pickThis fulfilled all my biography needs - thorough, detailed but not dry. And what a subject! I only knew that Vita was the lover of Virginia Woolf and had created an amazing garden at Sissinghurst - but wow, she had loads of love affairs, and wrote novels and poetry. It was fascinating to try and understand her. A little slow in the last quarter (but true to life as she became more reclusive). 5 stars for me ⬇️
Centique You probably need to like chunky biographies to feel the same way I do about it! 7y
batsy Love a well-written chunky biography, especially of women artists 😍 7y
CarolynM I love reading about those turn of the last century people. Such a fascinating period. If you want another similar one I loved![[tagged book]](https://image.librarything.com/pics/litsy_webpics/icon_taggedBook@3x.png)
Ottoline Morrell: Life on the Grand Scale 7y
Ottoline Morrell: Life on the Grand ScaleSee All 10 Comments
CarolynM Similar in that they were around at much the same time, and were aristocratic Brits who moved in interesting literary/artistic circles 7y
Centique @CarolynM ooh that would be good! I think Vita didn‘t much like Ottoline - she wanted to steal Virginia away from the Bloomsbury set. Stacked 👍 7y
CarolynM Ottoline was a difficult woman to like, I think. My Siegfried Sassoon obsession led me to her bio because he was part of her set for a while. I thought it was a great bio, Miranda Seymour is really good. 7y
Centique @batsy me too! This one is full of conflicting values. She‘s conservative and wanting to preserve the status quo but also wants to break the mould (artistically/emotionally/sexually). But that‘s what makes it interesting. I‘ll have to read more about VW so I can compare them! 7y
batsy That's fascinating. I loved her book The Edwardians and did have that tension of old traditional values and privilege vs sexual and artistic freedom. I'd love to sink into a big biography on VW too; I have my eye on thisVirginia Woolf 7y
Virginia WoolfCentique @batsy oh good I‘ll stack that bio too. I need to read The Edwardians as well. #doublestacking 😂 7y
Centique @CarolynM I know nothing about Sassoon. Now I‘m intrigued by him too! 7y