Tag: Reading Thirkell's Barsetshire Series

Reading Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series in Order: #9 Cheerfulness Breaks In + #8 Before Lunch Wrap-Up

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Reading Before Lunch last month was lots of fun. Here are the people who participated or made comments:

  • Liz Dexter
  • Penelope Gough
  • Historical Fiction Is Fiction

This month’s book will be Cheerfulness Breaks In, which I remember as a favorite book, although I have not read it in a long time. I’m looking forward to it, and I hope I’ll get some company reading it. I’ll be posting my review on Monday, February 28, and look forward to your comments.

And here’s our little badge, if you want to post it on your review.

Review 1792: #ThirkellBar! Before Lunch

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Before Lunch is one of Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series that I have not read before. It possesses both the charm and slightly acid humor of the previous novels and a new sense of sadness.

In this novel we meet the Middletons. Jack is a trying man who often has to be soothed by his wife, Catherine. Jack’s sister Lilian Stoner, a young widow, is coming to stay in an adjacent house with her stepchildren, Denis and Daphne, who are almost as old as she is. The three have a loving relationship, all understanding that Lilian’s marriage was a difficult one.

The major focus of the plot in this novel is who will Daphne marry, for she meets two men she likes very much. Mr. Cameron is the partner of Lord Bond in their architectural firm. Although he is in his forties, Daphne thinks he’s the nicest man she knows. Cedric Bond, Lord Bond’s son and heir, also gets along with Daphne very well, but Daphne keeps hearing about another young lady named Betty in connection with him. Both men are smitten by Daphne.

Along with this plot, a lot is going on. The overbearing Lady Bond is leading a protest against the unwitting purchaser of a parcel of land called Pooker’s Piece (I love the place names in this series, particularly the oft-mentioned “Winter Overcotes”), where he plans to erect a tea shop and a garage (which rumor eventually converts to a road house). The countryside is outraged, as it is a favorite place for rambling.

The entire county is also preparing for the Agricultural Show, and Daphne talks cows with the best of them. She also takes a secretarial job with Lady Bond.

Denis takes a liking to Lord Bond, who is as kind as he is long-winded. Denis has been an invalid, but in the summer country air he begins to improve, and he is looking for backing for a ballet for which he is composing the music. He treats Lord Bond to Gilbert and Sullivan evenings when Lady Bond is away. He also has a secret of the heart.

Catherine and Lilian begin a friendship that is comforting for them both. We also briefly meet some of the characters from previous books, including Lord Pomfret, now a grieving widower, the Leslies, and Roddy Wicklow. And Thirkell does not fail to provide another irritating character (besides Lady Bond), Miss Starter, an ex-royal attendant who fusses constantly about her diet.

I think I liked this novel best so far, but I know one of my favorites, Cheerfulness Breaks In, is coming up.

The Brandons

Pomfret Towers

Summer Half

Reading Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series in Order: #8 Before Lunch + #7 The Brandons Wrap-Up

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I know it was tough to participate this month with the holidays and read The Brandons. Thanks, then for the comments by

  • Christine of All the Vintage Ladies
  • Liz Dexter of Adventures in Reading
  • Penelope Gough (a real trooper!)
  • Historical Fiction Is Fiction
  • Yvonne of A Darn Good Read

The next book in the series is Before Lunch, which I will be reviewing on Monday, January 31, 2022. I hope some more people will jump on board for this one.

And here’s our little badge.

Review 1778: #ThirkellBar! The Brandons

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Although I know the season is busy, I hope some others of you joined me in reading The Brandons for Reading Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series in Order.

Mrs. Brandon attributes her good temper and blooming if languid looks to having been many years a widow. She also likes to imply that she was unhappily married even though she had just started to be bored by her husband when he died. Whatever the reason, she is charming and captivating enough to make men fall devotedly in love with her, including the vicar, Mr. Miller, and his pupil, Mr. Grant, who is the same age as her son Francis.

Mrs. Brandon’s elderly aunt by marriage, Miss Brandon, has been holding the bequest of her money and hideous house over Francis’s head for years, hinting when she is displeased—which is almost always—that she will leave it to someone else. Francis doesn’t want it, but when she summons them all to her house, Mrs. Brandon feels that they must go. There she finds that Miss Brandon has been ill and is actively mistreating her companion, Miss Morris.

At her house they also find Mr. Grant, who it turns out is a cousin in the same situation as Francis, alternately promised and denied a legacy that he doesn’t want. Part of the novel deals with what happens when Miss Brandon dies.

Thirkell is brilliant at describing the silliness of infatuations, and here she does not spare Mrs. Brandon’s admirers. A delight of this book is its conversations, especially those involving such eccentric characters as Mrs. Grant, Mr. Grant’s mother, who patronizes others about her life in Italy and constantly embarrasses her son with her lack of manners and clanking jewelry. Some favorites reappear in this novel, including Mrs. Morland and Tony, Lydia Keith, and Noel Morton.

Thirkell continues to entertain us with her witty and charming novels.

