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pear-jelly.bsky.social
nora 🍐
@pear-jelly.bsky.social
2K followers 410 following 530 posts
Seasonal reader, Comyns head, spinsterlit, midcentury women writers, heritage publishing and secondhand bookshopping #spinsterseptember 🇮🇪 Dublin
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pear-jelly.bsky.social
nora 🍐 @pear-jelly.bsky.social · Jan 14
My top 10 books of 2024 (well 11, I’m cheating a little as I can’t pick one Ernaux over the other so they take one spot together) #booksky 💙📚
🤍 Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead (tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones) 🤍 Anne de Marcken, It Lasts Forever then It’s Over 🤍 Tezer Özlü, Cold Nights of Childhood (tr. Maureen Freely) 🤍 Russell Hoban, Turtle Diary 🤍 Caroline Blackwood, Great Granny Webster 🤍 Annie Ernaux, La Place (A Man’s Place) / Passion Simple (Simple Passion) 🤍 Lisa Tuttle, My Death 🤍 Ursula Parrott, Ex-Wife 🤍 Avril Horner, Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence 🤍 Ann Schlee, Rhine Journey 🤍 Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead (tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones) 🤍 Anne de Marcken, It Lasts Forever then It’s Over 🤍 Tezer Özlü, Cold Nights of Childhood (tr. Maureen Freely) 🤍 Russell Hoban, Turtle Diary 🤍 Caroline Blackwood, Great Granny Webster 🤍 Annie Ernaux, La Place (A Man’s Place) / Passion Simple (Simple Passion) 🤍 Lisa Tuttle, My Death 🤍 Ursula Parrott, Ex-Wife 🤍 Avril Horner, Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence 🤍 Ann Schlee, Rhine Journey
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joiedevivre9.bsky.social
#NYRBWomen25 I finished THE JUNIPER TREE this morning, Barbara Comyns’s final novel published when she was 77yo. It’s everything I love about her writing. Here are a few rabbit holes I went down while reading this enchanting retelling.
Barbara Comyns and her daughter, Caroline, circa 1937 Barbara Comyns later in life
October 7, 2025 at 10:38 PM
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ds228.bsky.social
Chat I really think we had some interesting stuff to say here. How to talk about a book that isn’t especially interested in making sense?
October 3, 2025 at 5:37 PM
pear-jelly.bsky.social
The books I read in September 📚 (not pictured: 🎧 Rural Hours by Harriet Baker) #booksky #spinsterseptember #womenintranslation
A stack of 4 books on a mantelpiece, a plate of mandarin, a porcelain dog, vases with flowers and an oxalis plant. The books are: Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles, A Green Equinox by Elizabeth Mavor, Restoration bu Ave Barrera and Business as Usual by Ann Stafford & Jane Oliver.
October 3, 2025 at 4:40 PM
pear-jelly.bsky.social
Two Serious Ladies was my fave #spinsterseptember read. It was unusual as it shows little to no interiority from the characters. Felt like watching a Lynch movie: eerie, unpredictable, full of dread, at times disturbing but pregnant with meaning. A stumbling & hypnotising f*** you to conventions.
pear-jelly.bsky.social nora 🍐 @pear-jelly.bsky.social · Oct 2
The three books I read for #spinsterseptember 🍏 #booksky
Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles, Business as Usual by Ann Stafford & Jane Oliver an A Green Equinox by Elizabeth Mavor
October 2, 2025 at 7:45 PM
pear-jelly.bsky.social
The three books I read for #spinsterseptember 🍏 #booksky
Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles, Business as Usual by Ann Stafford & Jane Oliver an A Green Equinox by Elizabeth Mavor
October 2, 2025 at 6:59 PM
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tinido.bsky.social
I only managed to read „Lolly Willowes“ for #spinsterseptember (AT LAST!), but the hashtag contains so many interesting titles, I‘m doing #spinsterautumn .
September 30, 2025 at 8:29 PM
pear-jelly.bsky.social
#spinsterseptember rec from @blithespirit4.bsky.social
blithespirit4.bsky.social Maylin @blithespirit4.bsky.social · Sep 29
Novels by Alison Moore are perfect to take on vacation because you're guarenteed to have a better time than her characters. There are sad scenes of cringe worthy of a Mike Leigh film and an underlying menace akin to a subtler Celia Fremlin. I find them weirdly entertaining. @saltpublishing.com
A copy of Death and the Seaside by Alison Moore sits on a windowsill with transparent curtains behind it. The cover has the title and author in a circus like font on white paper stuck to glass windows looking on to a rainy day.
September 30, 2025 at 8:26 PM
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sparrowpost.bsky.social
I started this due to Jacqui's review and I'm loving it so much. It reminds me of LM Montgomery's and Dorothy Whipple's writing, two favorite authors of mine. Happily sliding this one in on the last few days of #SpinsterSeptember.
September 29, 2025 at 9:57 PM
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stuckinabook.bsky.social
My second and final book for #SpinsterSeptember is Hush, Gabriel! by Veronica Parker Johns - a murder mystery which started brilliantly but sadly rather derailed...
Hush, Gabriel! by Veronica Parker Johns
I wanted to add a second novel to my #SpinsterSeptember contribution, so went through my shelf of ‘would these make good British Library Women Writers suggestions?’, flicking thr…
www.stuckinabook.com
September 29, 2025 at 11:50 AM
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aesche.bsky.social
Just discovered the hashtag #SpinsterSeptember for books, and I think "The scent of water" by Elizabeth Goudge would fit very well in the category. I guess I'd like to reread it soon, it breathes calm and taking possession of an old house and a different life.
September 28, 2025 at 3:47 PM
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rayburnmaarup.bsky.social
September reading [✓]
Favourite: Well, my least favourite, weirdly, was Austen, probably because she goes on to be so much better. I guess Warner gets the gong for a wonderful book that plays with the form of the novel.
Thanks to @pear-jelly.bsky.social for #SpinsterSeptember.
September 30, 2025 at 6:40 AM
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shawnthebookmaniac.bsky.social
Friday Reads: Some sucked, some weren’t for me, and some sucked me right in

