See the Fruitlands page for US reviews and links to features.
UK news on Fruitlands:
I wrote a full-page article on the book in the Daily Express for 23 December 2010: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/219015/Little-Women-The-real-story
The Daily Express also reviewed the book on 7 January: http://www.express.co.uk/printer/view/221584/
According to the New Statesman, Fruitlands is one of the books to look out for in 2011: http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2011/01/jonathan-derbyshire-january
The Financial Times reviewed Fruitlands on 10 January: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/1389e144-19e2-11e0-b921-00144feab49a.html#axzz1AdDfhUSk.
I was interviewed in the early hours of the morning of Wednesday 12 January on Radio 5 Live’s Up All Night programme and discussed Fruitlands with Jenni Murray on Woman’s Hour on 13 January 2011. Both these interviews can be heard by accessing BBC Radio on the net for a week following the broadcasts.
I also gave another interview on 13 January on US public radio: http://wicn.org/audio/inquiry-richard-francis-fruitlands-the-alcott-family-and-their-search-utopia
Lovely review of Fruitlands by Bee Wilson in the Sunday Times for 16 January. As the digital version is by subscription I can’t give a link. ‘The novelist and historian Richard Francis fills the gap, with this deeply researched and gracefully written biography of the key “Fruitlanders”.’
Another by Miranda Seymour in the Daily Telegraph for 29 January: ‘Francis writes with rare elegance and a well-turned wit that makes Fruitlands a beguiling treat: stylish, instructive and hugely entertaining.’ Five star rating. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/8286181/Fruitlands-The-Alcott-Family-and-their-Search-for-Utopia-by-Richard-Francis.html
And another in the Observer: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/06/fruitlands-utopia-richard-francis-review
Also Elaine Showalter in the Literary Review: http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/showalter_03_11.html
I read and discussed the book at Topping’s bookshop in Bath on 8 February 2010 (7:45 for 8), and gave a talk on it at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute on 15 February.
Other news: in the summer of 2010 I had an article published in The Literary Utopias of Cultural Communities, edited by Marguerite Corporaal and Evert van Leeuwen (Rodopi: Amsterdam, 2010), pp. 83-92. It was called “Utopian Waste at Brook Farm, Fruitlands, and Walden,” and actually dealt with the perceived mismatch between, well, between excrement and utopia. Certainly this was something that worried the Fruitlanders a lot. I gave it as much of a lyrical spin as I could.
I shall be receiving a prize in Beijing on 1 December 2011 for my novel The Old Spring. See its page for details.
