I read this book 8 years ago on the advice of a friend, and it really is the gem that the other reviewers suggest. Most good books suck you into them so that you form a picture of the people and places involved, but no other book can make them so real as this. I can still walk around Evensford, hear the voices, and see the people. Read it between 17-25 or so when your emotions are learning & developing, and your experiences beggining, you won't be disapointed.

This book has one of the most accurate descriptions of wintertime that I have ever read. It's a beautiful book that should not be read quickly-- one should savor it rather, because every sentence is so elegantly crafted that you practically want to memorize it. It's one of the few books I always have with me.

HE Bates is one of the most under-rated authors of the Century and this book is his masterpiece. It is the story of the love of a young man for the beautiful Lydia, and how their love has painful and tragic consequences for them both and their friends. It is a story of warmth, love lost and love found, of growing up, of rejection and hope. HE Bates had a profound love for the countryside and it shines through in the detail of his narrative. A few books teach you more and more each time you read them: this is one of them.

Within this book's 331 pages are the first three of five novels in H.E. Bates' "Pop Larkin" series: The Darling Buds of May, A Breath of French Air, and When the Green Woods Laugh. For anyone looking for a light, sunny, happy, warm-hearted, gently-humourous book, I just cannot recommend this one highly enough. In fact, it's one of the few books that can easily be read and reread again.

The novels are set in rural England of the 1950s and centre around Pop and Ma Larkin (actually they're not married, but somehow it just never seems to matter) and their brood of six (make that seven) children. The world in which they live can only be described as a pastoral paradise. Although we get an inkling that the Larkin's farm is, in reality, rather like a junkyard, the novels are a testament to that old saying that life is 90% attitute and 10% circumstance. We see the farm and its surroundings and inhabitants largely through Pop's rose-coloured perspective. As a result, we escape into a world of fragrant golden buttercups and bluebells, into fields of plump, ripe strawberries, and into a kitchen that endlessly emits the heavenly, mouthwatering aromas of Ma's rich, delectable country meals.

Pop is quite a character, and his sunny, carefree disposition and overwhelming generosity, together with his acute focus on the sensory delights of his surroundings, imbue the book with a sense of warmth and beauty that one seldom finds in novels. Pop and Ma take life as they find it and people as they find them, and they never seem to let anything rattle them. Though it's never spelled out, one gets the feeling that life is simply too short a journey to spend it focussing on the bumps one incurs along the way.

I discovered this lovely series through watching the wonderful dramatisation starring David Jason (as Sidney "Pop" Larkin) and Catherine Zeta Jones (as his daughter Mariette), which I also highly recommend. Whether or not you've seen the dramatisation, if you're looking for a cheery, thoroughly relaxing and thoroughly enjoyable read, you'll enjoy this sweet book. In short, it's absolutely "perfick"!

Within this book's 331 pages are the first three of five novels in H.E. Bates' "Pop Larkin" series: The Darling Buds of May, A Breath of French Air, and When the Green Woods Laugh. For anyone looking for a light, sunny, happy, warm-hearted, gently-humourous book, I just cannot recommend this one highly enough. In fact, it's one of the few books that can easily be read and reread again.

The novels are set in rural England of the 1950s and centre around Pop and Ma Larkin (actually they're not married, but somehow it just never seems to matter) and their brood of six (make that seven) children. The world in which they live can only be described as a pastoral paradise. Although we get an inkling that the Larkin's farm is, in reality, rather like a junkyard, the novels are a testament to that old saying that life is 90% attitute and 10% circumstance. We see the farm and its surroundings and inhabitants largely through Pop's rose-coloured perspective. As a result, we escape into a world of fragrant golden buttercups and bluebells, into fields of plump, ripe strawberries, and into a kitchen that endlessly emits the heavenly, mouthwatering aromas of Ma's rich and flavourful country meals.

Pop is quite a character, and his sunny, carefree disposition and overwhelming generosity, together with his acute focus on the sensory delights of his surroundings, imbue the book with a sense of warmth and beauty that one seldom finds in novels. Pop and Ma (who, by the way, is tremendously overweight) take life as they find it and people as they find them, and they never seem to let anything rattle them. Though it's never spelled out, one gets the feeling that life is simply too short a journey to spend it focussing on the bumps one incurs along the way.

