An Awful Lot of Books

Elizabeth Jane Howard was Books Editor at Queen magazine from March 1959 to October 1961. An Awful Lot of Books is a unique selection of her reviews from this time; in them we see her wise and probing thoughts on such diverse writers as Ian Fleming, Elspeth Huxley, James Thurber and Muriel Spark as well as four longer essays on the state of British writing at the time, magic in children's books and the nature of reviewing, These pieces are consummate examples of the form - judicious but not indulgent, insightful but not opaquely technical, funny and entertaining but never worthy. A treat on every page.

About the Author

Elizabeth Jane Howard, CBE, is an English novelist having previously been an actress and a model. She wrote seven novels (starting with The Beautiful Visit which won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1951) before publishing the first of her best known work – a four-part family drama set in wartime England. The books (The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion and Casting Off) have been dramatized for the BBC as The Cazalets. She has also written a book of short stories. Her acclaimed autobiography Slipstream was published in 2002. She now lives in Bungay, Suffolk and was awarded a CBE in 2000.