If I LOVE Diary of a Provincial Lady...

Mrs Tim of the Regiment (and subsequent sequels)! So good and also written in journal style so very similar in feel to Diary of a Provincial Lady.

Look up the books published by Furrowed Middlebrow on Kindle, @Babycatsarenice (you can also buy them as hard copies but the kindle books are easy and inexpensive). They specialise in women’s fiction of the 40s and 50s; there are loads and I’m sure you’ll find something you’ll enjoy there. Elizabeth Fair’s novels make very enticing reading.

The owner is an American who’s mad about English fiction of the first half of the 20th century.

Some great suggestions above - I would add
Invitation to the Waltz - Rosamond Lehmann
In the Mink - Anne Scott-James
Anything by Molly Clavering - v gentle humoured novels, sometimes with a bit of romance, mostly set in the Scottish lowlands

Again for wartime stories, Nevil Shute. A Town like Alice is the most famous, but also Requiem for a Wren and the Pied Piper.

And Pastoral, a gentle romance set on an RAF bomber station.

I hope you have read all four of the diaries, they were published all together by Virago. I go back to it again and again - although you do need to remember it is 'of its times' in some bits. For completeness as a previous poster said, her daughter also wrote a book and there's a Provincial Lady goes to Russia book but that's a bit different as it's about her in her real professional/charitable life.

I came across the books when I shared a house with a friend whose Mum had given her a whole pile of books written by women in the 30s and beyond, and she'd carried on collecting the era through Virago. I read all the way through them. For humour I what I liked very much at the time and might read again are Cold Comfort Farm (there's other lesser known books by the author) and The Egg and I which is American but I, personally, felt the humour was not dissimilar (and it is similarly first in a short series of semi-autobiographic books).

A bit different, but there's some rather lovely Provincial Lady fanfic. I particularly like this in which the PL visits the Lake district.

I not normally a culture warrior and think that books should be judged in the context of their time, but A Town like Alice is racist

Nice to meet another Provincial Lady fan, definitely my desert island book.

My first suggestion would be Miss Read, Village Diary gets a mention above, none of the others are in diary form, but to my mind they share some of the type of character observations of the Provincial Lady.

For dealing with the pre war and war time period try Monica Dickens' loosely autobiographical books, One Pair of Hands, One Pair of Feet and My turn to make the Tea. Lots of her fiction is also very enjoyable.

Again for wartime stories, Nevil Shute. A Town like Alice is the most famous, but also Requiem for a Wren and the Pied Piper.

Looking forward to sampling some of the ideas up thread.

Enchanted April.
Sadly, I agree about the anti semitism in MPLFAD, an otherwise wonderful book.

Also if you can get hold of them, the Eliza books by Barry Pain, written in the early 1900s. The narrator is very like Mr Pooter in 'Diary of a Nobody', but his pretensions are usually quashed by his wife Eliza. The first book is free on the Project Gutenberg website, but you might have to look for the others second hand.

Following with interest as Provincial Lady is my ultimate comfort read and listen and am always on the lookout for anything similar.

I really enjoyed Love, Nina by Nina Stibbe which, although not a diary, is a series of letters with a similarly warm and funny author "voice".

There are. It brought the lovely cosy feel screeching to a halt for me. I'd recommend Miss Buncle's Book and its two sequels, Miss Buncle Married and The Two Mrs Abbotts (unfortunately those two titles are a bit spoiler-ish ).

Great thread, thanks! Lots of great suggestions.

Mrs Harris Goes to Paris (Moscow, New York, Parliament) gave me the same feel.

Oh, and absolutely E. F. Benson!

Maybe some Ann Bridge's novels, particularly Illyrian Spring and Peking Picnic?

Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire novels. They start with High Rising and go on for about 25 years. I’ve been reading them out of order which doesn’t particularly spoil them.

Completely agree. Santa Montefiore's character Flappy is straight out of Diary of a Provincial Lady.

Miss Buncle’s Book

And the Mrs Tim books by the same author, D.E. Stevenson.

This immediately sprang to mind, although if I recall correctly there are some anti-Semitic sentiments in it that might have been considered acceptable when it was written but, well, aren't.

Both

Village diaries - Miss Read
I capture the castle - Dodie smith

feel similar to me

Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning

I love the Provincial Lady ( the Provincial Lady in Wartime is my No 1!)
I actually have both my mother's and my maternal grandmother's copies now
I had Covid a few months ago and listened to the Diary of Adrian Mole ( Sue Townsend) and it was a surprisingly similar experience to listening to the Provincial Lady!