youtu.be/4BYjN-XR4gQ

#SpinsterSeptember
#Victober
[Image Description: a graphic featuring a photo of Shawn, and the words Friday Reads: Some sucked, some weren’t for me, and some sucked me right in]
September 28, 2025 at 1:25 PM
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amayna60.bsky.social
Really enjoyed Fair Play, Tove Jansson. “She began to anticipate a solitude of her own. She felt something close to exhilaration, of a kind that people can permit themselves when they are blessed with love.“ #SapphicSeptember
*technically* #SpinsterSeptember 📚💙
Image of a paining by Jansson of the artist Tuukikki Pietla, her longtime companion. Bent over her artists table in a studio surrounded by art.
September 27, 2025 at 9:32 PM
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rayburnmaarup.bsky.social
Read: Anita Brookner: Look At Me (1983).
Such a sharp, acidic, adult, wonderful book about people and relationships. Minimal plot but full of thoughts and ideas.
There will be more Brookner.
#SpinsterSeptember
September 26, 2025 at 6:01 PM
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shawnthebookmaniac.bsky.social
Nuanced spinsters and other fickle folk: A review of E.H. Young's 1922 novel, The Misses Mallett

#SpinsterSeptember

youtu.be/8oBWAfSCbHo
[Image Description: a graphic featuring a photo of Shawn, and the words Nuanced spinsters and other fickle folk: A review of E.H. Young's 1922 novel, The Misses Mallett]
September 26, 2025 at 3:14 PM
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lawrenceschimel.bsky.social
I was recommending it to someone & that reminded me that I think Rumer Godden's IN THIS HOUSE OF BREDE (I never thought I'd fall in love with a book about a woman joining a contemplative abbey, but it was such a page turner for me-so good) would probably be a good suggestion for #spinsterseptember
Front cover of Rumer Godden's novel IN THIS HOUSE OF BREDE, showing a stylistic weathervane atop a cross with angular sections criss-crossing the sky and the rooftops of the buildings visible at the bottom of the cover, all done in a water-color style.
September 24, 2025 at 7:36 PM
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lyzzybee.bsky.social
A powerful read: I've called "The Spring Begins" by Katherine Dunning "brutal" here, and Simon Thomas calls it "amoral" in his Afterword! It's also lyrical, descriptive and a real page-turner! librofulltime.wordpress.com/2025/09/24/b... @britishlibrary.bsky.social #booksky #SpinsterSeptember 📚💙
Paperback of The Spring Begins on a yellow patterned background
September 24, 2025 at 3:54 PM
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davhug.bsky.social
A recommendation @pear-jelly.bsky.social. Perfectly controlled pacing: onward and inward journey, past infusing present, emergence of heroine's agency, quiet and subtle and powerful. #spinsterseptember
September 23, 2025 at 12:44 PM
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afteroctavian.bsky.social
Read a couple of very good books for the 2 hashtags I'm following. For #SpinsterSeptember, 'Miss Buncle's Book' by D. E. Stevenson was an unalloyed delight. Funny, clever, and very sweet. Social comedy with a smidgen of romance. Stevenson is sharp-eyed but she is never cruel. I bought the sequel.
September 23, 2025 at 2:57 AM
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lawrenceschimel.bsky.social
The two old women of the title are 75 and 80 respectively so you get both decades in one book. :)

