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What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

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Original poster

If I like Nancy Mitford, Jilly Cooper, Barbara Pym...

87 replies

bigkidsdidit · 13/09/2011 21:08

who else would I like?

A few months of biographies, feminist book group books and Serious Tomes and I need some fun (but not crap) books for the tube journey to work.

Does anyone have any suggestions for me?

thanks :)

OP posts:

BBL1 · 17/09/2011 14:37

Molly Keane's books are probably amongst the funniest books I have ever read.

CeliaFate · 16/09/2011 16:43

Mavis Cheek - FANTASTIC!
Eva Rice - The lost art of keeping secrets.

Helen Simonson - Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
Mary Ann Shaffer - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

steamedtreaclesponge · 16/09/2011 10:36

Georgette Heyer is brilliant - very witty, romantic and clever books. Not much bodice-ripping though, a couple of snogs are usually about as far as it goes for her heroines!

What about Elizabeth Goudge? The Herb of Grace has to be one of my favourite books ever.

gramercy · 16/09/2011 10:07

Just my sort of books!

My dream come true would be to have a free trolley dash round Persephone Books.

Will look up the (sadly few) books on here I haven't read. So Georgette Heyer is good? I assumed it was a lot of bodice ripping, possibly because my granny hid her Georgette Heyers under the sofa cushions.

Haberdashery · 16/09/2011 09:58

Clan of the Cave Bear! I love those books. Brilliant stuff.

Kingsroadie · 16/09/2011 09:03

Haberdashery - have read Snobs - I think that's by him no? Wasn't overly impressed. TBH nothing, and I mean nothing, compares to Jilly for me. She is my ultimate in trashy novels.

Although actually has anyone read the Clan of the Cave Bear series by Jean M Auel? . They are very rubbishy in some ways (lots of sex scenes, most of them gratuitous), but also historically fairly accurate - about the pre-historic times etc. V addictive.

Apologies for lowering the tone everyone

LOVE Waugh though - Brideshead and Vile Bodies are two of my favourite books. I do read proper books too I promise. I love reading so much I often have 3 or so books on the go at once, once being a decent one and one being less so (eg, now I am reading How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran, Anna Karenina, and might re-read a trash book too)

Also love Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale is amazing but fairly haunting.

Original poster

bigkidsdidit · 16/09/2011 08:10

Haberdashery - Julian Fellowes as in Gosford Park? Didn't know he writes. Coo.

OP posts:

Original poster

bigkidsdidit · 16/09/2011 08:09

ooh!

working from home today - meant to be doing 6 hours of graph drawing. And the doorbell just went - here is Diary of a Provincial Lady!

I'm pretending to have a dilemma about what I'm going to do today...

OP posts:

Haberdashery · 15/09/2011 22:13

terribly brittle dont you know

This made me laugh.

Has anyone else read any Julian Fellowes? I find him a bit Mitford/Waugh-ish but obv much more modern. He's a bit like a very bitchy cold mean Jilly Cooper if that makes sense.

Molly Keane sounds good.

suzikettles · 15/09/2011 21:27

I also love Rose Macaulay: Told by an Idiot, Crewe Train, Towers of Trebizond, The World My Wilderness.

SuePurblybilt · 15/09/2011 21:15

Oh, she so did. I like Loving and Giving and the other one, that I've forgotten . Lovely writing.

Maggie O'Farrell is worth a try too, particularly The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox.

suzikettles · 15/09/2011 21:10

Has anyone mentioned Molly Keane yet?

Anglo Irish families, country houses (usually in a state of disrepair), some lovely humour.

I don't know if Nancy Mitford read her, but I bet she did.

CJCregg · 15/09/2011 20:51

Came on here to say Georgette Heyer, Barbara Trapido, Cazalet Chronicles and Kate Atkinson but of course they've already been mentioned, doh.

But I am getting some wonderful inspiration, thanks! Going to try Rosamond Lehmann on your recommendations.

SuePurblybilt · 15/09/2011 20:42

I've had those updated CCFs in my amazon basket for ages, do come and say if they're any good .
I am saving them for Christmas.

SybilBeddows · 15/09/2011 20:33

I bought Conference At Cold Comfort Farm and another one by Stella Gibbons today and from dipping into them they look very good. They are on 3 for 2 at Waterstones if anyone's interested.

Original poster

bigkidsdidit · 15/09/2011 19:58

We should have a reading group!

OP posts:

Kingsroadie · 15/09/2011 19:55

. Thanks Haberdashery! I loved the Cazalet Chronicles and was devastated when I finished them ridiculously quickly. I try to read things I like more slowly but it just doesn't work!

thefirstMrsDeVere · 15/09/2011 19:36

I have read The Long View by her. Its terribly brittle dont you know (that was me being all Noel Coward in case you were wondering).
It was ages ago but I liked it.

Haberdashery · 15/09/2011 19:35

And Elizabeth Bowen, she's wonderful.

Haberdashery · 15/09/2011 19:32

Thanks, MrsDeV, will have a look for those.

I'd also suggest The Beautiful Visit by Elizabeth Jane Howard for those who like the Cazalet stuff but haven't tried anything else by her.

SuePurblybilt · 15/09/2011 11:29

And I just x posted wth azazello

SuePurblybilt · 15/09/2011 11:29

I liked Hens Dancing and Summertime more than A Perfect Life, add those too for next time .
Love Monica Dickens. Has anyone suggested Stella Gibbons yet? The Nightingale, Cold Comfort Farm and The Matchmaker are all good. Lovely and autumny somehow (maybe that's just me ).

azazello · 15/09/2011 11:26

Oh. I like Monica Dickens too.

azazello · 15/09/2011 11:26

Have a look at Stella Gibbons. She wrote Cold Comfort Farm but has also done a whole load of other novels which are quite noce and very Barbara Pym ish/. Also love Mavis Cheek and PD James

thefirstMrsDeVere · 15/09/2011 11:19

She wrote two main autobiogs One Pair of Hands and One Pair of Feet. They are great too.

I like all her novels apart from one weird one she wrote in the 60s about some woman holed up with an escaped convict.

Kate and Emma is good
The Fancy

They are all very much of their time IYSWIM. MD is an obvious snob but she is equally as scathing about the middle and upper middle classes so I can deal with it.

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