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SCOTTISH ACADEMIC PRESS

Poems of William Soutar: A New Selection ll. II) .ll'I‘AJ/l l.(liliit

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WOMEN WRITING/WOMEN READING 1988

MARY DALY

Wi' speak and sign cooles other newwork. WEBSTERS‘ FIRST NEW INTERGALACTIC WICKEDARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE on

SATURDAY 23 APRIL 1988 8PM

at SOUTHSIDE COMMUNITY CENTRE It7NICOLSON STREET. EDINBURGH Tickets £3 £1.50Irom West & Wilde Bookshop. 253 Dundas Street Oratthe door

To reserve segned copies. oiease ring 031 556 0079 Organised by Scottsh Women‘s Book Week Group and West 8. Wade Subsidised by the Scottish Arts Council

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4The List 15 28 April 1988

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' 3 SP ING BOOKS

PEOPLE

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I Memoirs of a Highland Lady Elizabeth Grant ol Rothiemurchus Edited by Andrew 'I‘od ((‘anongate 2 vols £3.95 each) Written in mid 19th-century and first published in 1898 in an abridged edition. the Memoirs were immediately a huge popular success. With the discovery of the original manuscript they have been rigorously re-edited. corrected and footnoted. revealing a more rounded portrait of their author and the times she so deftly evoked

I Diaries of a Dying Man William Soutar Edited by Alexander Scott ((‘hambers £14.95) Bedridden for 1-1 years. between 1929 and his death in 1943. Soutar is chiefly remembered for his pawky ‘bairn-rhymes‘. sinuous Scots poems which delight all who manage to get their tongues round them. ‘A diary'. wrote Soutar. ‘is like a drink; we tend to indulge in it over often: it becomes a habit which would ever seduce us to say more than we ought to say and more than we have the experiental qualifications to state.‘ His. indeed. is seductive but one never feels the dearth ofexperience. [t is suffused with wit and steely observations. opinions begging to be contested and vivid vignettes of the literati. This is an intriguing selection. grievous yet life enhancing. which makes one wonder if it's not time for the publication of a complete. unexpurgated edition

I Sylvia Plath: A Biography Linda W. Wagner-Martin ((‘hatto £12.95) Though chastised by several reviewers for the hard time she gives the present Poet Laureate. Ted Hughes —1’lath's husband and the father of her children and for her ungainly prose style and lack of insight. it should not be forgotten that Ms Wagner-Martin's book is the only one of any substance to deal with the American poet whose high-pitched lines are etched in the

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memories ofa generation. Plathian fact is hard to find and here there is enough to be going on with until Mr Hughes says otherwise. which is unlikely. I Milligan’s War: The Selected War Memoirs at Spike Milligan (Michael Joseph £12.95) ‘Makes Hitler's Diaries seem like forgeries.‘ H. Trevor-Roper. I Gorbals Boy at Dxlord Ralph Glasser (Chatto £1 1.95) In this sequel to Growing Up in the Gorbals. Glasser pedals to Oxford from Glasgow. encounters snobbery. pretension. insincerity. heartbreak and antisemitism. There are some compensations. however. including liberated lovers and a ticket for life to the Bodleian. He paints uncomplimentary portraits of the great and the good. particularly Richard Crossman. and more affectionate ones ofJohn Betjeman. Victor (iollancz and G.D.H. Cole. Smacks of a classic. I Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? Marion Meade (Heinemann £ 12.95) Notorious for her vinegar wit Dorothy Parker‘s life was. contrary to myth. not one long cocktail party with breaks for lunch at the Algonquin with her viperous- tongued buddies. Robert Benchley. Harold Ross. Alexander Wollcott er a]. Affairs she had a few (though not too few to mention) as well as two disastrous marriages. suicide attempts. abortions. a drink problem and gambling debts. This then is not a happy story but with so much meaty material Meade can hardly go wrong. Her book is an arsenal of venom waiting to be raped and pillaged for quotes. Asked what was up after a bungled suicide bid Parker replied: ‘I slashed my wrists. Eddie (her first husband) doesn‘t even have a sharp razor.‘ ‘lt was.‘ says her biographer insouciantly. ‘the kind of tough talk that discouraged expressions ofsympathy.‘

I In Hitler's Germany: Everyday Lile in the Third Reich Bernt Engelmann (Methuen £12.95) The editor of Der Spiegel relives World War [I through his memories and those of ‘ordinary‘ Germans. His own courage is modestly brushed over but this is still a remarkable document. instancing many individual heroic acts, and revealing quite stupefying indifference to human suffering. A school chum of Engelmann’s recalls without horror- how her mother