6 BOOK REVIE  ' Thelma Shacklady ,
GOxfam Bookshop, Olney Tel: 01234 714592
    Teresa was the only one who noticed the baby alone in a drifting boat, abandoned no doubt by a family unable to care for him. Childless herself, she seized upon this good fortune, rescued the child and took him to her sister tor wet-nursing. Once he was weaned she took him home, and although her husband initially attempted to place him in the care of Franciscan monks, his wife's distress convinced him to bring the boy up as his own.
''
''
her unexpected and fateful meeting with real love.
The book is semi-autobiographical in that many of the characters in the novel are based on Nancy Milford's own notorious family, whose 'fictionalised' stories weave in and out ofthemainnarrative. Herwritingisadelight, evoking a particular time and 'set' of people superbly, and while her approach is very tongue-in-cheek she can still make even her more wildly eccentric characters acceptable to the reader. Above all her unerring eye for the humour in people and situations is outstanding; a kind of emotional empathy for the follies of human nature making even those who behave outrageously, creating situations which are potentially disastrous or tragic, appear understandable and forgivable. This is not a 'comic' novel but it has never, in themanytimesIhavereaditovertheyears, failedtomakemelaugh. Itiswitty,thoughtful and entertaining and remains one of my go­ to reads when in need of diversion. It has the added advantage that you can re-engage with many of the characters in subsequent books: 'Love In a Cold Climate', 'The Blessing' and 'Don't Tell Alfred'. Summer reading? - Sorted.
Phonebox Magazine 33
Named Paulo, the child was apprenticed to the family glassworks in Murano almost as soon as he could walk, learning to arrange the glass by colour and visiting the mosaicists at work in the various churches. However, his extreme short-sightedness caused him to make mistakes, dangerous in the glass foundry, so, given his fascination with colour, he was apprenticed to Simone, a painter in Siena, who had won a competition to paint a fresco depicting the Coronation of the Virgin for the Palazzo Pubblico. What he desired most was to use a perfect blue for the heavens, one distilled from lapis lazuli, a fabled stone, found he had been told, in Badakhshan. Despite Paulo's initial protests he was dispatched to find the stone, travelling with a gem merchant, Jacopo who was seeking jade. The third member of their group, Salek, they met in Tabriz. Jacopo had used him previously as a guide, and knew that he was both well-travelled and reliable.
San    a 
  And so the journey continues, with its dangers and its discoveries, all seen through the eyes of Paulo, no longer a child, but a boy growing into manhood. It is beautifully and sensitively described by the writer, as is the relationship between the three travellers, a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim.
questioned but where the idea that the only career tor a girl from a 'good' family was marriage was still the norm, this is the story of Fanny and her cousin Linda. Fanny is an only child who is often sent to spend time with her many cousins during school holidays at Alconleigh, a huge, inconvenient country house ruled over by kindly but vague Aunt Sadie and eccentric Uncle Matthew who doesn't believe in educating girls, won't visit other people's houses and hunts his children (to their delight) with bloodhounds.
This account of a journey at the end of the thirteenth century has been carefully researched, as evidenced in the historical note at the end of the book. The incidents woven into the story are based on fact, and the fresco entitled the Maesta can still be seen in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, painted by Simone Martini. We are also told that the main inspiration for the novel was 'the strange conjunction of the coming of ultramarine blue with the invention of spectacles'!
Fanny and her cousin Linda are the same age and the story relates their journey from childhood into the adult world of coming out balls and country house parties. Their lives might be a world away from today's teenage years but the agonies and the delights are immediately recognisable. Although narrated by Fanny and touching on her own engagement and marriage, this is essentially Linda's story, allowing us to follow her 'pursuit of love' through two ill-advised marriages to
S
et between the wars in what is now a largely vanished world of the landed aristocracy and the London Season, where Edwardian propriety was beginning to be