Book review: ‘A Writer’s Day-Book’ by Ronald Blythe

A Writer’s Day-Book is a collection of essays by the veteran writer Ronald Blythe about some of his favourite authors. I haven’t read most of the authors in question, but Blythe makes it very tempting. He has a great way of making their writing seem contemporary and intimate—almost as if he knew them personally (which, given his reading, he probably feels that he does).

Authors and poets covered include Francis Kilvert, Thomas Traherne, Mary Russell Mitford, Joseph Conrad, Charles Baudelaire, Katherine Mansfield, George Bernard Shaw, John Clare, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Laurie Lee.