From: Doris_66

Date: 4/3/06

Several years ago I watched a series on PBS called "All Passions Spent"  and I thought it was such a good production.  I also thought it was full of wisdom and thought the novel it was based on must be really good and the author must be worth looking into.  That started me off into a world whose connections have gone all the way to the reading list for the lecture series on foreign policy that I've been attending! 

The novel the series was based on was written by Vita Sackville-West.  So off I went to find her books.  This was before one could search the library on the internet.  Well, none of her books were in print or readily available!  However, I did find, at the bookstore, a book about her written by her son called Portrait of a Marriage.    So I bought that and read the absolutely fascinating story of part of her life as told by her son, and found that she was connected to Virginia Woolf. 

So off I went to look into Virginia Woolf and boy, that was a rich lot of reading!  All I had known about Virginia Woolf was that there was a play called Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf!  Virginia celebrated Vita in her book Orlando

Then one day in an airport bookstore I saw a biography of Vita by Victoria Glendinning which I bought and read avidly all through the 4.5 hour flight!  What a book!  What a life!  What an author! 

Finally, a book by Sir Harold Nicholson, a British diplomat, is on the reading list for my foreign policy lectures, and he was Vita's husband! 

I have purposefully left out details of all this so as not to spoil it for anyone who wants to look into these things.  It was a fascinating trail that opened many doors.









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