It was accidental. I had to read one novel for an interview with the author. And then another. I took one to the beach and read on a blanket, in companionable reading silence with my daughter. I read one a while ago and then dipped into again because I’d had a blue day and it made me snort with laughter. Last week, I was reading a book which is v good but far too tense to read before bed, so picked up something else, which was utterly delightful. Before I knew it, I’d had a solid run of books which had made me feel better about life generally.

And on it goes: my current bedtime read (of course I have different books for different parts of the day - need you even ask?) is Dear Miss Lake by the wonderful , which is as cheerful and charming as she is. (More on this very soon.)

Go Gentle - Maria Semple (W&N)

An utterly joyful, exuberant, madcap romantic-comedy-meets-art-heist-caper featuring a Stoic philosopher? Yes indeed.

The splendidly-monikered Adora Hazzard lives in New York. She’s divorced and is assembling a “coven” of women in her apartment building who pool friendship and resources (I live for this concept - I suspect many women do. I have always said to my beloved husband that if he was run over by a bus, I’d like to move in, commune-style, with a friend and her children.) She spends her days tutoring the sons of a beyond-wealthy New York family, in whose life she became entangled when their father, Lionel, preposterously handsome and privileged, wrecked by an accident and a stroke - saved by Adora and her philosophy of Stoic virtues. She becomes their in-house moral philosopher.

The delightful apple cart is soon upset by the arrival of that classic trope: a handsome stranger, Digby - and a coup de foudre. What ensues is somewhere between an art heist (this is what happens when you work for an inordinately rich old New York family), a romantic comedy, and - in the mid-section - Adora’s experience of misogyny and sexual assault in a Saturday Night Live style writers’ room, which led her to embrace Stoicism. Yes, this is central to Adora’s character, but don’t let it overshadow that this is a novel about fundamentally decent people and joy and love. Reading it will make you feel both happier and cleverer (if you let the philosophy in). It is also impeccably plotted, to which I tip my hat as doing so amidst the wondrous chaos of the action is no small task.

Buy it from Bookshop.org

Villa Coco - Andrew Sean Greer (Sceptre)

Having met and had a drink with Andrew Sean Greer (a cup of tea which became a glass of wine: I suspect this is a common experience: he’s that type of chap) I wonder if only he could write a novel this charming, this absurd, this riotously eccentric with a poignant undertow that tugs at your heart, quite unexpectedly? Think A Room With a View meets The Enchanted April. If this not one of this summer’s biggest novels, I will eat my hat. It is an ode to youth, ageing, chaos and joy, all bathed in the golden Tuscan sunlight and a villa which “looks like the British Museum and like a child’s bedroom, filled with beloved trash and treasures”.

Having failed to distinguish himself in his academic career thus far, a young, aspiring archivist takes a job as an ‘adjutant’ to Baronessa Lisabetta: “It’s from Boccaccio. She is the one who keeps her lover’s severed head in a pot of basil. I would love to do that but life does not present every opportunity.”

Expecting to catalogue her art, he instead finds himself in the centre of a whirlwind of eccentric chaos, at the mercy of the Baronessa - Coco - who defies her 92 years in a frenzy of flamboyant excess. The young man finds his duties bewildering varied ("dictation, pruning, shopping, hunting martens”) and the cast of characters even more so: a swarthy handyman; Pippa, the Princess with a taste for gin who was once in love with a monkey; a handsome married man with whom a romantic entanglement beckons; an elderly man of charm, stories and gentle wisdom. Beneath the frothy, delightful eccentricity, there is a coming-of-age story and a love letter to friendship - and life. Reading it is like turning your face towards the sun.

NB As if I couldn’t love this any more, this story is based upon Andrew’s own adventures in Italy (he lives in Venice with his husband) - there’s a real life Baronessa.

Published in June. Pre-order from Bookshop.org

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion - (Bloomsbury)

More than one person (including - a fellow Substack bookworm) told me that I had to read these books. They’re a self-published sensation, which have been snapped up by Bloomsbury in the UK.

Now, I love a diary format. (The Diary of a Provincial Lady is one of my all-time favourites) and I really love a witty heroine with charm and - praise the Lord! - gumption. I was predisposed to love this.

And love it I do. (Which is handy, as there are already eight volumes - with plans for more.)

