Vintage Domestic Fiction 2010

And as she in charge of living the puttery dream I rather think it is my duty to commit out loud to my very own reading list for the next twelve months. So without further ado, here it is. Feel free to create your own list, put it on your blog, read my monthly reviews, or indeed read along with me and throw in your own twopenneth…

January.
A Glass of Blessings.

Having been gently thrilled with both Excellent Women and Jane and Prudence I found myself searching for my next journey into Barbara Pyms thoroughly charming, terribly British imagination and happened across “A Glass of Blessings”,described thus in a review on Amazon…
“We are in 1950s London with an excellent cast of characters. The pathalogically domesticated Keith, forever washing down paintwork and boiling discloths in Tide; Father Thames, the gourmet priest with a penchant for Lapsang Souchong which can never be satisfied at parish get-togethers; and the kleptomaniac Wilf Bason, housekeeper at the clergy house, whose idea of a suitable meal for Lent is fried octopus; these are among the best.”
I can’t wait.
February
Cheerful Weather For the Wedding.

Cheerful Weather For the Wedding has been on my list of “must reads” for a long time and I was thrilled when Persephone published it with such a beautiful cover. Set during just one day, the book describes the tangled emotion and chaos leading up to and after a family wedding, and is described by The Guardian as “A brilliant, bittersweet upstairs-downstairs comedy”.
March
At Mrs Lippincote’s

Elizabeth Taylors writing is an absolute joy so I’m looking forward to At Mrs Lippincote’s, the story of an Army wife struggling to meet her husbands high ideals, described in an Amazon review thus…
“Billeted temporarily to the village and home of the eponymous Mrs. Lippincote to be near her husband, an officer in the RAF, Julia Davenant is expected to be a model officer’s wife, serving meals to her husband’s commanding officers, joining in the fun had by his fellows and their wives, and behaving so as not to attract attention or to embarrass him. Reminded of these obligations by the model of the domestic Lippincotes that surrounds her in her new home, she chooses instead to escape into an inner world of observation and intellectual reflection as she cares for her husband, her sickly son, and her husband’s censorious “odd woman” cousin Eleanor who serves as both company and as foil for the nonconformist Julia.”
April
The Scent of Water

Having never heard of Elizabeth Goudge, (shame on me) this is the one book of all those I have chosen for the year that I am looking forward to because there is no greater joy than discovering an author others are raving about.
The Scent of Water tells the tale of a woman leaving city life and adapting to the quirks and eccentricities of life in the countryside house she has inherited. Described as enchanting by more than one reviewer, April cannot come soon enough for me.
May
Young Hearts Crying

It is my belief that one has to steel one’s emotions before attempting to read a Richard Yates novel, so devastating are they both in terms of storyline and powerful writing. Having adored Revolutionary Road, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness and the wonderful Easter Parade, this description of the decay of a marriage over thirty years looks set to break my heart all over again, which is why I am choosing May as the month to read it, being after all the Springiest, happiest month of the entire year.
June
The Girls of Slender Means

Wanna  hear a confession? I have avoided Muriel Spark all my life because her reputation as “funny” goes before her and that makes me think she is the vintage equivalent of Kathy Lette and there goes a woman who gives me tummy ache.  However now that I am all growed up and know that funny can deftly disguise what is both bleak and harrowing, I am ready to give this much loved  writer a chance to write her way into my heart.
So avoiding the obvious and opting for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, I am instead going for The Girls of Slender Means, an apparent dictionary of a book described by one reader on Amazon as “the best novel ever”- an accolade I can hardly resist…
July
The Brimming Cup: -1921

The Home-Maker was my favorite read of 2008 and I’m really not sure why it has taken me so long to read another of Dorothy Canfield-Fishers books. As I know nothing about The Brimming Cup this book is going to be something of an unknown quantity on the list, but luckily I’m the kind of girl who really rather enjoys surprises. Wish me luck…though if the writing is as good as that in The Home-Maker, I just won’t need it.
August
Few Eggs and No Oranges: Vere Hodgson’s Diary, 1940-45

The second on my list of books from Persephone is Few Eggs and No Oranges, a title I find curiously inviting speaking as it does of shopping lists and rations. As I am over-fond of the kind of wartime historical nonsense novels it really doesn’t do to speak of in these circles, I am looking forward to a book that pulls no punches about the realities of war-time London and a diary I can dip in and out of seemed the obvious choice for a month likely to be busy with so much to see and do beyond the reading chair.
September
A House and Its Head

And with a new season, a complete change of pace designed to have me dipping into a murder most gruesome and a witty novel stuffed with Edwardian family politics from the much celebrated Ivy Comptom- Burnett.
October
Nightingale Wood

Everybody adores Cold Comfort Farm and I have heard good things about Stella Gibbons’ further comedy of manners Nightingale Wood, not least that Sophie Dahl (who I totally heart) has described it as a “fairytale”.
Taking a similar format of stranding a girl with a head full of frippery in the dourest circumstances peopled by a range of eccentric characters, rumour has it that this will be the kind of giddy romp just right for curling up with as the nights draw in.
November
The Fountain Overflows

While I have never really taken to magic realism as a genre in it’s own right, of all the books on the list this is perhaps the one I am most excited about, if only because of this review:
“I have been reading, reading, reading for fifty plus years. Oddly I don’t dream about books, but this one was an exception. The character Cordelia came to haunt my sleep, lively and unforgettable. A vivid, surprising, unpredictable, eccentric, and thoroughly original work. Seek it out.”
And another that declares that Rebecca West’s novel about a gifted family perpetually down on it’s luck is her favorite book in the world. Perhaps it will be mine.
December
Wild Strawberries

Finally we come to the last book of the year, Wild Strawberries, a light-hearted “witty romp through English Country-house life at its most delightfully absurd”,deliberately chosen, first because a comedy of manners will not to be at odds with the joy of the festive season, and secondly because it is the first of a series of books featuring the Leslie family, that will I hope take me sailing into 2011 possessed by the need to live in their world that little bit longer…