| 1. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie: A Novel (P.S.) | 
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By: Muriel Spark
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
February 10, 2009
I couldn't help by shake my head and marvel after finishing The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Not only are the characters superb, the story is great and the writing uniquely insightful. Also, the novel is so cleverly and masterfully written. From the first pages you are taken in by its fugue-like structure. I've never read a book like it, where past and present fuse into one, as if the narrator is dipping... more
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| 2. Far Cry from Kensington | 
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By: Muriel Spark
Publisher: Viking Pr
1989-06
Try Barbara Pym instead...or Penelope Lively. THis was so boring I didn't even finish it, and its not that long!! Maybe if I wasn't such a fan of Barbara Pym I might have had more patience, but this was really not worth even putting up with for 180 pages. Try "Excellent Women" instead... more
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| 3. Italy: The Best Travel Writing from the New York Times |
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By: Olivier Bernier, Frank Bruni, Shirley Hazzard, Alison Lurie, Jan Morris, William Murray, Frank J. Prial, Francine Prose, Muriel Spark
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
May 01, 2005
Excellent service, prompt delivery, excellent conditon
as described, packaged well.
Would use again... more
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| 4. Loitering with Intent | 
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By: Muriel Spark
Publisher: New Directions
2001-06
I have now reread this (the New Directions paperback edition) for the second time in eight years. Every page is a delight and a wonder. Its 209 pages pack more imagination and excitement than any other short novel I can think of, with the possible exception of a couple of other Muriel Spark productions.
The time is set quite firmly in 1949-1950. The narrator tells of how she took an oddball... more
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| 5. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Girls of Slender Means, The Driver's Seat, The Only Problem (Everyman's Library Classics & Contemporary Classics) |
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By: Muriel Spark
Publisher: Everyman's Library
April 06, 2004
I was sent a different edition than the one I bought. Products should only be sold on the pages of the particular edition they represent... more
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| 6. The Girls of Slender Means |
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By: Muriel Spark
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
1998-04
There are a number of girls living at the May of Teck (a dormitory style housing for young well bred women) between the time of VE Day in May of 1945 and VJ day in August of 1945. London has been bombed and war torn. The May of Teck allows for the girls of slender means to live on their own. This is where a majority of the story takes place.
A man from their past has been martyred... more
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| 7. Memento Mori |
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By: Muriel Spark
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
2000-06
I first read "Memento Mori" in high school. I think reread it sometime in my late twenties and I just finished my third time around at age 50.
Its significant that a novel about many unpleasant elderly people and their mental and physical ailments and ultimately their deaths, is a comedy. This is less a book about death than about ageing and confronting the end of life. Even more broadly... more
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| 8. The Driver's Seat (Reprint) (New Directions Bibelot) |
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By: Muriel Spark
Publisher: New Directions
May 17, 1994
There is no writer more despicable than the reviewer who spoils a book by revealing significant plot points.
[Okay, no writer who opines about the arts. Some political commentators come to mind who are surely destined for a special hell.]
But what do you call a novelist who begins the third chapter --- the third chapter --- of her book with this about Lise, the main character... more
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| 9. The Finishing School | 
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By: Muriel Spark
Publisher: Anchor
November 08, 2005
Nine teenagers from wealthy families attend a rather fly-by-night finishing school in Switzerland run by Rowland Mahler and his wife Nina. Roland teaches creative writing, Nina teaches etiquette. Both of them are somewhat fraudulent. Rowland is trying to write a novel, but can't get on with it. He has read the enviably brilliant opening pages of a novel written by one of his students, the self... more
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| 10. The Comforters (New Directions Revived Modern Classics) |
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By: Muriel Spark
Publisher: New Directions
September 17, 1994
Muriel Spark's first novel, THE COMFORTERS, is a genuine classic. The intrustion of the "literary device" is marvelous because it is anything but a gimmick. For one thing, the mysterious metafictional typewriter (from an author composing a novel you might be reading) is inspired by experiences Spark describes in her autobiography. Aural hallucinations contributed to two masterpieces of English... more
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