The year is 1883 and Emma M. Lion has “arrived in London without incident”. She is here to live in in Lapis Lazuli House, tucked into “the elbow of Whereabouts Lane”, which she owns - but owing to a twist in her father’s will, is currently run by irascible, deplorable Cousin Archibald. She is banished to the garret (I also love a garret story. See A Little Princess) - about which she is cheerful enough, despite her bookshelves being empty but for Paradise Lost. She has Grand Plans to live a studious life (school having proved a grave disappointment, despite having sold her father’s library to finance it - this genuinely pains me) and improve her mind. But fate, Cousin Archibald, Aunt Eugenia - A Force, and the highly eccentric inhabitants of St Crispian’s have other ideas.

Emma is the type of heroine who splits her seams and rents her stockings whilst moving furniture, who rolls up her sleeves and gets on with, who is keen to spy the neighbourhood ghost - the Roman. It’s charmingly eccentric, with a touch of mystery and magic, a soupçon of Austen and LM Montgomery. I am sold.

Volumes one and two coming in July - with more to come. Pre-order from Bookshop.org

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This started as reading list for those who cannot sleep, which may well be a side effect of a world that often feels like it is spinning out of control. The type of book you pull about you like a warm duvet on a chill evening. A retire-to-bed kind of book, or one which you might (if you lived that sort of life)…

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I have just looked at the forecast for the next week and the rain it raineth every day. January can feel like a particularly long and arduous month when it is chilly and grey. I don’t think it is the time to scare the literary horses. By all means, embark on Dostoevsky if you feel so inclined - but Crime and Punishment sent me into a decline. But I’d rather prescribe myself something a little more cheerful. I’m a fan of wintering - hunkering down and waiting for the chill to pass. Nourishing my body with lashings of hot coffee, fresh ginger (not at the same time), and early nights. And my mind with books which soothe and restore, or provide a temporary.

I adored Margaret Kennedy’s The Feast, so fell upon this delightful newly reissued edition of Lucy Carmichael with a cry of delight. (“You’re buying another book,” my 15-year-old said, disbelieving and disapproving - for what are teenage daughters there for but to disapprove of their parents’ life choices on occasion?) Who could resist?

It opens not with Lucy, but her dear friend Melissa, who tells her smitten fiance about her best friend Lucy. “When she is well and happy, she is extremely beautiful” explains Melissa, adding “she taught me how to enjoy myself,” - which is exactly the kind of things you want your best friend to say about you. Lucy is to be married - to a boyish explorer type, which Melissa thinks is a terrible mistake. She is quite right, for as soon becomes evident, what we have here is the classic case of a really rather useless young man and a far superior young woman - and he has the temerity to jilt her.

Once Lucy has recovered from the initial shock - there’s a splendid scene in which she drinks the wedding champagne from teacups with her mother and brother - she proves her good sense by avoiding the pitying glances and kid glove treatment by decamping to a nondescript northern industrial town to start over: “People seem to get over things, don’t they?” (I’m not being scathing here - the point being that this is not a dramatic Wuthering Heights-esque backdrop, but a small, parochial town riddled with petty gossip and politics.) There’s a supporting cast of eclectic supporting characters, the wonder of resilience (an old fashioned and under-rated quality IMHO), and a gentle contemplation of what kind of happiness in life we ought to expect - or settle for. It’s not grand or sweeping, but charming and altogether quietly delightful.

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Conrad is born of a long line of romantic heroes. He is a man of loyalty, kindness, longing, and quiet sacrifices for those he loves. He is steady reassurance in a world of chaos and flux. He might err but ultimately does the right thing. He is Gilbert Blythe stepping aside from his teaching role so Anne can take it and stay at Green Gables. He is Darcy resolving the potentially ruinous scandal of Lydia’s elopement with Wickham for Elizabeth’s sake. He is Mark Darcy, saving Bridget’s skin on numerous occasions, wanting her just the way she is - no more, no less. He is Noah Calhoun striving to be worthy of Allie even when he thinks he has lost her forever. He is Connell Waldron who improves considerably from the chap who keeps Marianne a secret into a vulnerable, book-reading, consent-seeking, emotionally intelligent chap.

This is not the post I meant to write today, but here we are. If you can’t go crazy in late summer, when can you? Unexpectedly (for as anyone who knows me will tell you, I am hopeless on screen-related zeitgeist moments) and thanks entirely to my 14-year-old daughter, I am one of those middle-aged women who are curiously involved in the romantic and emotional entanglements of three aesthetically-blessed college-aged students sufficiently young for me to have birthed. Even though I don’t much like two of them. So much so, my social media is serving me an endless ream of memes and videos dedicated to the third: Conrad Fisher in The Summer I Turned Pretty.

