September books
Six in a Family, Eleanor Graham. I thought I hadn’t read this and then realised after two chapters that I had. It is not a patch on The Children Who Lived in a Barn, as absolutely nothing happens and I can’t stand Mummy. Of all the spoiled creatures!!!
The Closed Circle, Jonathan Coe. Brilliant. This is the further adventures of the characters in The Rotters’ Club and thank goodness some of the mysteries from that book are solved. Coe gets in so many sharp observations on modern life that it’s hard to believe he hasn’t actually been a Fleet Street journalist, an MP or a trade union official. Positively Dickensian.
Anne’s House of Dreams, L M Montgomery
Persuasion, Jane Austen
The Flower Patch among the Hills, Flora Klickmann. Plotting a whole post on Klickmann sometime.
The Queen and I, Sue Townsend. Alan Bennet’s The Uncommon Reader has been comprehensively reviewed and read on the radio but as I can’t get my mitts on it at the moment I turned instead to Sue Townsend’s fantasy, which I’d read at least twice before. I suppose both books are an extension of the dreams which so many people are said to have about the Queen. The interesting thing is that, as with Helen Mirren’s portrayal, the fictional queen just makes you admire the real one more.
Pilgrim’s Rest, Patricia Wentworth. A Miss Silver novel, first published 1948.
Ladies’ Bane, Patricia Wentworth
The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous, Jilly Cooper. One I’d missed and picked up for 50p. It is so much better than Wicked! The ending is positively nailbiting.
Anne of Ingleside, L M Montgomery
I’m finding Anne rather a pain and keep comparing her with Joey Bettany/Maynard. Both lively children with literary ambitions. Both marry doctors who are apparently inexhaustible, also perfect husbands and fathers and yet become very, very dull. Both always have help around when they need it. It’s the peripheral characters that make the Anne books fun to read. What would they be without Mrs Lynde, Rebecca Dew and Susan-at-the-helm?