Saturday, November 5, 2011

Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons

Sometimes I just see a book and know I want to read it.  Major Pettigrew's Last Stand comes to mind and most recently Nightingale Wood.  I didn't hesitate for a second when I clicked BUY NOW on the Audible website where there are some books I let linger for months on my wishlist before I can make a decision.

I've decided the commonality between my instant purchases is that I am totally, completely and forevermore an Anglophile.  Set a book, TV show, or movie in the British countryside and I'm there.  You had me at "G'day."  I could read Austen, Dickens, Wilkie Collins, George Eliot, J.K Rowling to the end of my days and never grow weary.  And so, Nightingale Wood was such a treat!  It's a book with lots of characters you've met in so many other books.  Mr. Wither = Mr. Dursley, Phyllis Barlow = Rachel McAdams in Mean Girls and for much of the book nothing seems to really happen, however, just like my life in which nothing ever seems to really happen, I find myself vastly entertained (only joking, my life isn't that boring). 

From what I've read, Nightingale Wood was out of print for many years and just recently Virago republished.  Smart publishers they are.  I'm ready to read Cold Comfort Farm now, also by Stella Gibbons, and wonder how it could be that I haven't read it before!

3 comments:

Peddie said...

HAH!!!! I just finished it and, as slow moving and awfully english as it started, it got deliciously english and wordier as it went on and........ I was in love with Saxon. I like Mean Girl Rachel McAdams (that may be my fav role she's ever been in for her) comparison... it is accurate!

By the by, "Cold Comfort Farm" is one of Amy Grant's top... 3 movies of all time? 5? In the top. "Please send Vogue." I would be interested in reading (COUGHCOUGH LISTENING TO) that...

Gwen Williamson Mathews said...

What is "Please Send Vogue?" Is that a book???

Peddie said...

It's a line in the movie, and I'm figuring the book... we need to get Amy in on this...