For those who have yet (or no intention) of being converted, a recap. It is the age-old story of a love triangle, with Isabel ‘Belly’ Conklin torn between the two Fisher brothers. In the screen adaptation of the final book of Jenny Han’s trilogy, Belly is currently teetering on the brink of wedlock with Jeremiah Fisher. He is a golden retriever type whose tan is the deepest thing about him. (This is possibly unfair of me, as the boy is very, very young.) He proposed as part of an elaborate apology for cheating on her, and insisted on a wedding cake that cost more than the engagement ring. Adam, his swaggering bully of a father, has hijacked the wedding and turned into a corporate event for his firm at his country club. Belly’s mother, Laurel, thinks it’s all a terrible idea (I’m very much with Laurel), but has been persuaded to attend the nuptials by Conrad.

Conrad is Jeremiah’s brother and Belly’s ex, first and - so it begins to seem - current true love. They broke up because he was emotionally unavailable - although, again in the interest of fairness, he was recovering from the untimely death of his mother at this point. But they’ve been hanging out a lot whilst Jeremiah works for Awful Adam, and there have been Significant Moments involving peaches [above] and surf injuries. As a result, at her bachelorette, Belly blurts out that the only thing she’d ever imagined at her wedding was Conrad. Later that evening, Conrad gives it his best don’t marry him, have me, which Belly rebuffs in a the woman doth protest too much manner.

Because Conrad is very much being set up as The Better Brother. He does not cheat. He does not insist on mirror-glazed cakes. Nor does he leave the kitchen looking like a tip - there’s a slo-mo washing-up scene to prove this point. He has escaped his father’s toxic sphere of influence. He is at med school. He simply wants Belly to be happy and is always been there when she needs him. He is also very easy on the eye, with an excellent watch, and fond of a shirt tucked neatly into his trousers. He is what my mother would call ‘such a nice, clean boy’. I begin to think he is too good for Belly.

For the record, I would like to state that (much to my teenage daughter’s vexation) I am neither Team Jeremiah or Team Conrad. I am Team fortheloveofgodgirl go to Paris and chase your dreams and make mistakes before you marry anyone at all. But this is all beside the point. We are not meant to resist these men: the authors intend us to fall for them.

Gilbert Blythe (Anne of Green Gables and the ensuing Anne series - LM Montgomery)

Gilbert continues to love even when all hope of it is lost (“Nothing mattered much to me for a time there, after you told me you could never love me, Anne. There was nobody else - there never could be anybody else for me but you. I've loved you ever since that day you broke your slate over my head in school.”) He is kind, steady and true: unwavering in his mind and his love. I can attest to this, having read all eight books in the series so often I know chunks of them by heart. In Anne of GG, Anne has long disdained his apologies, but nonetheless, when he learns that Marilla’s eyes are failing and Anne intends to stay home and teach (rather than going to college), he gives up his post at Avonlea school, so that Anne can take it and stay at Green Gables. He does this in a very Conrad-esque manner: quietly, without telling Anne, he marches into the trustees and withdraws his application, telling them to accept Anne instead. It is, as Mrs Rachel Lynde points out (and who dares argue with her?) “real kind and thoughtful”. It is typical of a man who rarely disappoints.

Rupert Frayne, Earl of Westerholme (The Secret Countess - Eva Ibbotson)

Anna Grazinsky is a Russian aristocrat fallen on penniless times cometh the Revolution. Her family have fled to England and their beloved nurse, to whom the family jewels were entrusted, has vanished. Spirited, intelligent Anna promptly takes a job as a housemaid at a grand, decaying country house owned by Rupert, the idealistic, decent, handsome young earl - who soon tumbles to the fact that his enchanting new maid is no ordinary servant. She speaks French, rides, plays piano duets and has exquisite manners. She is - agree the staff - a Lady. Rupert is unhappily betrothed to the rich, beautiful Muriel - as monstrous and ugly within as she is beautiful without, but he is a man who cannot break his word, even though Anna haunts his dreams, and he, hers. It is an utterly gorgeous, sparkling, witty fairytale of the Cinderella ilk - and Rupert is a man to win every right-thinking individual’s heart. I have read this novel numerous times and it always, always makes me chuckle and cry.

Corey Erskine (Harriet - Jilly Cooper)

Jilly Cooper might be famous for rakish RCB, but she does a fine line in fundamentally decent chaps, too.

Join me for further swooning below the line. It’s still only £5 a month for access to my book brain and shelves. I’m also desperate to hear about your literary Conrads - see you in the comments.

