Book Shopping, Day Fourteen
Today I’m going to recommend something a little different—not necessarily Wild Strawberries (although it’s a striking cover, which is why I chose it, and a very good book in its own right) but any one (or two or three or a dozen) of the Barsetshire novels you can find by Angela Thirkell.
Not all of them are in print—you may have to try used book stores or sites to find some of them. (Here’s a complete list from the Angela Thirkell Society in North America.) But oh, do they repay the effort! In brief, Thirkell takes the English county of Barsetshire originally created by Anthony Trollope (dear Anthony Trollope! He is my hero when it comes to productivity) and updates it to the England of the thirties, forties and fifties. She peoples it with amusing and colorful characters (some of whom are descendants of Trollope’s original Barsetshireans), and with a deliciously light, wry, self-deprecating touch she sends up village ways, aristocratic follies, and (horrors!) middle-class aspirations.
Thirkell is one of my personal writing sages, and whenever I am blue or overwhelmed by the complexity of modern-day life I retreat to Barsetshire, to Winter Overcotes and Worsted, Pomfret Hall and Little Misfit, Gatherum Castle (home, of course, to the Duke of Omnium) and Pooker’s Piece.
Search for “Angela Thirkell” and choose whatever strikes your fancy at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Abebooks, Alibris, and of course your favorite independent bookstore.
The Second Duchess
Read the First Chapter
The Second Duchess is available on iBookstore!
