"Mrs Ames is queen of Riseborough society. Sceptre firmly grasped in her podgy little hand, she reigns supreme in a world of strawberry teas, high street gossip and riotous insurrections by misguided pretenders like Mrs Altham, Miss Brooks and dear cousin Millie.  But, Mrs Ames is ten years older than her husband and beginning to…

The author of this book, Paul Gallico, joins a long list of those names whose books I used to stamp in and out when working in Highgate Library as a lippy teenager, all authors I sneeringly ignored as rather middle brow and 'nice'.  Also included in this list were the Mapp and Lucia books of…

Last year the Bloomsbury Group imprint came up with some simply marvellous books which were chosen by readers for republication.  One of the titles was Henrietta's War which I fell in love with and reviewed here.  Everyone who read this book by Joyce Dennys was enchanted with it and we all expressed the wish that…

I am a huge fan of Simon's blog, Stuck in a Book, and it is one of the blogs I read on a daily basis as I know that Simon loves the same kind of books that I do, and it is lovely to have a kindred spirit when it comes to reading matters.  I…

I had never heard of Ada Leverson until I stumbled across an old Virago of The Little Ottleys at a book sale, bought it, read it, loved it and reviewed here.  On re-reading I see this review has only concentrated on the Ottley marriage and I rather ignored the other story line – I have corrected…