An Unsuitable Attachment

An Unsuitable Attachment
Author: Barbara Pym
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2004-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780330326469

Set in St Basil's, a North London parish, Barbara Pym's novel is full of high comedy. Her depiction of characters begins with Mark the vicar, and his wife Sophia who is quite obsessed with cats, as is Daisy Pettigrew, the vet's sister.

Excellent Women

Excellent Women
Author: Barbara Pym
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2006-12-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101666250

Excellent Women is probably the most famous of Barbara Pym's novels. The acclaim a few years ago for this early comic novel, which was hailed by Lord David Cecil as one of 'the finest examples of high comedy to have appeared in England during the past seventy-five years,' helped launch the rediscovery of the author's entire work. Mildred Lathbury is a clergyman's daughter and a spinster in the England of the 1950s, one of those 'excellent women' who tend to get involved in other people's lives - such as those of her new neighbor, Rockingham, and the vicar next door. This is Barbara Pym's world at its funniest.

Some Tame Gazelle

Some Tame Gazelle
Author: Barbara Pym
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 183
Release: 2011-05-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0748131523

INTRODUCED BY MAVIS CHEEK 'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' Richard Osman 'She is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heartbreaking silliness of everyday life' Anne Tyler Together yet alone, the Misses Bede occupy the central crossroads of parish life. Harriet, plump, elegant and jolly, likes nothing better than to make a fuss of new curates, secure in the knowledge that Count Ricardo Bianco will propose to her yet again this year. Belinda, meanwhile, has harboured sober feelings of devotion towards Archdeacon Hoccleve for thirty years. Then into their quiet, comfortable lives comes a famous librarian, Nathaniel Mold, and a bishop from Africa, Theodore Grote - who each takes to calling on the sisters for rather more unsettling reasons. 'Some Tame Gazelle is my personal favourite for its sparkling high comedy and its treasury of characters . . . [Pym] makes me smile, laugh out loud, consider my own foibles and fantasies, and, above all, suffer real regret when I reach the final page. Of how many authors can you honestly say that?' MAVIS CHEEK

Quartet in Autumn

Quartet in Autumn
Author: Barbara Pym
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2015-10-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1447289625

With an introduction by Alexander McCall Smith, author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. One did not drink sherry before the evening, just as one did not read a novel in the morning. In 1970s London, Edwin, Norman, Letty and Marcia work in the same office and suffer the same problem – loneliness. Lovingly and with delightful humour, Barbara Pym conducts us through their day-to-day existence: their preoccupations, their irritations, their judgements, and – perhaps most keenly felt – their worries about having somehow missed out on life as post-war Britain shifted around them. Deliciously, blackly funny and full of obstinate optimism, Quartet in Autumn shows Barbara Pym's sensitive artistry at its most sparkling. Its world is both extraordinary and familiar, revealing the eccentricities of everyday life.

An Unsuitable Attachment

An Unsuitable Attachment
Author: Barbara Pym
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2013-03-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1447238435

'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' Richard Osman ‘Barbara Pym is one of my most favourite novelists. Few other writers have given me more laughter and more pleasure.' Jilly Cooper ‘The day comes in the life of every single man living alone when he must give a dinner party.’ The parish of St Basil, on the fringes of North Kensington, is all of a flutter due to the arrival of Rupert Stonebird, a most eligible bachelor, in the neighbourhood. The local matchmakers are sure he will make a suitable husband for the vicar’s wife’s sister, Penny, or perhaps for local librarian Ianthe Broome? But Ianthe is in danger of forming a most unsuitable attachment for her new library assistant, John, a man of questionable background with not a penny to his name... Owing a debt to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Barbara Pym's An Unsuitable Attachment is an elegant and witty comedy of manners from an acclaimed author who Philip Larkin called: 'the most underrated novelist of the century'.

No Fond Return of Love

No Fond Return of Love
Author: Barbara Pym
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2013-01-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1453279628

Three lonely people come together in this poignant, witty novel of star-crossed romance from the New York Times–bestselling author of Jane and Prudence. After being jilted by her fiancé, Dulcie Mainwaring despairs of ever finding true love. For a distraction, she goes to a publishing conference, where she meets Viola Dace, a dramatic woman who refuses to live without romance, as well as Aylwin Forbes, an editor whom Viola adores. The fact that Aylwin is married doesn’t stop Viola. When her amorous pursuit prompts Aylwin’s wife to leave him, the academic heartthrob is wide open to Viola’s romantic attentions. That is, until Dulcie’s eighteen-year-old niece moves in with Viola, and the young girl soon catches Aylwin’s roving eye. Set in London in the early 1960s, No Fond Return of Love is a delightful comedy of manners that comes full circle as Dulcie discovers a love as unexpected as it is liberating.

Less Than Angels

Less Than Angels
Author: Barbara Pym
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2013-01-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1453279644

A tale of a woman’s romantic entanglements with two anthropologists—and the odd mating habits of humans—from the author of Jane and Prudence. Catherine Oliphant writes for women’s magazines and lives comfortably with anthropologist Tom Mallow—although she’s starting to wonder if they’ll ever get married. Then Tom drops his bombshell: He’s leaving her for a nineteen-year-old student. Though stunned by Tom’s betrayal, Catherine quickly becomes fascinated by another anthropologist, Alaric Lydgate, a reclusive eccentric recently returned from Africa. As Catherine starts to weigh her options, she must figure out who she is and what she really wants. With a lively cast of characters and a witty look at the insular world of academia, this novel from the much-loved author of Excellent Women and other modern classics is filled with poignant, playful observations about the traits that separate us from our anthropological forebears—far fewer than we may imagine.

Crampton Hodnet

Crampton Hodnet
Author: Barbara Pym
Publisher: Epicenter Press
Total Pages: 1
Release: 2013-08-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 160381177X

Miss Morrow is content in her position as spinster companion to Miss Doggett, even if her employer and the woman s social circle regard her as a piece of furniture. Stephen Latimer, the new cleric and Miss Doggett s dashing new tenant, upsets the balance for Miss Morrow by proposing the long discounted possibility of marriage.

The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym

The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym
Author: Paula Byrne
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Total Pages: 768
Release: 2021-04-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0008322228

‘Captures both Barbara and her writing so miraculously’ JILLY COOPER Picked as a Book to Look Forward to in 2021 by the Guardian, The Times and the Observer A Radio 4 Book of the Week, April 2021

Rules of Summer

Rules of Summer
Author: Joanna Philbin
Publisher: Poppy
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2013-06-04
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0316212067

There are two sides to every summer. When seventeen-year-old Rory McShane steps off the train in East Hampton, it's as if she's entered another universe, one populated by impossibly beautiful people wearing pressed khakis and driving expensive cars. She's signed on to be a summer errand girl for the Rules -- a wealthy family with an enormous beachfront mansion. Upon arrival, she's warned by other staff members to avoid socializing with the family, but Rory soon learns that may be easier said than done. Stifled by her friends and her family's country club scene, seventeen-year-old Isabel Rule, the youngest of the family, embarks on a breathless romance with a guy whom her parents would never approve of. It's the summer for taking chances, and Isabel is bringing Rory along for the ride. But will Rory's own summer romance jeopardize her friendship with Isabel? And, after long-hidden family secrets surface, will the Rules' picture-perfect world ever be the same?