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• My first exposure to Dorothy Sayers was a spur-of-the-moment acquisition of a stack of compact paperbacks from Booked for Murder in Madison, Wisconsin back in 2003. I was attracted for some reason to the color and look of the spines, and I bought the whole stack. I have never been much of a murder mystery reader, other than a short stint reading Agatha Christie's in high school, so I'm not sure all the original reasons for picking up Sayer's Lord Peter Wimsey novels in totem, but I did, and I've never ever regretted it. For one, Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane now feel like dear friends. And these compact novels explore all kinds of other aspects of culture about which I was curious, like advertising, and church bell ringing, and much more. Anyway, if nothing else, if you are looking for some fiction for this season, I cannot recommend the Lord Peter Wimsey novels highly enough. In the course of reading the Sayers novels, I came to realize Dorothy Sayers was much more than a mystery novelists. She was indeed popularly that, but she also then expanded into religious writing and theology, and when her play, written together with a friend, Busman's Holiday, proved lucrative, she was able to spend even more time writing what she wanted to write, including more plays, some great works on theology and creativity, a popular BBC Radio series on Jesus, and then, late career, one of our best translations of Dante's Divine Comedy. I'd always hoped to read a great piece of non-fiction that contextualized Dorothy Sayers in a manner similar to some of the books that have popularized the friendship and authorship of The Inklings (C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, etc.) and so as you can imagine, I was thrilled when The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and Her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women came out this spring. It's a genuinely fantastic piece of popular scholarship. I had no idea how influential her group of friends were, and in so many fields. For example, Muriel Byrne discovered and then over a 40 year period prepared and then published The Lisle Letters, a collection of letters of a VIP of the Tudor era that transformed our historical perspective on Tudor England. Another friend wrote on parenting and gender issues, and although that's a staple of female authorship in certain periods up to the present, her particular role was all the more remarkable both for its influence, and for the fact that the Mutual Admiration Society included such a range of women of varying sexual orientations and gender identities. I'm not sure I've read a book, ever, that does such a remarkable job of exploring authentically the complex sexuality and gender identities of this long period in history (basically from before WWI up through the middle of the century) that also takes on many wider cultural issues, not the least of which, because of Sayer's influence, theology itself. Anyway, if you've got the time, and inclination, I highly recommend Mo Moulton's book. And of course, the Lord Peter Wimsey novels. https://amzn.to/2A4TJPc

• great book came with a very good hardcover - used it for a gift

• This is an engrossing, sensitive and immaculately researched study of the life of Sayers and her circle. The author perfectly treads the line between a scholarly and popular approach, to produce a book with much to say about the history of women’s lives; gender; sexuality; and friendship. Thoroughly recommended.

• Enjoyed reading about the lives of these women, and their relationship to this neighbourhood.

• A moving & heartening collective biography about women loving and supporting each other through youth, midlife, age, work, war, triumph, loss. Highly recommended for fans of Dorothy L. Sayers as well as for anyone interested in friendship, chosen family, spinsters, gender nonconformists, and queer history. I bought copies for everyone in my writing group!

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