Stella Gibbons "She liked Victorian novels. They were the only kind of novel you could read while eating an apple."

[TeaAndStrumpets]

I think this quote pretty well describes my literary taste these days. However the books churned out for light reading are often so dire. Who buys them? Had to bin The Thursday Murder Club, and that awful one about a very naive female whose name I have mercifully forgotten (sorry, can't recall...think she was meant to have autistic traits but it was laid on with a trowel.)

I thoroughly enjoyed Of Mice and Murder. I love Jasper Fford. I read a lot of 1930s fiction over lockdown, Angela Thirkell and also Miss Silver for light relief. There is probably a lot of Golden Age detective stuff I could read, but I have worked my way through loads of it over the years. I would really like to see what modern fiction has to offer.

What do you read which is enjoyable and doesn't annoy you? No dead children, mutilated women, etc etc.

Yes she is fab!

Mrs Pettigrew lives for a day - book not the film …

That was the only Persephone novel that I really didnt take to.

Tana French.
But not cheery.

Oops correction the series was by Lucinda Brant, starting with Noble Satyr. Very OTT. I love a bit of tosh.

Clare Chambers, Marina Lewycka, and Lissa Evans are wonderful modern writers who know how to tell a story.

Fab thanks, more for my list!

I'd have a look at the Rather Dated threads, the original has lots of good suggestions for mid-century female writers and they've been reading a book a month for two or three years now. I think @BarnacleBeasley is correct that there are various reasons why 'light fiction written by women' is not as good as it was historically for various reasons.

I agree that Lissa Evans and Clare Chambers hit the spot these days.

Elizabeth Fair’s seven wonderfully readable and witty novels (forgotten, out of fashion and out of print for far too long) are a recent and delightful discovery for me. They have been reprinted in the Dean Street Press Furrowed Middlebrow series.

I think all of the Furrowed Middlebrow books are well worth a look for anyone who enjoys novels in the style of Barbara Pym and Angela Thirkell. Off the top of my head other writers in the series include Noel Streatfeild and Stella Gibbons.

For non-gory, non-harrowing entertaining crime fiction I’d recommend Iain Pears’ Jonathan Argyll and Flavia di Stefano Rome Art Theft Squad series, Magdalen Nabb’s Marshal Guarnaccia series set in Florence, Michael Pearce’s Mamur Zapt series set in early twentieth century Egypt, Gillian Lindscott’s suffragette detective Nell Bray novels and Jill Paton Walsh’s continuation of Dorothy L Sayers Lord Peter Wimsey novels - and I don’t usually like continuations.

For comedy I will always return to EF Benson’s Mapp and Lucia series, plus his standalones, Paying Guests and Secret Lives; Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat and Three Men on the Bummel; George and Weedon Grossmith’s Diary of a Nobody and Keith Waterhouse’s hilarious companion Mrs Pooter’s Diary.

I am very mistrustful of the rave reviews on the covers of recently published novels. Too many of them have failed to live up to the ‘puffery’ and I suspect a lot of them are written in the spirit of ‘I’ll say something nice about your book if you say something nice about mine.’

I was just coming to suggest Lissa Evans! They are wonderful.

Thanks @JaninaDuszejko those are worth a look.

@CatChant that is a super list, i will refer back to it. Agree about the book jacket blurbs!

I have had some great suggestions on this thread but it is very interesting how few modern authors are being mentioned. Maybe I'll stick to the old favourites!

Definitely going to try her!

Thank you for this thread- I like all the same things and haven't found anything good recently. Jane Smiley? All different all gripping. Mary Lawson?

More to check out, thank you!

Jane Smiley is great too - The Greenlanders is superb, and the Lear reinterpretation A Thousand Acres is so good.

Really appreciating all the suggestions, thank you!

Yes, agree absolutely though have yet to try Elizabeth Fair - thank you!

A warning - do not be lulled by the name and the first 95% of the book into reading Noel Streatfeild's Shepherdess of Sheep. Some of her other adult fiction is a bit gritty, with the odd tragedy. Shepherdess of Sheep gives you a long comfort read with a splendid plucky heroine and then ... those last two chapters! I have rarely been so shocked by a book.

Adult novels of Rumer Godden would be a good pick too.

Absolutely agree about Rumer Godden. Particularly 'In This House of Brede'

Definitely Lissa Evans; her Old Baggage trilogy is great. I agree with Clare Chambers and Jane Gardam too.

What about Sue Gee? She deserves to be more widely read. The Mystery of Glass, Earth and Heaven and Thin Air are all very good reads.

Also Tracy Chevalier. I really enjoyed A Single Thread recently.

Re Jane Austen spin-offs. I don't like many tbh however The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow, due to be on TV soon, is worth a read.

i’ve been adding so many authors to my reading list from this thread! Have you read any Margaret Drabble? She’s a very intelligent writer with great stories.

I will have such fun tracking these books down, thanks @Yestothis and @Howyoualldoworkme . I have previously found out of print books (scanned) in the Internet Archive Online Library. You can borrow a book for an hour at a time, go on waiting lists and so on. I found some early Georgette Heyer psychological novels there, very 1920s, so interesting, but they were not successful. The Archive has recently been sued over copyright issues so a lot of their books have disappeared from loan but older ones are still available. I love seeing the scans of the original book jackets, library stamps etc., but I am a bookaholic.

I believe all of Lois McMaster Bujold's Barrayar books are still available in the Library but she always distributed the ebooks for free. Oh, her books are wonderful! Every one a keeper.

Your reading tastes are very similar to mine. Modern authors I love are Elizabeth Strout and Sarah Moss, not necessarily light as such but easy to read I think.

Detective books - I have worked my way through all the Dandy Gilver books, modern author but historical setting. Also love Andrew Taylor, especially the Ashes of London series) and have enjoyed Elly Griffiths, Anthony Horowitz.

Ditto 😆.

Crime - ish book - Bob Mortimer’s Satsuma Complex is excellent, very funny but also I became very invested in the characters.

@highlandcoo I really enjoyed Expectations by Frances Murray, i'm not sure if it is in print but I read it on Kindle Unlimited. The novel follows a poor relation of Lady Catherine's who comes to live at Rosings. The author takes the story up shortly after the events of Pride and Prejudice. No spoilers but she is not afraid to prune the original cast of characters!

I have read a few of the Austen continuations, one about Charlotte which was both glum and improbable, one about Mary which was so so. I think they would all be better on TV. The recent series about Cassandra was nicely done.