Are You Sitting Comfortably Sisterhood suggested further reading with
What a treat to have the lovely AJ Pearce as our guest author for July’s edition of Are You Sitting Comfortably. Yours Cheerfully is just the tonic for a heart-warming read and I love dear Mr Collins as much as Emmy and Bunty. AJ has a wonderful way of creating joyous characters as well as shining a spotlight on the ordinary in extraordinary circumstances. I can’t wait to hear what she has in store for her characters in her third novel.
Rebecca and I were delighted to see so many of you had already discovered the brilliantly witty Barbara Pym. For those of you keen to read a little more Pym, you can’t go wrong with Jane and Prudence or to dive into the world of the author herself, I’d thoroughly recommend Paula Byrne’s biography, The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym. As I mentioned in the Live, Pym had quite the life, from an affair with someone from Hitler’s inner circle to her escapades at Oxford and her habit for always falling in love with the wrong person. Definitely a woman devoted to illuminating possibilities and pushing back against the patriarchy.
Talking of sisterhood and with a nod to our third choice this month, The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters edited by Charlotte Moseley, an honorary mention must go out to Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love and its funny portrayal of hopeless, hapless love and the enduring power of friendship. Eccentricities, excitement, Linda and Fanny make for a very entertaining pair.
Talking of sisterhood and with a nod to our third choice this month, The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters edited by Charlotte Moseley, an honorary mention must go out to Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love and its funny portrayal of hopeless, hapless love and the enduring power of friendship. Eccentricities, excitement, Linda and Fanny make for a very entertaining pair.
Talking of sisterhood and with a nod to our third choice this month, The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters edited by Charlotte Moseley, an honorary mention must go out to Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love and its funny portrayal of hopeless, hapless love and the enduring power of friendship. Eccentricities, excitement, Linda and Fanny make for a very entertaining pair.
Here are our other suggested reads for July:
If you enjoyed Yours Cheerfully, then I implore you to read AJ’s first novel, Dear Mrs Bird. It won’t matter if you’ve read the second one first as both books are standalones and both extremely enjoyable if you haven’t encountered our dear heroine Emmeline Lake already. It’s London 1941 and amid the falling bombs, Emmy Lake harbours dreams of becoming a Lady War Correspondent. Instead, she finds herself under the employ of formidable Henrietta Bird, renowned agony aunt at Woman’s Friend magazine. When Mrs Bird refused to read, let alone answer, letters from the lovelorn, grief-stricken or morally conflicted, Emmy won’t leave these desperate women waiting for an answer. What harm could she possibly do if she answered the letters herself in secret? A love letter to the power of friendship and mustering courage under fire, Dear Mrs Bird is an irresistible comfort read that’s both funny and moving.
A House Full of Daughters by Juliet Nicholson is the wonderful absorbing memoir of seven generations of women. From Juliet’s flamenco dancing great-great-grandmother Pepita, flirty great-grandmother Victoria, to the infamous life of grandmother Vita (Sackville West) and Juliet’s mother’s remarkably conventional background, Juliet finds the secrets of the past alongside exploring the nature of memory, nostalgia and love. These remarkable women really shine as Juliet learns that who she is, is part of who she comes from.
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Bernadine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other is a book that I’ve recommended so many times. Winning the joint booker Prize in 2019, it’s a wonderful exploration of womanhood. Utterly absorbing, Girl Woman Other follows the lives of twelve women, mostly black and British, in a tale of mothers, sisters and friends that spans generations and social class. It fizzes with energy as characters and stories weave together in a vibrant and insightful female portrait of the richness of life and all its messiness.
Tracy Chevalier is probably best known for her stellar success with her first novel, The Girl with a Pearl Earring but to be honest I’m not sure you could go wrong reading any of her novels. However, A Single Thread is a firm favourite. We follow Violet Speedwell, an unmarried ‘surplus’ woman, following the death of her fiancé and brother in the First World War. Striking out on her own, she moves to Winchester and wanders into the cathedral and the world of the broderers, a group of women charged with embroidering kneelers. Violet finds there is as much to learn from them as there is about herself, as the present is overshadowed by the past and war looms once more on the horizon.
Take My Hand by New York Times bestselling author Dolen Perkins-Valdez was sent to me as an early read before publication and it has really stayed with me. I could talk about the beauty of this book for hours – I found it unputdownable. It’s 1973 Montgomery, Albama and Civil Townsend is fresh out of nursing school with big plans to make a difference in her community. Working at the local family planning clinic, she is determined to help empower women to make their own choices about their lives and bodies. When the first week in the job leads her to a tumbledown cabin and the William sisters who are eleven and thirteen years old, Civil finds herself grappling with new responsibilities and takes the girls into her heart. As she arrives one morning at their door, she discovers the unthinkable has happened and nothing will ever be the same again for any of them. Inspired by true events and a shocking chapter in American history, it’s a story of love and courage, sisterhood and solidarity with a hopeful reminder that it only takes one person to change the world.
Our last choice for this month is hot off the press quite literally – Cathy Kelly’s The Wedding Party. It’s a great summer read. Four sisters, decades of secrets and a week they’ll never forget. As the Robicheaux girls come together for the first time in years at their childhood home to celebrate their parents getting married again, a few surprises lie in wait. A witty tale of marriage, family, and romance and how sometimes it’s the women in our lives who hold us together.
A massive congratulations to Tea and Austen for winning the Fable England Woven Alice Tote Bag – given that Jane Austen was one of our first ever picks, I feel she is an entirely serendipitous winner! Congratulations!!!
Finally a huge thank you to the wonderful Fable England for sponsoring this month’s Are You Sitting Comfortably? The perfect partner to “Yours Cheerfully”!
