Elizabeth Jane Howard was an English writer best known for her quartet of novels about the Cazalet family, set in wartime England. Just two months ago, at age 90, she published volume 5 in this series. She died earlier this week, on January 2.The Guardian has published an obituary notice, if you'd like to find out more about her. There was a lovely, energetic interview with her on their site earlier last year as well; Howard sounds like she lived quite a life!
I have never read her work, though I've known about her for years. By chance I had her book After Julius on my reading list for the Century of Books Challenge. So, I will be reading her novel very soon, after I am done the couple that I've already started.
Looking for her book on my century shelf, I realized that many of the books on my list are by one Elizabeth or another. Elizabeth Jane Howard's is on the top of this stack, and I plan to read my way down...
I knew very little about her but happened on a radio serialisation of the Cazalet novels about two years ago and got drawn in. She isn't the sort of author whose works I would normally read but I became very involved with her characters and am looking forward to the novel that was published only last year. I am so glad she got to finish it.
ReplyDeleteI always thought that the Cazalets might be interesting, but never picked up the series. I'll see how I like After Julius and see how it goes...
DeleteOh, that's too bad! I actually loved the first two Cazalet books but have let several years go by without getting back to finish them!
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear you loved the first ones...more incentive for me to get to them sometime fairly soon :)
DeleteI like the idea of an Elizabeth-mini-readathon, but using one's own first name!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea! Unless one has a very uncommon first name, there should be a few at least to pick up -- now I wonder what I would choose???
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