Micro Review 18 (2025)

 

The Eights by Joanna Miller (Penguin Books Ltd.)

Wow! What a book. I can't remember the last time I stayed up past midnight because I just *had* to finish a book.

Set just post WW1 this book follows the residents of corridor 8 at St Hugh's College, Oxford as they start their university studies. They are among the first cohort of women students to be granted full student status and who will be awarded their degrees fully at the end of their course.

The four women, like all students in halls of residence, couldn't be more different but a bond is forged between them and they become close friends as their first year unfolds. All of them have secrets and past traumas to overcome - but none of these feel unreal or too modern and I just felt like I was a fly on the wall of 1920s Oxford.

The legacy of both the suffrage campaigns and World War One loom large and you really feel just how the impact of the latter in particular affected everyone in some way or another.

I see this book as a wonderful female centric companion to In Memoriam by Alice Winn, and also to Pip William's Bookbinder of Jericho  and even Jessica Swale's play Blue Stockings.

One thing Miller does so well is to bring in real life people into the story without it feeling like a name drop or research being crowbarred in to the plot - the story is just brilliant and I think it is another that will end up on my 'best of' lists at the end of the year. I really hope that it does well and appears on lots of prize lists!

Many thanks to Net Galley and Penguin for my advance copy of this novel

100 and counting

The Century Girls by Tessa Dunlop

1918 was a momentous year in so many ways - the end of World War One, the partial granting of the vote to women and the murder of the Russian royal family to name but a few. It was also the year my nan was born.

Because of this last fact I was fascinated to read Dunlop's Century Girls. Not all of these remarkable women were born in 1918 but they are all around the same age. They come from all walks of life and have lived fascinating, normal lives.

While obviously none of them lived the same life as my nan there were little tidbits in each narrative that I knew could have been applied to her. It was a good mix of rural and city tales plus remembered those who were originally born in Empire countries. The women also span all economic classes which brings in very different view points too.

The book is mostly told in a chronological fashion, taking bits from each remarkable lady to make a rounded, female, history of the last 100 years. The book is wonderfully chatty in style but never overly sentimental. I loved it.

My nan - 26th June 1918- 14th April 2008

(picture from my sister)