I discovered this lovely series through watching the wonderful dramatisation starring David Jason (as Sidney "Pop" Larkin) and Catherine Zeta Jones (as his daughter Mariette), which I also highly recommend (and which is available, at the time of writing, on video and DVD). Whether or not you've seen the dramatisation, if you're looking for a cheery, thoroughly relaxing and thoroughly enjoyable read, you'll enjoy this sweet book. It's well worth ferretting out a copy. In short, it's absolutely "perfick"!

Not many books change your life.

HE Bates had a magical ability to evoke scenes of beauty and peace. In this novel, against a background of violence and fear. When I first read 'Fair Stood The Wind For France' as a schoolboy, I was attracted by the story of the heroic RAF bomber pilot shot down behind enemy lines in France, and his efforts to escape back to England. As I read it I realised that war was not heroic and glamorous, but filled with fear and disfigurement. Hardly an unique epiphany to be sure! But what brought it home to my fifteen year-old mind was Bates' simple illustration of his hero contemplating his inability ever again to open a bottle of wine and pour a glass. A banal task whose infinitesimal pleasure is usually lost against the noise of our lives. Bates brings home the happiness we can glean from the everyday, through his ability to conjure beauty from the mundane. Read this book for the beauty that Bates can evoke. Read it again to learn the value of a moment.

"The Feast of July," although recently filmed (the book is so much better than the movie!) doesn't draw much attention to itself nowadays. H. E. Bates, one the most talented novelists in the English language, is undeservedly forgotten. This short novella is Bates's masterfully written exploration of the "life-within," of the interior struggle. Commencing with an excruciatingly beautiful scene that depicts the protagonist's inner loneliness, the book introduces us to Bella, a young seduced girl, who is looking for the man who dishonored and left her. As she is harbored by a family of shoemakers, Bella finds herself attracted to three young men who fall under her charm: the handsome Jedd, the soft-hearted Matty, and the hot-temprered Con. She flirts, not to say toys, with at least two of them, yet the third, for whom she feels nothing, becomes her paramour. Things develop from there, and the novella climaxes in the return of Bella's former lover, a man she once loved and suffered over, the "seducer." His arrival is rather predictable, but the reader is somewhat stunned by his decease, which ensues after Bella and her lover/accomplice meet the unfortunate fellow on their nature-ramble (the "deflowerer" came to town to take a break from work and went fishing to rest his soul- how ironic). After that there's an absolutely gripping sequence of gorgeous scenes, "the runaway" scenes, I might call them, which culminate in a death. "The Feast of July" has one of the most memorable and haunting last lines ever written! Highly recommended.

About 30 years ago, I read H.E.Bates' 'The Darling Buds of May'. When the Green woods laugh was his follow-up and was equally hilarious as one revels in the triumphs of Pop Larkin, a country wheeler-dealer.

Nothing is too much of a problem for Pop. "Perfick", he says as each event unfolds.

You should try and get hold of the original book (and also 'The Darling Buds of May') and read it, just for the scene where Pop Larkin sells his ramshackle country house to a gullible, drunken American (changed to a London stockbroker in American versions of the book!!). Perfickly Politically Incorrect - and huge fun. You'll discover an author and a style that will have you wishing he'd lived long enough to write some more.

Now a BBC video, the Larkin family rollick through Britain of the '50's. I think you have to be both an Anglophile and addicted to out-of-print British authors--both of which am I!--to enjoy this. Nothing less like Angela Thirkell can be thought of--these are the adventures of the Lower Class. And highly enjoyable they are.

Absurd and hilarious, H.E. Bates introduces you to the strangest family you're ever likely to meet. A tax officer is sent to their house to collect overdue taxes, only to find himself thrown into their somewhat chaotic, but extremely loving and fun life. Set up with the daughter, he throws away his old life to join theirs. Wonderfully written, humorous and kind, one to be read when you're feeling down, or if you're outside enjoying a summer day - best enjoyed with an iced drink and a picnic blanket. H.E. Bates is sure bet for an excellent read - I have read eight novels by Bates now, and have yet to be disppointed.

I first read The Darling Buds of May about thirty years ago. Recently BBC added some episodes and turned it into a series starring David Jason, which was acknowledged as the very best of British Comnedy. Incidentally, Catherine Zeta Jones got her big TV break in this series as the beautiful Larkin daughter.

If you get a chance to get hold of a copy of H.E.Bates classic tale of Pop Larkin and his family, you should do so, just for the joy of reading something that is so funny it will split your sides.

The audio cassette provides an excellent reading of an amusing novel. Bruce Montague gives a lively performance befitting to the light spirit of the book. Although not great literature, Bates's novel is diverting and a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.