The first book I started after moving to my new flat was chosen for me by Liz – who had actually bought it for me one Christmas. She was helping sort the tbr cupboard (yes cupboard!) and thrust this one at me to read next – I hadn’t known what my next read was going to be. I really don’t know why I hadn’t read it before – the perils of a large tbr I suppose things get forgotten about. So, despite the fact that I don’t read a lot of non-fiction, A Bite of the Apple is definitely a book right up my street. Liz knows me, she knew I would love this, I did.
For anyone who has scanned bookshop shelves looking for that tell-tale apple on the spine of a book – or who, like me, has far, far too many dark green spined VMCs to house – this book is a joy. Part memoir, part history of Virago including thoughts and reminiscences of over forty years of feminist publishing, this is the story of a publisher and a movement. The excitement and vision that started it off – the passion, determination and belief that made Virago the success it was, and still is – is all here.
“It was common to think of the literary tradition that runs from Jane Austen through Ivy Compton-Burnett to Barbara Pym as a clever and witty women’s view of a small domestic world. This was not a ghetto we accepted. The female tradition included writers of vast ambition and great achievement: mistresses of comedy, drama, storytelling, of the domestic world we knew and loved. I saw a large world, not a small canvas, with all human life on display, a great library of women’s fiction.”
Lennie Goodings has been with Virago almost since the start, when Carmen Callil founded the iconic press, she really has seen it all. She began part time in 1978 in the one roomed Virago office, accessed by five flights of steep stairs. She had no idea then, that in time she herself would become the publisher, but she did know that she had found her home.
Throughout these years Lennie Goodings worked with some incredible writers, some pretty big names too – and here she describes those working relationships. Remembering her meetings with women like Maya Angelou, Rosamond Lehmann, Angela Carter, Margaret Atwood, Sarah Dunant and Sandi Toksvig among many others. These glimpses of the women, who for some of us lets be honest, are our heroines, is wonderful, Lennie Goodings shows how many of these writers had just as much passion and belief in what Virago were doing as those working for the publisher at the time.
However, like with any organisation of its kind Virago had – and still have – their naysayers. Those who think that having a separate publisher for women, somehow diminishes their art – they have the same problem with the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Apparently, and it was news to me, A S Byatt refuses to have her books put forward for the women’s prize – there seems to be a fear from some quarters, that if books are published by a women’s press and nominated for a women’s prize then men won’t read them. (Rolls eyes). So, that there is the problem, isn’t it, still despite over forty years of Virago publishing, there are those who don’t take women’s writing seriously enough. I do my bit, by reading very few men (ha! Sticks tongue out!) Lennie Goodings however puts her case for the need for Virago and for the Women’s Prize rather better than me.
“With fiction, what seems to matter more is the gender of the writer; because even in this new world of outspoken writers and readers it appears not all words are equal. Something seems to happen to a novel when it has a woman’s name on the spine.”
One of my favourite chapters – perhaps not surprisingly was the one about the Virago Modern Classics list that started in 1978 – which includes a marvellous encounter with octogenarian Rosamond Lehmann. The classics of course have been an enormous success – oh and how we cheered when the green spines came back – changed a little for the twentieth century but green again. The first one of course was Frost in May – and was followed by so many more – that are now collected and cherished by people like me. Goodings reveals how the list changed the way women’s novels began to be seen, attracting new readers, becoming a strong and familiar presence in bookshops. Suddenly new life was given to the novels of writers like Rosamond Lehmann who had thought their day was done – and generations of readers can thank the Virago Modern Classics for the books that made it into their libraries.
The Virago that Carmen Callil started in that one roomed office all those years ago is not the same company as it is today. Lennie Goodings discusses how difficult remaining independent was, there were some forthright discussions and disagreements, but things had to change. In 1995 Virago became part of the Little Brown group and Lennie Goodings was there to see that transition through and explains clearly why that was necessary for Virago’s survival. Revealing how the imprint has moved forward, and how many exciting publications have come about since then, that may not have done otherwise. Today, Lennie Goodings is chair of Virago Press – still working with the authors and books that have been her passion for so long.
This was a marvellous book, really giving a lot of insight into the feminist movement of the late 1970s and 1980s – the publishing industry and the books and writers I love. Definitely, a book to keep to refer to again.
This looks great, just ordered. I collect Viragos and love books about books
Ooh great, really hope you enjoy it 😀.
No such thing as far too many dark green spined VMCs Ali 😀 I do share your problem of finding space though… we don’t really need a fridge/bed/bathroom do we?!
You’re right of course, no such thing as too many green vmcs. It does get tricky for space though if we’re not careful.
This sounds the perfect book for you!
Oh it was.
I have a false memory of you reading this when it came out! It is so up your street, even with not reading much non-fic. I loved it, though also glad that I can enjoy VMCs as a reader without having to work at that often turbulent office…
Thinking about it now, I think it was my birthday not Christmas that Liz got me it, which would have been just after it came out. I think Liz read it when it came out though.
Great choice by Liz, and I am glad you are safely in! I thought this was wonderful – such a great look at Virago’s past and also what publishing was like and how it’s changed. I love my Viragos and am now finding myself drawn to their crime fiction books – there were several greens, I think….
It was such a perfect choice. I should look out for the crime fiction, I didn’t know there were any, other than the Nancy Spain books which have come out recently.
How lovely! I must read this at some point. It sounds marvellous, especially the sections on the VMC list. (Rosamond Lehmann seems quite the character!) Was Virago Lennie’s first job or had she worked anywhere beforehand? (I’m guessing this may well have been her first. If so, what a tremendously lucky break!)
I think you would really appreciate this one.I loved that glimpse of Rosamond Lehmann, definitely a character .
What a brilliant book, I love that documentary that includes film of the earliest days and this will back it up beautifully. I do miss those original green covers!
Oh yes, that documentary was wonderful, I would rather like to watch it again now. The original green covers were the best.
I’m so glad my choice was a good one and you loved this as much as I did! I thought you gave me my copy but apparently I pre-ordered it in a frenzy when everyone else was reading review copies and blogging about it and read it the day it arrived (maybe that’s the source of Simon’s false memory, as that’s such a rare thing for me to do!) https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2020/03/29/book-review-lennie-goodings-a-bite-of-the-apple/
It was brilliant. Thank you. I realise now you must have got it me for my birthday, because that would have been just after it came out. Glad you reminded me to read it.
What a lovely review. I have a copy of this… somewhere. I ought to promote it up the reading pile!
Thank you. I am sure you will enjoy reading it too.
So difficult to resist a book about books and this one sounds brilliant. It’s somewhere deep in the depths of my TBR. I’m always happy when one of the dark-green spines pops out at me when browsing the shelves at a used bookshop.
Books about books are always tempting, this one was particularly interesting to me. Finding old green spines in bookshops is always exciting.
How wonderful to have a kindly bookfriend shoving a book at you while helping you unpack and arrange…just when you are all-a-flutter and don’t quite feel up to choosing for yourself and still want a really good read. I liked this one a lot too. It doesn’t have the flashiest cover, and I didn’t find myself compelled to pick it up for either title or cover, but I thoroughly enjoyed the contents!
Yes it is. Luckily I live even closer to Liz now too.
It was a perfect book for me really.