Miss Read books

You might like the Burracombe series by Lilian Harry. These are set in a village in Devon and the series starts depicting a time just after the Second World War. My local library in Suffolk seems to have them all so assume they are still in print. I bought the complete Lilian Beckwith series for a fiver on EBay as they are my real 'comfort read'.

This isn't about country life but everyone I know loves it: Period Piece by Gwen Raverat. It's about her childhood in Cambridge during the 1880s and 90s (she was a granddaughter of Charles Darwin) and is sharply observed and often very funny; it has her own illustrations. It's easy to read when you can't concentrate. Also Molly Hughes' trilogy of memoirs of her life in London and Cornwall in the 1880s and 1890s.

I remember reading about an interview with the late Paula Yates many years ago where she said that she loved the Miss Read books.
I read my first one when I was about 20 and have now read them all several times as I just love them.
DE Stevenson is another favourite of mine.
I will have a look in the local library and charity shops for the other authors mentioned on here.

juggernaut I started reading them when I was only 20! I had just got married and moved to a large town. I so missed my rural life, that I haunted the 'country living' section of the big library. Miss Read, along with books on how to identify mushrooms and thatch a roof, kept me sane during those years of night noises of police cars and ambulances and inconsiderate neighbours playing radios in their gardens. So, yes to Lillian Beckwith, Gervaise Phinn, the vet stories, and many, many memoirs of people buying smallholdings, in search of the Good Life. Miss Read was the first one I picked up, though so will never be forgotten. My very first small village school was much like hers.

I love the Miss Read books and have most of them (falling apart now, but still a lovely read). You might like another favourite of mine - the Cazelet chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard. There are 5 in the series and they follow a large extended family from the 1930s through the Second World War. Also, although they're old, have you tried the James Herriot books such as 'All Creatures Great and Small'?

I love the Miss Read books and Lilian Beckwith. I can remember reading The Hills is Lonely whilst I was in labour with my first daughter!
Have you tried Rosamund Pilcher? My favourites of hers are September and The Shell Seekers.

Love miss read and have quite a collection she has got me through some stressful times and takes you back to a romantic easier time! Fanciful I know try Rebecca shaw books there great too.

I don't really belong here as I am not yet a gran (my children are 12 and 10) but I have loved Miss Read books for much of my life. Probably first read them in my 20s or even earlier

Luckygirl
No-one in their thirties ever borrowed a Miss Read book from the City Central Library where I worked, or if they did, I'm certain I didn't serve them!
In fact if memory serves, her readers were almost all well over fifty.
At least they weren't reading the waste of paper and ink that makes up a Mills and Boon!

I loved the Miss Read books , I borrowed them from the library.They so reminded me of my own childhood ,I went to a Gloucestershire village school very similar in the 1950's.I well remember the tortoise stove,if you were sat at the back of the classroom you were freezing no nice warm trousers for girls in those days,just knee length socks.

I had my first Miss Read book as a prize in my first year at High School many moons ago and went on to be a teacher and headteacher. My experiences in urban settings were never as gentle but I too have all her books and will not be parting with them. Thanks for the memory!

The Hills is Lonely by Lillian Beckwith always reminds me of my Mum. It was one of the last books she read

BBbevan I have all Lillian Beckwith's books and really enjoyed them. Many a laugh and a tear. A real student of human nature.

Bartonlady have you tried Lillian Beckwith's books on Hebridean life? Ronald Blythe's Akenfield. Or Larkrise to Candleford ( not to be confused by the later television programmes. )
I have read and loved all Miss Read. I had an aunt who was a headmistress in a similar school in a Devon village.

I first started reading Miss Read in my 30s.

I was working in libraries in the seventies, and Miss Read books were only ever read by 'older ladies'.
Perhaps now that I'm an 'older lady' myself I should give them a try, but I love my gruesome murder mysteries too much

Miss Read has been by my side each time I have been recovering from surgery - they just hit the spot.

Try Lilian Harry's Burracombe series. They also feature a young teacher in a rural setting. I read them all on kindle and thoroughly enjoyed them.

I've just thought if another author. Lucy M Boston, who wrote The Children of Green Knowe. There are about 6 books, and are really for children, but I enjoyed them. My youngest son ( now 40) borrowed them from school, and I got hooked.

Ah Miss Read how i love these books!!! I have several of them which i purchased from a jumble sale at a local church.

They are old, stained and smell very musty but i love them and i can read them over and over again.

I first discovered Miss Read as a young mother in the 70's when i was attending the library with my children, so when i found the collection at the jumble sale they bought back so many happy memories of when my children were small and i just associate them with a time in my life when all was good.

If you haven't tried them and want to be transported back in time to an era when many on this forum where young, visit the library and borrow a copy you may be pleasantly surprised.

hello bartonlady * I've always loved Miss. Read. I read them at about the same time I discovered Monica Dickens, Muriel Spark and Jean Plaidy - so a long while ago. These days I have to confess to an adoration to the Agatha Raisin books- an eccentric, lady living in the Cotswolds solving highly unlikely murders whilst having even more unlikely love affairs - they are hilarious. The author M C Benson also writes the Hamish Macbeth book which are equally lovely but of course Scottish in location. Enjoy!

Yes Jane10 I did read it, also the follow up when she got married. I love these books! Persephone Books are a good source.

I'll look out for Sybil Marshall too. Have you tried 'Miss Buncle's Book"? Its by DE Stevenson. Its an old book about village life in the 1920/30s (I think). I really enjoyed it.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I'll look out for Sybil Marshall. I've got all the Miss Read books as well as the Audio Books on Audible, wonderful! Jamila the cleaners name was Mrs Pringle!

I read most of them many years ago, but bought a number of them again from Amazon just a few months ago, for old time's sake. This thread has prompted me to lift them off the shelf again.

When I clean the kitchen floor I think of Miss Read teaching the cleaner (can't remember her name, it is so long since I read the books) showing her how to do it by going backwards and not to walk over the part which you have just washed!