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Young Bloomsbury: the generation that reimagined love, freedom and self-expression

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This book is an absolute delight! I had some familiarity with the Bloomsbury group (Virginia Woolf, Cecil Beaton, Duncan Grant, Lytton Strachey, Evelyn Waugh etc.) but this book goes into much more detail about their lives, loves, ability to express themselves freely and be open to all sexual orientations and gender expression. This was a creative and fantastic time and these writers, artists and critics opened up new perspectives and visions that have only recently in the past few decades or so been "revived" of sorts in the US and UK in particular. What makes this book so unique and special is that the author is a descendant of one of the main members of the group and so tells us a compelling narrative that connects into present day and to their child. The book is structured really well -- each chapter focuses on one aspect of culture or their lives. This is a highly informative and enjoyable read. I highly recommend it. Bruce Willis holds on tightly to his daughter Scout's hand as he spends Thanksgiving with his family amid his dementia battle G Flip reveals how they charmed Selling Sunset star wife Chrishell Stause - after announcing exciting baby plans James Martin makes a public appearance at BBC Good Food Show weeks after announcing career break amid cancer battle

Girls Aloud 'WILL perform Glastonbury in honour of late bandmate Sarah Harding and take to the stage for the festival's ICONIC legends slot' Lewis Hamilton showcases his quirky sense of style yet again in orange and brown tie-dye all-in-one ahead of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix The author’s group portrait is both enlightening and fond…and does literature a great favor by gifting them with this fascinating account.” —BooklistThis lively group biography offers an intimate glimpse of the Bright Young Things, the artistic coterie that emerged in the nineteen-twenties as successors to the prewar Bloomsburyites.” — The New Yorker Strictly star Layton Williams defends his pole dance routine after viewers compared it to a 'strip club' show All of which speaks to a level of seriousness in the notables featured in Young Bloomsbury that the book perhaps did not vivify. Strachey makes it more than plain to readers that the Bloomsbury atmosphere was such that you could “say what you liked about sex, art or religion,” and the impression is given of people who are maybe flighty. Which didn’t read right. Even if all of “Young Bloomsbury” hadn’t seen the war, all of this crowd surely knew people very well who had. Men or women regardless of age had seen enormous trouble. How could they not have? It’s a way of suggesting that these were individuals who had much more than “sex, art or religion” on their minds. What was it? And let’s not answer with they were merely trying to forget. What’s awful can’t be forgotten, so what was on their minds when they weren’t “buggering” everything within eyesight?

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Controversial before the First World War, the Bloomsbury Group became notorious in the 1920s. New members joined their ranks, pushing at boundaries, flouting conventions, and spurring their seniors to new heights of creative activity. Bloomsbury had always celebrated sexual equality and freedom in private, but this younger generation brought their transgressive lifestyles out into the open. Nino Strachey reveals a vivid history surprisingly relevant to our present day. Reading this was a pretty fun time. Any book in which the central cohort describe themselves as ‘very gay and amorous’ is going to be a winner for me tbh, and this was no exception. Linda Robson takes granddaughters Betsy and Lila to CBeebies pantomime afterannouncing split from her husband of 33 years Mark Dunford Nino enjoys exploring the relationships between people and place, seeing buildings as biography. She has written a chapter on a 19th century female collector for a book on Jewish Country Houses, and has published articles in the Wall Street Journal, Apollo, the Literary Review and Country Life. She loves connecting directly with audiences, and over the last few years has appeared at the Cheltenham, Bath, Edinburgh, Blenheim, Dartington and Charleston Literary Festivals (to name just a few). She has lectured on Bloomsbury in America and Italy, and at museums, universities and historic houses in the UK. I have long known of and been interested in the Bloomsbury Group - they are an incredibly well documented, romanticised and, dare I say it, likely overdone in many ways… However, bringing a fresh new lens to the second generation of the group, particularly as written by a direct descendent really reignited this for me. I loved meeting all these individuals chronicled in more detail - and it was astounding to see how many parallels there were between this younger generation, and so many people I know and are friends with now, and the causes they advocate for. There is a really central thread throughout this not only of self-expression, and authentic self, but of the fight for socialism (at one point capitalism is described as “thoroughly despicable”), Labour activism (the reality of class division and the differentiation between card carrying Labour members and those who remained on the fence) , and the ongoing dismissal of the notion of fair dealings between classes as ‘ideological’, and class traitorship. Ring any bells with the current political climate…?

Huw Edwards 'to leave BBC after being given inquiry findings' into his alleged behaviour following sex pic scandal Always life will be worth living by those who find in it things which make them feel to the limit of their capacity” Doctor Who 60th Anniversary: Fans 'obsessed' by show's 'glorious' new opening titles as sci-fi series makes it's epic return: 'The budget is insane!'For now, the fact that homosexuality wasn’t a legal way of life had me wondering if memories of 100 years ago are grander than the life itself. Weren’t these individuals running scared? I think I’m also a fairly shallow audience when it comes to biography: like Virginia Woolf I’m all about gossip, love affairs, and intimate emotional portraits. And I realise that’s complex because we’re talking about real people who lived real lives and it’s not really my business what they liked to do in bed. Even putting my sordid tastes, though, there’s just so much … vividity to the lives of these people, like when Clive Duncan gets so pissed off at Lytton Strachey he decides to “fire” him as a friend and writes a long letter that he doesn’t, in the end send: Writing the book has been a means for connecting the dots, not just for her, but for Cas. “It was really fun for Cas actually, being embedded in that queer heritage,” she says, and pauses. “It feels important to me — it helps everybody feel that they are part of something that’s been there forever.”

Jonathan Russell Clark is the author of "Skateboard" and "An Oasis of Horror in a Desert of Boredom." This was in the days when homosexuality was illegal, policemen prowled the pavements waiting to arrest any man with a powdered face, and young gay men were going off to see — or being pressurised by their parents to see — Dr Marten in Germany, who claimed he could ‘cure’ men of their homosexuality.As does your reviewer’s assertion that ideologically perfect as libertarianism is, it has elitist, class privileged qualities. Strachey’s book seems to support this view in that the crowd she writes about reads as very libertarian, not to mention that it succeeded by virtue of it “reaching an audience eager to challenge traditional conventions.” The “Bloomsberries” were very much of the belief that “every person had the right to live and love in the way they chose.” Ok, so how to say this? Libertarianism of the small l variety is correct, but it also appeals to an elite that not only believes in freedom to live and let live, but that also can live and let live. This compact history proves that the lived experiences of our elders are essential resource for succeeding generations.

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