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#BookReport

Lots of comfort reading in June. It‘s hard to pick a favourite. The Sweet Dove Died or The Masqueraders, I think.

Barbara Pym joins the permissive society😳 No anthropologists, Anglicans or excellent women in this one, and the entanglements between the characters are as much sexual as romantic. Pym‘s wit is as entertaining as ever, but I have to take issue with her on one point. “Books as presents were somehow lacking in excitement and romance.” What rot!

How could I resist adding this bag to my #bookhaul?

Flying back (and leaving family behind) is always a little bittersweet. Fortunately, I picked up this Pym at a used bookstore last week and she did serve as a bit of a balm.

This is such a different book by Pym, although at the same time you can see the same elements in different proportions. It‘s almost told from the perspective of the “villain” with the main character the kind of fussy, egotistical, demanding dame who would be an antagonist in a different novel. Not what I expected and definitely of a different era, but I still enjoyed it.

I‘m 50 pages into this and it has (1) gay characters (2) racist comments (3) casual sex (4) not a curate in sight. Barbara is that you?! (The good news is that the racist comments do appear to be meant to show you that a character is “bad”!)