Journey from the North

I don’t often read memoirs but this reissue of two volumes by British writer Storm Jameson falls smack dab in the middle of my current literary sweet spot. Born in the small coastal town of Whitby, Jameson was a young adult during WWI, middle-aged during WWII, and so perfectly placed to watch the transformation of Britain from an empire to a European nation. The journey of the title is her move from the Yorkshire middle class to a kind of meritocratic world citizenry. Her prodigious energy of mind and body kept her continually moving house, traveling abroad, writing and speaking for political causes, all while producing a novel a year. Those books are mostly (deservedly?) out of print. But this one, recollections from her Victorian childhood though her Cold War seventies, is so alive with personality and insight that I couldn’t stop turning its 800+ pages—except when she described an emotion, a vista, or an idea so felicitously that I had to sit back and simply admire.