Dartmoor prison and inhabitant

Kingcup Calling, by Alec Lea. I picked up this and A Whiff of Boarhound, by the same author, at the same time – they’re 1970s British children’s fiction, from the time when realism – usually gritty, usually depressing – was coming into vogue. The back cover has blurbs for similar books, including an enthusiastic TLS summary for one called Gulls: “[A] sensitive, realistic account of three teenage girls growing up in a bleak unattractive town in the north-east […] one of them becomes pregnant and attempts to commit suicide. The story is told in flat unpoetic prose that exactly suits its subject matter.”

I have no idea why I don’t immediately want to track it down. ( Anyway, Kingcup Calling has a similar writing style, but is slightly more cheery )

Failing to master html links

Mike, by PG Wodehouse (available on Project Gutenberg. (I had a link, but not only did it fail to seamlessly integrate with my entry but the people at Project Gutenberg have moved things, so interested readers will have to click a number of times and even type things to track it down).

I had in fact read the second half of this before - it was published split as Mike at Wrykyn and Mike and Psmith - and I'd like to thank the helpful people at Wikipaedia for sorting out my confusion at finding half the book familiar when I thought I haven't read it at all.

( I probably don't need to say that this is good. )