Shaking A Leg

Angela Carter's journalism was always acutely observant and brilliantly entertaining. This volume follows her track from the 1960s onwards as she explores new territories and overturns old ideas discussing films or food, feminism or fantasy, jeans or Japan, science fiction or sex, Virginia Woolf baking bread or Bob Dylan making hay. Her ironic delight in the spirit of place - hot springs and derelict boozers in Bath, curd tarts and pigeons in Manchester -is only on aspect of her tart delight in contrasts of culture, like the 'disparate ethnic elements in British food, or the queasy class shame in the novels of D. H. Lawrence. SHAKING A LEG contains much hitherto uncollected material garnered from a wide range of sources- from student magazines to the NEW STATESMAN AND SOCIETY, from NOVA and VOGUE to the LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS. Carter can be down-to-earth or devastatingly funny, but her style illuminates her subject and never swamps it. This is an exuberant, fierce, dazzling collection, memorable and enjoyable at once.