Notes from the Henhouse

Elspeth Barker could write about anything and have you longing for more … Notes from the Henhouse is a book for which one feels incredulous gratitude. How come, you think, she is not better known? The book deserves to be permanently on the bedside table - to cheer, reassure and inspire … [Barker’s] essays are sympathetic little masterpieces to which she brings storytelling capacity and an intensity that absorbs as the best fiction does – Kate Kellaway * THE OBSERVER *
Barker’s prose is poetic but not inflated, visceral but smooth … Notes from the Henhouse is a vibrant, jubilant testament to both her life and work – Lucy Scholes * DAILY TELEGRAPH *
Elspeth Barker speaks her mind fearlessly, and her mind is scintillating. Witty, caustic, erudite - as fiercely funny in writing about heartbreak and mortality as she is about drunken dinner parties and delinquent dogs – Lucy Hughes-Hallett
A collection of utterly captivating essays about love, children, pigs, dogs, jealousy, grief, ponds, bereavement, widowhood … I would also recommend her only novel, O Caledonia, as an optimal curl-up read. I hope I’m not making her sound cosy - she was much too sharp and original for that – India Knight * THE TIMES *
A masterclass in the art of the personal essay. These pieces - about pigs, and loss, and the delicate balance between art and life - are vital, and funny, and true. Though memoir, they have a powerful ambiguity, like the very best short stories – Charlie Gilmour, author of FEATHERHOOD
What a pleasure it was to read Notes from the Henhouse. An original voice, gothic, poetic and exuberantly funny – Esther Freud, author of HIDEOUS KINKY
This book is heaven. Elspeth Barker writes like no one else – Olivia Laing, author of CRUDO
Elspeth Barker is magnificent, the most underrated British writer of the last century. I loved Notes from the Henhouse so much. Laugh-out-loud funny, sad and beautiful, these essays are a revelation, full of love and joy and life lessons (never go for a man who will intentionally step on a frog and be pragmatic about hens). I will read them again and again – Camilla Grudova, author of CHILDREN OF PARADISE
Brings joy to the bleak midwinter – Belinda Bamber * COUNTRY AND TOWN HOUSE MAGAZINE *
Her writing is glorious and this book of essays is a wonder. Every essay is a masterpiece in miniature … Barker is a gift and so is this book. Buy one for yourself and one for those you love. It is that sort of book – Natasha Poliszczuk * BOOK(ISH) *
Elspeth Barker is a writer whose work is so delightful there’s almost no point in reviewing it. Why not just fill the page with quotations? … Those who have read Barker’s only novel know the sweet bitterness and wild glitter of her writing … Enchanting – Louisa Young * PERSPECTIVE *
Joyous, startling, funny, lush, dark and complex. The perfect stocking filler, I’d say, for the clever women in your life. – Melanie Reid * THE TIMES *

Elspeth Barker was the author of O Caledonia, a novel hailed as a ‘sparky, funny work of genius’ (Ali Smith). She taught Latin at what she described as ‘a naughty girls’ school’ on the Norfolk coast and worked as a tutor and lecturer in creative writing at the Norwich School of Art and Design. She wrote for the Independent, the Observer, the Sunday Times and the London Review of Books. Elspeth was married to the poet George Barker. She died in 2022.

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