“Different towns have different modes of desolation.” #rebeccawest #atrainofpowder

Prior to 2014 I didn’t keep any kind of record of when I bought books, where they came from or anything like that; and the list I’ve kept since then has been very useful! However, one thing which Amazon does do is tell you when you acquired a book, and apparently in 2013 I obtained a pair of interesting non-fiction Rebecca West Viragos, one of which was “A Train of Powder”. It’s a book which has been on and off the TBR many times in the intervening years, but I had somehow never actually read it. However, the subject matter really gelled with the kind of works I’d been reading recently, particularly the sections on the Nuremberg Trials; and so finally, its time had come! “Train” was first published in 1955 and collects together some of West’s journalism. There are six pieces in all: three entitled “Greenhouse with Cyclamens” I, II or II, which covers the Nuremberg Trials and their aftermath; “Opera in Greenville” which reports on a trial in the south of the USA following a lynch mob;…