Miss Read books

Iam also a fan of Barbara Pym I have couple out at present. I have possibly already read them. She is a hidden gem of a writer.

I read a lot of Miss Read in my early 20s very gentle and funny if you want an easy read.
Yes the Whiteoaks saga.

What I cannot stand about Mills and Boon is how the women always seem to hand over their lives to their man. No concept at all of feisty independent women. Too much power and control are given away. Mind you its a while now since a read one.

That is not the sort of role model we should be encouraging for todays women.

I love Miss Read too ..Jack Sheffield ..Rebbecca Shaw..Anne Purser..Gervase Phinn a must too for a good chuckle...There is another I have just found but not read but can't find the book now I will look for it I know I put it somewhere!!!!

Miss Read died a few years ago.

Mary E Pearce wrote some lovely stories - Apple Tree Lean Down, Jack Mercybright, The Land Endures , amongst others. I would have been in my 30s when I read them. I doubt they're available now.

Jamila wasn't the cleaner Minnie, Mrs. Pringle's niece. She talked about Drick Bogard and so do we now. Loved those books and still re-read them
The Lillian Beckwith books about the Scottish isles are lovely and I like Akenfield by Ronald Blythe

I have battered miss read books in my bookcase and some are too tatty to pass on so I keep them ans carefully read them again and again. There must be a miss read fan club somewhere, btw is miss read still alive, she must be in her 90s is she is.

Miss read is a wonderful writer just to start a few lines and your cares seem to drift away

I too adore miss read, I started reading them in the ups when I was 16, they transported me to a life that waS different to my own, I also loved the Yorkshire vet series that the tv series all creatures great and small was based on. Apologies I cant find the exclamation marks on the keyboard of this horrid tablet.

Have read them all. Almost wish I hadn't so I could 'find' them all over again. Alexander McCall Smith is soooo good!

I loved the Miss Read books and read them all.
You will love Alexander McCall Smith,
His Isabel Dalhousie novels such as ,'The Sunday Philosophy Club', The 44 Scotland Street series including 'The unbearable lightness of scones', The Corduroy Mansions series including, 'The Dog who came in from the cold' and last but not least but with the same gentle and comforting atmosphere is 'The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency' series. There are at least forty books so they will last some time.

I absolutely loved " Fortnight in September" by RC sherriff. Its an old book and is about the annual holiday of a family. The pace is very slow and the minute detail and the importance of the little annual routines is key. I loved it and didn't want it to end. It seemed to be set between the wars.

The Agatha Raisin books are all very similar but I do love poor Agatha. I suspect there's a lot of her in me - the endless scripts in her head that the men she fancies never follow, and I can't go anywhere special without halve my wardrobe spread round the bedroom

I read A Child in the Forest a long time ago and I remember how shocked I was by the grinding poverty, especially when it was quite recent history.

I loved all the Miss Read books and started reading them in my late teens when I was given Village School as a birthday gift shortly before I did my first teaching practice in a village school. Having attended one myself I thought Miss Read's description from the other side of the fence as it were was rather old fashioned. That was until I made my first visit to the school I was to teach at for the coming weeks and discovered it to be even more set in the past if that were possible right down to the grumbling caretaker.

Amongst schools in towns and larger villages I later worked at another village schol which had only moved on fractionally from the scenes described by Miss Read.

I have also read the Gervasse Phinn books and these,too, look at rural schools. His viewpoint as an inspector is somewhat different but he does often write of being outsmarted by the youngsters with their frank talking and strong convictions so give them a try, too. The Lilian Beckwith novels which tell of her life as a crofter are wonderfully slow paced and I often re-read those.
M C Beaton's Agatha Raisin books have been mentioned and I've read several but, whilst appreciating she is basically sending up the amateur village sleuth format, I find them all very similar.

I think Barbara Pym is absolutely wonderful to read when you feel the need to be comforted. If you grew up in the Anglican Church like I did, I sang in the choir from the age of 15 and could observe the clergy at close quarters and the curates and the competition to get the curate to notice the unmarried women. Its all true!

I come from Yorkshire but have not lived there for over 40 years. But I like Alan Bennet and James Herriot so I can feel sentimental about my home county.

If you like Miss Read, try Akenfield by Ronald Blythe. A portrait of an English village

Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson- forget the TV series. Jack Sheffield and Gervase Phinn teacher stories. The diary of a country parson-James Woodforde.Eve Houston-Priors Ford series.

I have just read those, borrowed from a friend and returned to her.
I really enjoyed her stories of her Forest of Dean childhood.

Just remembered another brilliant book about country living - 'A Child in the Forest' by Winifred Foley. There is an equally enjoyable follow up book - 'Back to the Forest'.

Tubbygran - I too love Rosamund Pilcher and have just reread 'Coming Home'. I enjoyed it so much. I also love Monica Dicken's books and my favourite by far is Marianna. I read all the Miss Read books back in the 70's when my daughters were little and really enjoyed them too. What a great thread bringing back so many lovely memories. Thank you

My secondary school was proud to have Dora Saint, Miss Read, as an Old Girl.
Lucky you, we have the Poet Laureate

I wish I had kept my Miss Read books.
I might be trawling the Oxfam shops to look for replacements.

I have just given away hundreds of books to Oxfam as we are moving home. But the Miss Reads are staying with me!

My secondary school was proud to have Dora Saint, Miss Read, as an Old Girl. As late '50s student teachers my friends and I were inspired by Sybil Marshall. We hoped to eventually be head of a tiny village school with a school cat and roses around the door. Hello SE London and inner city Birmingham!

My clearest memory of the Whiteoak saga is grandma deciding to have all her teeth out (pre-dental anaesthetics) and driving into town in the carriage to get one out a day, coming back grim-faced but repeating the experience until they were all out.. No-one was brave enough to accompany her except Cousin Malahide, who was hoping to ingratiate himself into the old lady's good books so as to benefit in her will.

In our library they were called 'borrowers' though I would have preferred to call them readers. Maybe the powers that be thought books were borrowed by people who never read them?

librarylady
I worked in libraries for over forty one years, as a Saturday assistant and later, a full time Librarian, and yes, I can still remember the names and reading habits of people I served in the seventies!
Maybe I just paid more attention than you did to what books I was actually issuing and knew my readers very well indeed! I believe that a vital part of good customer service is being interested in the person being served, and in libraries that means knowing what genre they read most often.
At no point did I criticise those who read M&B, I criticised M&B books, there's a subtle difference there.
Oh, one more thing, in library parlance, they're not 'customers', but 'readers'!