#booksky
#SpinsterSeptember
Front cover of TWO OLD WOMEN by Velma Wallis. Back cover of TWO OLD WOMEN by Velma Wallis: FICTION/NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES WINNER OF THE 1993 WESTERN STATES BOOK AWARD WINNER OF THE 1994 PACIFIC NORTHWEST BOOKSELLERS AWARD "A beautiful and moving book. Velma Walli's writing is as lean and muscular, as full of unexpected bounties, as the far north, and readers are sure to be delighted with Two Old Women." — Washington Post Based on an Athabascan Indian legend passed along for many generations from mothers to daughters of the upper Yukon River area in Alaska, this is the suspense-ful, shocking, ultimately inspirational tale of two old women abandoned by their tribe during a brutal winter famine. Though these two women have been known to complain more than contribute, they now must either survive on their own or die trying. In simple but vivid detail, Velma Wallis depicts a landscape and way of life that are at once merciless and starkly beautiful. In her old women, she has created two heroines of steely determination whose story of betrayal, friendship, community, and forgiveness will carve out a permanent place in readers imaginations. "Full of adventure, suspense, and obstacles overcome an octogenarian version of Thelma and Louise triumphant." —Kirkus Reviews "This story speaks straight to the heart with clarity, sweetness and wisdom."—Ursula K. Le Guin "Velma Wallis has given us a gift to cherish." — Alaska VELMA WALLIS is one of a family of thirteen children, all born in the vast fur-trapping country of Fort Yukon, Alaska, and raised with traditional Athabascan values. A writer and avid reader, she continues to live outside Fort Yukon with her daughter.
September 22, 2025 at 6:34 PM
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kaggsy59.bsky.social
For #spinsterseptember I return to the wonderful writing of #AnitaBrookner with her third novel, Look At Me - more here! kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2025/09/22/i...
“I wanted an end to shabbiness, to pretence, to anxiety, to dissembling.” #lookatme #spinsterseptember
It’s been a while since I read the first two novels by Anita Brookner, “A Start in Life” and “Providence”, although I’m intending to gradually read my way throug…
kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com
September 22, 2025 at 7:11 AM
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shawnthebookmaniac.bsky.social
Friday Reads: 'The world is full of wonder – pay attention'

youtu.be/hU9PLgad0ww

#ShortySeptember
#SpinsterSeptember
[Image Description: a graphic featuring a photo of Shawn, and the words Friday Reads: 'The world is full of wonder – pay attention']
September 22, 2025 at 3:14 AM
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jacquiwine.bsky.social
"...she had never married, and yet, judging from the mask-like indifference of her face, she had gone through twenty times more of passion and experience than those whose loves are trumpeted forth for all the world to hear." #SpinsterSeptember #BookSky 💙📚

jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/09/18/t...
The New Dress by Virginia Woolf
I’ve always had a tricky relationship with Virginia Woolf, having first read her when I was grieving the loss of a parent, which still makes it difficult to separate her from painful memories of th…
jacquiwine.wordpress.com
September 21, 2025 at 8:28 AM
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blithespirit4.bsky.social
An odd, little romp which careened from one surreal plot twist and complicated relationship, to another. Protests, pain, philosophy & the plague - all in this unusual love story. Reminscient of Muriel Spark, Iris Murdoch & Penelope Fitzgerald, but fell a little flat by comparison. #SpinsterSeptember
A copy of A Green Equinox by Elizabeth Mavor lies on a green velvet cushion. The cover shows a painting of nymphs and cupids.
September 20, 2025 at 4:28 PM
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blithespirit4.bsky.social
My next read for #SpinsterSeptember, this novel about Dorothy Wordsworth is told partly through the eyes of a servant at Rydal Mount, and partly through the imagined words of her destroyed red diary. Beautiful nature writing and some interesting speculation on her later illness. An enjoyable read.
A paperback copy of Kathleen Winter's novel Undersonh is held next to a red dahlia. The cover has a bright red painted flower superimposed over a painting of green meadows.
September 19, 2025 at 2:32 PM