Caroline Taggart's Blog

February 20, 2021

Impressive first novel with an unlikely heroine

Ruth Leigh’s debut novel, The Diary of Isabella M Smugge, came as a pleasant surprise.

Isabella, successful lifestyle influencer and social-media addict, may insist her name is pronounced to rhyme with ‘Bruges’, but five minutes in her company convince us otherwise: this woman is smug to the very core of her self-obsessed being. Recently moved from London to the country with her perfect husband, organically fed children and treasured Latvian nanny, she’s everything that any right-thinking person (including the more down-to-earth villagers who are her new neighbours) despises.

Or is she? Is her life as perfect as she would have us believe? And is she really as ghastly as she seems?

You may think you are never going to be able to like this woman, but do persist. Issy’s reminiscence of cutting off one of the school bully’s plaits to protect her younger sister years ago is genuinely touching; the scene when she tells the story to the son who normally thinks she is sooooo embarrassing is hilarious. There may be more to her story than meets the eye.

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Published on February 20, 2021 23:06

February 27, 2020

How Effectual Is That?

My latest reading is a collection of essays by Mollie Panter-Downes, written from London for the New Yorker during the Second World War. She uses the word effectually, really surprisingly often, to mean what most of us would mean by effectively these days – i.e. more or less, to all practical purposes. It makes me wonder when effectively became the commoner of the two, and if it caused the sort of outcry that I still raise at the misuse of literally, as in ‘I literally died laughing when I heard the news.’

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Published on February 27, 2020 04:14

August 15, 2019

When New Words Come Along

I’m reading a book that was first published in 1846 and (admittedly in a translated-from-the-Russian version) there is a moment when the hero is struck by the glossiness of his boss’s shoes, ‘acting as powerful reflectors’:


‘That’s called a high-light,’ thought our hero. ‘The term is used particularly in artists’ studios…’


Not only is the word ‘high-light’ hyphenated and printed in italics, both devices to show that the idea is quite new, but the author feels obliged to explain what it means. Any of those three things would be completely unnecessary today.


It made me think that it can’t be much more than three years ago that we were seeing ‘Brexit’ in inverted commas, suggesting that the word was a recent coinage and the concept as unfamiliar as ‘high-lights’ were in Dosteovsky’s day.

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Published on August 15, 2019 01:16

July 4, 2019

Improve Your Word Power

Does consanguineous mean:


• agreeable

• closely related

• easy to see?


Is gallimaufry:


• a cold wind

• a jumble

• a swear word?


These are just two of the hundreds of choices offered in my new book, Improve Your Word Power (see my books page)

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Published on July 04, 2019 01:34

December 20, 2018

Christmas at War

There’s been a very touching response to the publication of this book. I’ve had lots of lovely cards and emails from the elderly people who contributed to it, or the offspring of those whose memoirs I quoted – all delighted to see their stories getting a new outlet.


The sad thing is that, since I did the research about 18 months ago, at least five of those who shared memories with me have died. So there’s a lesson here, and not just to do with the deprivations of the war: if you have elderly people in your life, particularly if they are relatives, talk to them. Talk to them NOW, while you can. Get their stories, not necessarily down on paper, but into your head. Because once the people are gone, those stories are gone too. And gone forever.


But here’s a happy coincidence. One of those who died was my aunt. Her daughter, planning the funeral, got in touch to say that she didn’t know a great deal about her mother’s early life and could I fill in any blanks. Because my aunt had sent me a story for the book, I was able to send that to my cousin – and it was read at the service. A warm moment on a sad occasion.

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Published on December 20, 2018 02:49

May 21, 2018

A number of people – not all of them respectful

Can it really be almost a year since I last posted a blog? What have I been doing?


Well, lately, I’ve been reading A Number of People, a memoir by Edward Marsh, who was not only Private Secretary to Winston Churchill for much of his early career, but also a poet, editor, translator and friend of everyone from Rupert Brooke to Lady Violet Bonham-Carter. He manages not to have a bad word to say about anyone without ever becoming dull.


I’m reading an elderly copy borrowed from the library; someone before me has read it with a pencil in their hand and made occasional annotations. When Marsh mentions Charles Scott-Moncrieff, whom he describes as ‘Proust’s incomparable translator’, my unknown predecessor has dignified the page with a squiggle under ‘incomparable’ and two question marks in the margin. You’d think – you really would think – that someone who was sufficiently literary-minded to have a view on different translators of Proust would also have more respect for the sanctity of library books. Obviously not.


By the way, as so often, I ought to thank my favourite magazine, Slightly Foxed, for pointing me in the direction of this book.

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Published on May 21, 2018 05:58

October 16, 2017

The Accidental Apostrophe

It’s been quite a year, but even so I am horrified to see that it’s seven months since I posted a blog. Note to self: must do better.


But The Accidental Apostrophe…and other misadventures in the English language is out this week and is, though I say it myself, quite fun – and it certainly has a fabulous cover. Have a look on my books page.

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Published on October 16, 2017 10:17

March 20, 2017

Great Modern Writers

Last year I had the great honour of being asked to provide the text for a book by wonderful graphic artist Andy Tuohy. It was an A–Z of Great Modern Writers and it followed earlier volumes Andy had produced with other authors, on artists and film directors. Writing it was one of the most stimulating experiences I’ve had in a long time: I had to read or re-read books by authors ranging (alphabetically) from Maya Angelou to Stefan Zweig, and to encourage newcomers to take an interest in James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Herman Hesse and Toni Morrison. Fifty-two authors in total. It kept my brain buzzing for months.


Anyway, it’s just been published. Look out for it. It’s gorgeous. And, I hope, quite interesting.

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Published on March 20, 2017 14:20

December 13, 2016

Matters of Modern Etiquette

The Question (@thequestionuk) have recently asked me to be their ‘expert’ on some matters of etiquette, including the single change that I think would most improve the modern world. I came up with the idea of banning people from staring at their phones as they walk along the street: have a look.


But I’ve just come across something else I think is terribly rude: having a long conversation on the phone while you’re in the hairdresser’s. The woman two chairs along from me this morning told me much more than I needed to know about a friend of hers who had recently given birth. OK, she was speaking in French, but in polyglot London that surely isn’t a guarantee of privacy. And whatever language you speak, it’s still treating your stylist as if she were an automaton.

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Published on December 13, 2016 03:47

July 5, 2016

A-Z of Great Modern Writers

I’ve just delivered the text for this – it’s an illustrated guide by the amazing graphic artist Andy Tuohy, who has already produced similar books on great artists and great film directors.


Not only will be look fabulous, it’s been enormous fun to work on. I’ve been reading (or re-reading for the first time in decades) books by all sorts of people from Chinua Achebe to Stefan Zweig, with Jorge Luis Borges, Nadine Gordimer, Graham Greene, Franz Kafka, Clarice Lispector, Toni Morrison, George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Virginia Woolf and 41 others in between. It isn’t published until March, but look out for it!

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Published on July 05, 2016 01:50