📚The Mumsnet 'Rather Dated' Book Group - All welcome to join📚

[Antarcticant]

Welcome to the Mumsnet 'Rather Dated' Book Group, where we will be reading and discussing fiction from the 1930s to the 1990s that would have been described as 'contemporary' in its day.

The best introduction to the 'rather dated' concept would be to read the wonderful thread which inspired this group:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/4596284-rather-dated?reply=119670989

To summarise, a number of posters expressed disappointment that literature of the 20th Century is often dismissed as 'rather dated' because society has moved on from many of the values and lifestyles described.

We decided to create a reading group where the literary merits of such fiction can be appreciated, with any 'rather dated' elements being a point of interest rather than a reason to dismiss a novel.

We will be reading one book a month. Our first book, for September, will be the book that inspired the original thread:

The Road to Lichfield by Penelope Lively

Please do join the thread whether you want to take part in the discussion or just place mark to follow it.

Fellow Rather Dated people, please add anything important I might have missed!

(With huge thanks to ImJustMadAboutSaffron for the original thread and idea )

Ooooh I'm in! I've been into female WW2 era writers recently. Just read Good Evening Mrs Craven by Mollie Painter-Downes, such lovely, atmospheric, superbly understated short stories of women on the home front. About to start Tell It To A Stranger of Elizabeth Berridge.

I'm with @123Callie, some Ruth Rendell would be fab! The standalone novels rather than the Wexford series. Live Flesh, One Across Two Down and Written in Stone are all fantastic.

Ruth Rendell is definitely already on the list!

One of my favourites (and I begin to think we have enough here already for a decade of book clubs) is Margaret Forster. Her early stuff dates from the 60s, most famously Georgie Girl.

Ooh. I’d like to give this a go too.
Need to finish new Robert Galbraith first though…

Placemarking as another lurker - struggling to read at all right now as very busy at work, but I'd love to come along once the nights draw in and hopefully I have a bit more time.
I spent much of my teens and twenties reading 'rather dated' books including a fair number of those mentioned on the other thread. No-one mentioned Compton Mackenzie I don't think? I still love his Sylvia Scarlett books :) Plus strangely lots of 30s & older plays (back in the days of being limited to what there was to read in the library - supplemented once I got a job in a bookshop aged 16 and got a discount with lots of Virago modern classics)

Ooooooh, I'm in!

Oh I love Carol Shields! Unforgotten is in my top 10.

Just downloaded a sample of The Road to Lichfield.

I wanted to put in a mention for Mary Stewart and Elizabeth Cadell - The Corner Shop.

How about Mary Wesley? I'd forgotten about her until she was recommended by Kindle as I finished Road to Lichfield. Looking forward to the 25th!

Lurking

Oh yes I'm in! I love a 'dated' book. I'm a long-term customer of Persephone Books, this is right up my street. I've read a lot of Penelope Lively but oddly enough not this one. Looking forward to it!

I have a favourite 'rather dated' book that no one else I know has read - it's a rare adult book by Joan Aiken, called Died on a Rainy Sunday. Possibly more of a novella, it's a very readable and atmospheric book that veers into thriller territory. For some reason Goodreads has it categorised as Young Adult but it's definitely not that.

Oh I love this idea. I read Moon Tiger over the summer and adored it. I also read my first Penelope Fitzgerald and Barbara Pym last year as well as revisiting Mary Wesley.

@SherwoodForest I with you on preferring Susan Howatch's non Starbridge novels. Wheel of Fortune is great.

Has anyone mentioned Katherine Mansfield if we're stretching beyond Brits? She's one I've always intended to read.

I'm in. I remember loving The Stone Diaries and Unless by Carol Shields and I had a real soft sport for Penmarric and Cashelmara when I was younger. **

What a fabulous idea. I definitely need another book club alongside the two I already on MN and real life and personal choice reading, but I cannot resist and will lurk/join.

Not sure what I will make of these as they aren’t what I usually read but I have read the first Cazalet book (loved by MN, loathed by me), E M Delafield (loved by MN, ok by me) and a Margaret Drabble - Pure Gold Baby I think, but I can’t recall all that much.

I did love my first Jilly Cooper this year and have some Iris Murdoch, Anita Brookner and possibly some Penelope Lively on my Kindle that I haven’t got to yet.

I will head to my local Oxfam shop at lunch and see if they have it.

Doh! I meant Unless not Unforgotten.

Am going to pass on The Road To Lichfield as too similar to family circs for me right now.

It's arrived! Will make a start tonight.

@BestIsWest

I’d love to join this, although might not manage every book. I’m not sure if anyone has already mentioned Margaret Kennedy? I recently really enjoyed her novel The Feast and now I’m keen to read more of her work.

I've only just found this thread but would love to join please.

And I grew up in a Span house!

And I grew up in a Span house!

Tell us more, @Boiledeggandtoast !

Hallo Terpsichore!

It was built in the early 1960s, on one of a number of Span estates in Blackheath, South-East London. The idea was lots of shared communal garden space and play areas and the houses themselves were very light, with big windows, and open plan. It was a great place to grow up and very community minded (although that may also have been a reflection of the time and the fact that many of the residents were lefty, arty and academic types). My mother still lives there aged 92 and is well supported by her neighbours.

I should perhaps have added that we moved there in 1965, shortly after it was built.

Welcome to all new joiners and lurkers! Lovely to have so many great suggestions. @Boiledeggandtoast Your experience of a Span estate is really interesting, and it's refreshing to hear of a post-war housing solution that worked so well.

Just settling down with a herbal tea for chapter two.

@stokey I read a collection of short stories by Katharine Mansfield years ago and really enjoyed them.

I am impatient waiting for my copy to arrive! Really interesting about the Span houses; I’d never heard this term. I love learning new things.

That's my holiday reading! (I'm on holiday right now). I was wary of mentioning it in case people gave their opinions and I got put off!

I've also got The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (jolly holiday reading).