What can I read that has a nostalgic feel to it?!

[Nows]

I'm feeling the need to escape from modern life! What can I read that has similar vibes to The Diary of a Provincial Lady, Nella Last's War, The Cazalet Chronicles, Agatha Christie etc? I've read quite a few of the Persephone books too but can't remember titles!

Very grateful for any and all suggestions. Thank you :)

A Month in the Country - J.L. Carr. A novella - a man goes to a Yorkshire village to restore a medieval painting after returning from the First World War. Evocative and nostalgic for the rhythms of English village life early in the twentieth century. A really, really wonderful book.

A Country Child by Alison Uttley
A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley

Anything by Marcia Willett, she writes identically to Rosamund Pilcher.

"I'm feeling the need to escape from modern life"

God, I can so relate. I live in the countryside, but my village increasingly looks like a vast building site. Housing estates are going up everywhere, and the traffic is so bad I hardly go out. In the summer, instead of birdsong all you hear is the screeching and exploding of boy racer cars. I increasingly use literature as an escape as well.

A few books that take me somewhere else:

1. The works of Oscar Wilde. I just love Wilde's world. A world of bohemians and intellectuals, smoking opium cigarettes and lounging around in huge mansions discussing art. Try his minor fiction and shorts stories.

2. The works of M. R. James. Creepy ghost stories, but so evocative of the late Victorian/Edwardian world. (also, watch the Mark Gatiss documentary on Youtube)

3. Sherlock Holmes. I especially recommend listening to Stephen Fry read them.

4. Lord of the Rings: Yes, I know it's set in a fantasy world, but the descriptions of nature are gorgeous. Tolkien hated cars and machines and overpopulation. The novel is really a lament for a lost Edwardian England. The Narnia books are kind of similar – a fantasy world that is also deeply British.

5. P. G. Wodehouse. Sublime language, wonderfully funny, and basking in a sort of perpetual Edwardian sunlight. Try the Blandings novels.

6. George Orwell: Coming up for Air. His best novel (imo) and wonderfully nostalgic for a lost Edwardian world. It is about a man who lives in 1930s but years for the Edwardian village of his childhood.

7. Evelyn Waugh: Brideshead Revisited

8. Children's fiction? I'm thinking of The Wind in the Willows, The Railway Children, Peter Pan etc.

9. E. M. Forster: A Room with a View (and watch the superb film)

You need the Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim. It's literally about escaping the grind of daily life

I find re-reading favourites from childhood very soothing. All the Swallows and Amazons books. Anything by Noel Streatfeild or E. Nesbit. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.

Thanks, I shall look out for it!

Another vote for anything by Stella Gibbons.

JB Priestley’s The Good Companions. A really lovely book about a way of life that doesn’t exist any more.

I capture the castle by Dodie Smith

I’m another one who re-reads my childhood books such as Noel Streatfield, LM Montgomery etc when I need a nostalgic read. My DH kitted out a cupboard under the stairs specially for these books, hoping that our two young granddaughters will grow up to love them as much as I do.
Also, as other pp’s have suggested - Dorothy L Sayers, Georgette Heyer, Miss Read but in addition, Neville Shute and R F Delderfield books are amongst my favourites

@TitusMoan Oh yes, I love The Good Companions! Thanks for the reminder, might be time for a re-read soon.

Norah Loft's House series.

Miss Buncle's Book by D E Stevenson. If you like that, then it's the first in a trilogy.

The Fortnight in September by R C Sherriff.

In fact, pretty much anything from the Persephone Books catalogue. They specialise in out of print, vintage books, a lot of which are from the early part of the 20th century.

Josephine Tey was another classic crime writer.

E.C.R. Lorac was another prolific crime writer in the '30s, '40s and '50s. Was forgotten, but now being republished in British Library Crime Classics, and some titles available on FadedPage.

Some people love Angela Thirkell, who wrote social comedy in the '30s, 40s and '50s. A little of her goes a long way for me, but she does write about a vanished world.

And since people have mentioned children's books, what about the Chalet School? The series is complete on FadedPage up to Jo to the Rescue. (And Tom Tackles the CS should be read after Rescue, though it was published out of sequence.)

Definitely all of these, also Anne of Green Gables, Maeve Binchy (especially Circle of Friends), Alison Uttley, all of the Little House on the Prairie series, Lark Rise to Candleford

The Millstone
The L-shaped Room

Kate Atkinson’s non-crime books and Margaret Forster novels are good for nostalgia. Behind the Scenes at the Museum is Kate Atkinson’s first and is brilliant. Her stuff is particularly good if you know York. Margaret Forster’s Diary of an Ordinary Women is excellent - a lot of her novels are set in and around Carlisle.

One of my absolute favourites - Mariana by Monica Dickens (I also love The Happy Prisoner by her but I’m not sure if it’s still in print - Mariana is by Persephone).
Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey
I second Wodehouse, Georgette Heyer (who also wrote Golden Age type crime books), A Month in the Country and Brideshead - the ultimate in nostalgia!
And for a very different type of nostalgia - seen now as problematic but an amazing page turning story and a vivid evocation of a (thankfully) lost world: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Plus (perhaps only if you loved them as a child as I did), the Flambards books?
Like the pp I think this might be my specialist subject…

Diary of a Nobody is another great favourite of mine.

Oh, and I meant to mention Mary Stewart for romantic suspense. Written at a time before many people had foreign holidays, so the young heroine's adventures in Greece or elsewhere would have seemed quite exotic to readers at the time.

I second the recommendation of D.E. Stevenson. She wrote about similar characters and settings to Angela Thirkell, but is much gentler, though not lacking humour. Look out for the Mrs Tim books, partly based on the author's own experiences as an Army wife.

The piano teacher, about old Hong Kong

Enchanted April. Story of a group of women who rent a house in Italy. Nostalgic, gentle and a great read.

Bournville by Jonathan Coe is good.
Also , Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn.

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