Miss Read books

Loved the comfort and certainty of the Miss Read books, and also very much enjoyed Period Piece. The books by Jon and Rumer Godden are also lovely accounts of childhood , before partition in India. My comfort reads currently are The Forsyte Saga (free on Kindle) and the E.F. Benson Mapp and Lucia books (ditto)

I am another fan of Miss Read,Monica Dickens,Lilian Beckwith,Christine Marion Fraser,Miss Silver Mysteries ,Patricia Wentworth,and Jack Sheffield is another gentle village teacher,along with Cathy Woodman and her series about vets in a rural setting,I love crime stories but for pure escapism and comfort the above would be my choices.

Another Miss Read fan here - and from well before my thirties, although I did grow up in a very similar environment. I have also worked in libraries all my life and am slightly bemused by the idea that I could remember what age groups were reading what to the extent that I can know no one under a certain age ever borrowed a certain author . Also, although I could never read a M&B with a straight face, I never thought to criticise those who did - the customers who took out armfuls at a time were helping keep me in a job

All my other 'gentle' authors, though, seem to be non-fiction. James Herriott, of course, Doreen Dovey www.amazon.co.uk/Doreen-Tovey/e/B001HP6Y0C/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_12?qid=1461963107&sr=8-12, Deric Longden and, more recently, Tom Cox www.amazon.co.uk/Tom-Cox/e/B0034O3ZEC/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1461964419&sr=1-2-ent

And another Miss Read fan here too and also from when I was in my early twenties. So many other old favourites have been mentioned on here that it has made me quite nostalgic so I really must revisit my old friends.

This is a very reassuring thread! I've always enjoyed books like these and have noted down some authors to search for. Disappointingly, many of them aren't available in Kindle format. I suppose the big publishers aren't interested other than in gritty crimes, Sci fi or celebrity memoirs. However, it seems to me that there are a lot of us out here who like a nice read about nice characters in interesting locations. I'll persevere!

I have also read all the Miss Read books more than once. I now let myself read one as a special treat. I would also recommend the Lilian Harry Burracombe books and Rosamunde Pilcher. Rebecca Shaw has written a nice series of books about a village and also Anne Purser did if you can still get hold of them.

Have you read "Miss Read Early Days" - it combines two volumes of autobiography by Miss Read. It is about her life with both her grandmothers and also her early life. My daughter bought it for me a few years back and I loved it. It was heartening to read how her grandmothers had made so much of an impression on her.

Does anyone remember the Whiteoak Chronicles? A family saga set in Canada. Grandma the matriarch. I don't have too many memories about who was who, but as I read them in my late teens, it was such a long time ago

I remember reading the Whiteoaks Chronicles in my teens but, strangely, can't remember much about 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'!

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?

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.

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!

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.
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.

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

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'.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.