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I am asked this at least once a week and it’s one of those ‘how long is a piece of string’ style questions. See also: what’s the best book you’ve read recently? In answer to which I always, always, without fail….go completely blank. I met Cesca Major (who was lovely) at a book launch last Wednesday, and she asked me this and I gaped like a particularly clueless goldfish. I must start keeping a list on my phone which I can whip out on such occasions.

Anyway, I was asked about bookclub recommendations again this week. Twice. Once with the caveat that it must not be “boring and worthy” because the previous month’s book had nearly finished them all off. Of course I asked what had occasioned this stipulation. Thoreau’s Walden - which, let me tell you, intrigues me as a bookclub choice. Apparently one of their number invariably picks such titles, but “even she didn’t finish that one”. The other asker requested “not a new book”.

And I think I have found them both the perfect book. It’s the absolute opposite of boring - so propulsive, in fact, that putting it down might prove tricky. I finished it this week and cannot stop thinking about it. And it is old, but also sufficiently new (it’s been rediscovered and republished) that half the bookclub is unlikely to roll their eyes and say “Oh, I’ve already read THAT.”

Entirely unrelated but worthy of note: I love this painting by Vanessa Bell. It captures the blissful oblivion of being absorbed in a really good book. (You can buy it as a print, should you so wish.)

If you’d like to read on and have access to the full archive, subscriber only threads, and my deep thanks and devotion for supporting the work and time which goes into this newsletter , a paid subscription is still only £5. Less than a book! Admittedly more than a library card, but cheaper than one of those hip artisan coffees. Less than some library fines I have paid. (Speaking of libraries, my dad had Moby Dick on loan for so long, that my mum told him they put the flags out when she returned it. “Really?” he said, astonished.)

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“Can you recommend a book?” she asked.

Could you be more specific?

“A mystery. But not a gory mystery. I don’t want blood and brains everywhere. Nothing depressing or misogynistic - why is it that so many writers like to write about young women being raped and murdered and their body parts being scattered around? And nothing too traumatising or terrifying…

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I interrupt summer reading proceedings to deal with an urgent plea which my heart cannot ignore. What to do when you have fallen out of the reading habit? When you reading mojo has - gasp: the horror - abandoned you?

“I’ve always considered myself to be a reader. But I seem to have lost the knack!” writes what I think we can justifiably call the patient.…

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As I type, my daughter is perched on the kitchen windowsill. Plaits (reverse French plaits - a style currently in vogue which her mother finds curiously challenging) fall either side of her intent little face. She is adorably oblivious, lost in a book. (As she was above: on holiday last summer, when she ran out of books.)

Who was it who said you never love your children more than when they are sleeping? Substitute ‘sleeping’ for ‘reading’ and you have me. It makes my heart swell. Not with pride or because I am a pushy middle class parent (okay, perhaps a teeny bit), but with sheer pleasure that books bring them happiness, as they do me.

Other than this, the question I am asked most often is a variation on the theme of how to keep tweens/teens reading, and suggestions as to books which might encourage them to do so. The below correspondent is typical of this genre:

“How,” she writes, “do you keep your children reading into their teens whilst managing the transition from books for children to books for teenagers? And what should they read? My daughter (age 14) is eyeing up my copies of Taylor Jenkins Reid, but at her age I was reading Sweet Valley Twins. Do I police what she reads or should I just be thankful that she reads at all? (My 16-year-old son has to be forcibly prised from his screens and will only read books when compelled to for schoolwork.)”

I have many thoughts on this matter, my dear Parent of Teen Readers.

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I have had what I’d love to call a reader letter and because I am of the generation who grew up reading magazines (Twinkle and Bunty were my entry drugs), I am calling it just that. My correspondent had an unusual request. Can I, she asked, recommend some books to help her feel, if not full of the joys of spring, resigned to the idea of moving to the co…

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Nancy - hello, Nancy! - is hankering after “a couple of great classics” but cautions that Jane Eyre nearly put her off for life, but Dickens wins favour, and “something epic along the lines of Middlesex”.

Now - to my mind - there are books which fulfil both parts of this brief. I think what you need is a really strong narrative to propel you along - t…

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Right, my friends, the book doctor is back in the room. Or, more accurately, by the fire as it is fruz. (Although I must confess that I love this cold, bright weather: if you don’t, I can highly recommend this book which I reviewed here.)

Today, I am tackling a request for…

Something as all encompassing as the Cazalets please. I love the time period and …

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Hello my friends and a very happy new year indeed. Foremost amongst my 2023 resolution is to write. Which is good news for this newsletter. And for those of you who asked for a literary prescription.

My husband tells me that - when it comes to writing - I am hampered by a tendency to let the perfect by the enemy of the good. He ie right. (He is right an…

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