Anyone read 'Cold Comfort Farm' and 'I Capture The Castle'?

[peggotty]

I've just ordered them from amazon to take on holiday to read, and am expecting great things from them, are they any good...?

yes I've read them

CCF is fab, but very odd

ICTC is sweet - I found it in the teenage fiction section of my library, but read it only recently. I think it is because the narrator is a teenager.

Cold Comfort Farm is one of my all-time favourite books.
We had a reading from it at our wedding.

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Yes I had a feeling I capture the castle might be more a 'teenager' book, but tbh well written kids books are just as good (sometimes better!) than some well-regarded 'grown-up' fiction. Funnily enough I've seen film adaptations of both of these but never read the books - really looking forward to them now, sound like my kind of thing!

love both. love ccf's weird futuristic thing which is only alluded to every so often.

I roughly know the story the ICTC, but not CCF. Just remember Rufus Sewell in the tv adaption (teenagerish giggle..!!)

To make sense of CCF you have to be aware of what she is satirising - the 'rural primitive' school of fiction like Precious Bane or Wolf Solent, where there are lots of muscular farm labourers and heaving bosoms and deep, earthy, symbolism.
Stella Gibbons has imagined a sensible, well-organised city girl going into one of those novels and sorting out everyone's life - the culture clash between them is so funny. She is also attacking people who enjoy having lots of rows and drama in their lives - she calls it having a 'rich emotional life'.
You often get people like that on Jeremy Kyle so it is still relevant today

Look out for some good lines....
''Seth, my son, do you want to break my heart?'
'Yes', said Seth, with elemental simplicity.'

Enjoy it!

'Oh Charles, you do have wonderful teeth' is my favourite.

yes, you do have to adopt a bit of a miss prissy-pants voice to read it, i think.

I've just googled CCF and I never really noticed that it was set in the future (of the 1930s)! I read it because of the Divine Comedy song. I love all the names in it.

I Capture The Castle is one of my all time favourites.

Am away to look for Cold Comfort Farm now as this thread has sold it to me

Not read CCF but ICTC is lovely - about a teenager on the cusp of womanhood and those realisations you begin to make as you grow up.

Bookthief

peggotty i am so jealous, love to be reading them again for the first time.

I adore Cold Comfort Farm. Fantastic book to read on holiday. Someone very kindly recommended The Go-Between as a good holiday read, so I took that with me, and it was lovely too.

Kathy, have ordered 'Precious Bane' as well as amazon had recommended it alongside CCF!!!

witchandchips, I know what you mean about books you love that someone else is going to read for the first time - it IS jealousy!

LOL Peggotty - read CCF first and then you will be sniggering all the way through Precious Bane!

Both are teenager books - great books, though. I loved both, and I especially loved I Capture the Castle. I have a very dog-eared copy in my bookcase waiting for my daughter to grow up

Kathy, will do!

I love getting all excited about new books - am I sad?!

Both fantastic books that can be read again. I read both first as a teenager, but have re-read them once a decade since!

Cold Comfort Farm yes, yonks ago. But I did enjoy it very much. Funny.

yes both good, but mainly if you are a teenager I think. Still, emjoy.

Still love Cold Comfort Farm, even at my advanced age. Haven't read the other.

I loved I capture the castle but haven't read CCF - one of those on the 'to read' list.