Pomfret Towers

Summer Half

August Folly

Reading Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series in Order: #7 The Brandons + #6 Pomfret Towers Wrap-Up

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It’s time for the wrap-up of Pomfret Towers and to introduce the next book. I hope everyone enjoyed reading Pomfret Towers. The following people either posted their reviews or made comments. Thanks for your participation:

  • Penelope Gough
  • Historical Fiction Is Fiction
  • Yvonne of A Darn Good Read

The next book, The Brandons, is one I read long ago but before I began blogging. I am looking forward to rereading it as I can’t remember it at all. I will be posting my review on Friday, December 31. I hope some of you will join me in reading it.

And here is our little badge.

Review 1761: #ThirkellBar! Pomfret Towers

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Cover for Pomfret Towers

It’s time to talk about the sixth book in Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire series, Pomfret Towers. Who read it and what did you think?

This novel is another one that I reviewed several years ago, so I will not repeat the plot synopsis and review but simply supply a link to the original review.

What struck me this time around was how sweet a story this is, with Thirkell creating characters we like tremendously but not forgetting a couple we can dislike. Yet, she’s subtle about all of this and shows a little sympathy for one of the most irritating characters.

Little Alice, so young and shy, is both a sympathetic character and one who provides some good-natured comedy. For example, her reaction to being invited to Pomfret Towers for the weekend—a terrifying prospect—is to hope the house burns down overnight before she has to go. She is silly and adolescent in her attachment to the odious Julian Rivers and very brave when she finally sees through him.

On the other side is Mrs. Rivers, so full of herself as a Writer of popular novels that sound dreadful, so managing in a house where she is not the hostess, and so irritating in her attempts to throw together her daughter Phoebe and the mild-mannered Gillie Foster, the heir to the earldom. But when she is humiliated by her son at the end of the novel, Thirkell deftly makes us feel sorry for her (but not for Julian).

I liked practically everyone in this novel, even Lord Pomfret, known for his rudeness. Another charming novel by Thirkell.

Summer Half

August Folly

The Demon in the House

Reading Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series in Order: #6 Pomfret Towers + #5 Summer Half Wrap-up

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Cover for Pomfret Towers

I hope everyone who participated this month had a fun time reading Summer Half. It is one of the less well-known of the series, so I was hoping we would get more first-time participation. The people who commented or participated are as follows:

The next book, Pomfret Towers, is another reread for me, and in fact I’ve reviewed it before, but I am still looking forward to it. If nothing else, this project has allowed me to place people better as I go through the series and remember if I’ve met them before. I will be posting my review of this book on Tuesday, November 30, and I hope some of you will join me in reading it.

Happy reading, and here again is our little badge.

Reading Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series in Order: #5 Summer Half + #4 August Folly Wrap-up

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Thanks so much to all those who commented on the fourth book in the series, August Folly. I’m sure it was a relief for those not on Team Tony. People who made comments or posted reviews were

So, far, three of the first four books have been rereads for me, but I am pleased that the October book, Summer Half, is another one I haven’t read before. I’m sorry to give everyone a late start on this one. If I had noticed the announce date was so far into the month, I would have wrapped up August Folly earlier. I will be posting my review of Summer Half on Friday, October 29. I hope some of you will join me. Happy reading! And here’s our little badge.

Review 1730: #ThirkellBar! August Folly Recap

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It’s time for our reviews of August Folly, the fourth book in Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire series. I just reviewed this book last April, so I’ll link back to my original review for most of my comments and the plot synopsis. My post covers some other observations I have after my reread.

First, I was struck by Thirkell’s depiction of Richard Tebbins, because it is so typical of adolescent behavior. His mother adores him to the neglect of his (more deserving) sister Margaret, but of course he is embarrassed by everything his parents do and then feels guilty about his rudeness to them. His passion for Mrs. Dean is absurd but, I think, very true to the behavior of an infatuated youth, and he finally begins to grow up later in the novel.

Of the two love affairs, the novel concentrates more on the one between Margaret and Laurence Dean, but I was more interested in the one between Charles Fanshawe and the much younger Helen Dean.

There are lots of comic characters in this novel. The managing Mrs. Palmer is almost unbearable at times (as is the fussing Mrs. Tebbins), but both of them show other sides. And that’s what I like about Thirkell. She creates some hilarious characters, but most of them, except perhaps Moxon, the curate, show other, more sympathetic sides, or the humor is gentle, not mocking. I wasn’t much taken with the conversations between the donkey and the cat, but that’s a minor criticism and a very small part of the book.

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Reading Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series in Order: #4 August Folly + #3 The Demon in the House Wrap-up

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Thanks so much to those people who participated in reading or commenting on the third book in the series, The Demon in the House. I am so sorry that some of the would-be participants in the U. K. were unable to find a reasonably priced copy. I didn’t anticipate that as a problem, although I have had to pay a bit more for some of the books farther on in the series. Here are this month’s participants:

Liz Dexter of Adventures in Reading

Penelope Gough

Yvonne of A Darn Good Read

Our next book is August Folly. I will be posting my review for that on Thursday, September 30 (too bad, because of the name, that it wasn’t scheduled for last month!). I hope that you will be able to participate. At least this book shouldn’t be as hard to find.

And here again is our little badge if you would like to post it on your review.