Any book in which the central cohort describe themselves as ‘very gay and amorous’ is going to be a winner for me tbh, and this was no exception.

Nino Strachey is the last member of the Strachey family to have grown up at Sutton Court in Somerset, home of the family for more than three hundred years. but on the ‘Young Bloomsbury’ set that followed them and were inspired by their flouting of conventions and open conversation. With a deft turn of the Bloomsbury kaleidoscope, and an impressive gift for finding treasures in the archives, Nino Strachey reveals colorful new patterns of experiments in living which speak trenchantly to our own cultural moment. Young Bloomsbury just BRIMS with the same kind of sexy vitality embodied by the characters Nino Strachey describes in such effervescent detail. Young Bloomsbury introduces us to this colorful cast of characters, including novelist Eddy Sackville-West, who wore elaborate make-up and dressed in satin and black velvet; artist Stephen Tomlin, who sculpted the heads of his male and female lovers; and author Julia Strachey, who wrote a searing tale of blighted love.

As skepticism, admiration, envy, and confusion ebb and flow between one chattering, seductive, thinking, inspiring generation and another, this is Gatsby made real. She also does a decent job of highlighting the difficult negotiations between sexual exploration and life in a wider, hostile environment in which any overt signs of queer expression were often rigidly policed and punished. Forster's Maurice was not unpublishable but rather Forster strictly forbade to be published until after he died. Then a new generation stepped forward—creative young people who tantalized their elders with their captivating looks, bold ideas, and subversive energy.

Strachey begins though with a rather uninspiring, potted history of the Bloomsbury group, before moving on to the next generation – Stephen Tennant, Eddy Sackville-West, Julia Strachey, Frances Marshall and others. Quite enjoyed this brief group biography of the second Bloomsbury cohort, many of whom were integral parts of the later lives of the Woolfs, working at the Hogarth Press, making art, writing their own novels. I have long known of and been interested in the Bloomsbury Group - they are an incredibly well documented, romanticised and, dare I say it, likely overdone in many ways… However, bringing a fresh new lens to the second generation of the group, particularly as written by a direct descendent really reignited this for me. An “illuminating” ( Daily Mail , London) exploration of the second generation of the iconic Bloomsbury Group who inspired their elders to new heights of creativity and passion while also pushing the boundaries of sexual freedom and gender norms in 1920s England.The best audience for this book is folks who are familiar with one or more of the famous figures and desire more information about how they lived.

They came together through different routes: wild parties, exclusive dining clubs, some flocked to Lytton Strachey’s home at Ham Spray others to literary salons in Bloomsbury itself.But for readers, like me, who’ve already devoured a number of Bloomsbury Group studies and biographies there isn’t a lot that’s particularly revelatory here. I loved meeting all these individuals chronicled in more detail - and it was astounding to see how many parallels there were between this younger generation, and so many people I know and are friends with now, and the causes they advocate for. I started it in the middle of the heatwave, which probably didn’t help, as intra-Bloomsbury relationships are dodecahedral at the best of times.