Ronald Blythe published more than 40 books across many genres between 1960 and 2022. Here are my favourite five:
The Age of Illusion: England in the Twenties and Thirties (1963). A panoramic portrait of life between the wars by a writer of self-taught erudition.
Akenfield (1969). The unclassifiable classic saga of Suffolk rural life. Poetic realism and concealed family memoir.
The View in Winter (1979). An Akenfield of old age, and Ronnie's personal favourite. The author who died aged 100 lived out his positive words.
The Time by The Sea (2013). A haunting, fragmentary memoir of youthful apprenticeship in Aldeburgh published when the writer was 90 and close to forgetting.
Next to Nature: a Life in the English Countryside (2022). Last and best of 12 selections of Ronnie's ‘Word from Wormingford’ diary essays. A celebration for the author's centenary.
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