centique I think for a modern reader this reads more as an indictment of attitudes of the time than a story of Jane overcoming hardship although the friendships made are really lovely. 3y
Reggie I stacked it because you make it sound good but I don‘t think I could read it any time soon. 3y
See All 10 Comments
Centique @Reggie you‘re right I think. It‘s kind of like take a sweet story about finding friends in a rough time and then add The Most Racist Comments made by multiple characters 😳😳😳 But hey my eyes are opened a bit wider now. 3y
Centique @Reggie it would be kinda fun to buddy read it with a friend and get horrified together at the language used. 3y
CarolynM It's a long, long time since I read it, but I think I thought part of the point was the wrongness of judging social outcasts for being outcasts. 3y
Centique @CarolynM yes I think she made that point really well. Interestingly though she was interviewed decades later and said that on rereading it herself the level of racist language she‘d used shocked her. I guess she intended it to be obviously unfair at the time but it‘s worse than that. 3y
andrew61 I do like 1960's kitchen sink dramas. I have a 2nd hand copy this somewhere so may give it a go . 3y
LeahBergen I‘ve had a copy of this waiting on my shelves for years. I‘ll give it a go one of these days. 3y
Centique @andrew61 @LeahBergen I hope you both enjoy it. It certainly is a good read and has a lot to take from it. 3y
73 likes2 stack adds10 comments
blurb
CarolynM
The L-Shaped Room | Lynne Reid Banks
post image

The quintessential 60's novel about an unwed expectant mother #SeptemberDanes #Pregnant
Her family's treatment of her qualifies this for #EmotionalReads too. #ReadingResolutions

LeahBergen I recently found an old copy of this at a book sale. 6y
CarolynM @LeahBergen There were a lot of them around. It was just about compulsory reading when I was a teenager in the 70's 6y
Kalalalatja Stacked! 6y
Rissreads I‘m stacking too! 6y
sisilia I loved this book 😍 6y
66 likes8 stack adds5 comments
blurb
Cinfhen
The L-Shaped Room | Lynne Reid Banks
post image

#FierceFeb No playlist is complete without a song from my #Inner80sGoddess ❤️One of my favorite Madonna videos....#PapaDontPreach This book is set in the late 1950s. Jane Graham, arrives at a run-down boarding house in London after being thrown out of her home by her father after telling him she is pregnant. Feeling alone & unworthy she meets others who help her realize her worth. Read it for college...

batsy Perfect choice for this 👏🏽💜 I want to read it. 7y
NatalieR I ❤️ the queen Madonna!!!! 7y
Cinfhen Madonna 🖤🖤🖤 @NatalieR 7y
See All 9 Comments
BookishMe That was the first pop song I listened to!! 7y
CarolynM Blast from the past! I remember this book very fondly. 7y
erzascarletbookgasm I‘ve not heard of this book 🙈 but love Madonna! #80sgirlatheart 7y
Cinfhen I don‘t remember much from the book @CarolynM but I certainly remember this song @erzascarletbookgasm @BookishMe 🤟🏽🖤🎶 7y
sisilia I loved this book 😍 I‘m lucky to have a secondhand copy; I think it‘s out of print now 7y
Cinfhen Of course I didn‘t save my copy @sisilia 😬🙄 7y
123 likes4 stack adds9 comments