
We take recommendations from Emily Rhodes of Emily’s Walking Book Club seriously. So, it was with much anticipation that Kate’s book club read All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West, one of Emily’s all-time favourite reads.
After the death of her husband, everyone assumes his eighty-eight-year-old widow will slowly fade away in her grief. But Lady Slane has other ideas. She rejects the plans her children have for her and instead seeks out a rented house in Hampstead, where she revels in her freedom. At last she is able to live entirely for herself.
We knew Vita Sackville-West was good at gardening, but what did we make of her as a writer? Listen in to find out.
In our interview, Maeve O’Sullivan of London’s Kniterati book club tells us just how heated book discussions can get when you have a pair of knitting needles to hand.
Book recommendations
- Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield
- Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
- A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
- Orlando by Virginia Woolf
- The Longest Journey by E.M. Forster.
- A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
- Lolly Willows by Dorothy Whipple
- Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown.
- The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
- The Famous Five books by Enid Blyton
- The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
Notes
Find out more about the Kniterati at their Facebook page.
All the details of Emily’s Walking Book Club.

