I thoroughly enjoyed Pym's Excellent Women and Quartet In Autumn. However, I was just unable to find anything humorous about a middle-aged college professor's foolish seduction attempts with a young, female student of his. It's not funny, it's pathetic and banal. Why is thirty-six year Jessie portrayed as an over-the-hill old maid yet the handsome curate of precisely the same age ends up with a nineteen year old, youngest daughter of Lord Somebody at the end of the story? It's an old-fashioned plot that hasn't stood the test of time. I thought the curate's matrimonial choice demonstrated shallow regard for money, youth and beauty. It became too much, the clash between gossiping, nasty-minded old women versus the horny old men striving to demonstrate their virility. Did my mother-in-law write this? The attitudes expressed in this tedious tale had none of the sincere wit of Jane Austen and none of her sympathetic characterizations. Was I supposed to identify with Jessie? She was the only character with any indication of a thoughtful, sensitive introspection yet she ended in the same dreary spot, still in a position of humiliation, on a bleak day, as part of the furniture.

Though always insightful and just stunningly human, Barbara Pym's novels do tend to blur into one another, fraught as they are, with spinsters and vicars who take tea on rainy days and wonder about what is "suitable." But this one stands out.

Oh sure, there's a vicar and a tender young curate and a couple of spinsters and lots of tea and a few unsuitable dresses, comments, situations, and even romances; but in this, Barbara Pym's first novel, the characters are funnier, and the farce is one shade broader.

Think of this as the BEST one. That will help you sort it out.

"Crampton Hodnet," a novel of Oxford, entertains and amuses in a way few books do. Miss Doggett, the upright spinster who entertains hapless Oxford youths at tea parties in her dark North Oxford home; Jessie Morrow, her companion (who reappears later in "Jane and Prudence"); their curate lodger, the vicar and his wife, Miss Doggett's cousin, the academic Francis Cleveland, his vague but charming wife Margaret, Francis's brilliant student, Barbara Bird, and many others enrich the cast of an enchanting novel The plot is more vigorous than in some of Pym's later works, and one laughs from beginning to end. Treat yourself some rainy afternoon.

I was keen to read something by Barbara Pym, having heard about her for years. Previous reviews on Amazon encouraged me to select this novel. The story of Emma, a single woman in her thirties who retreats to an English country village to write up her anthropological studies, held intellectual, romantic and picturesque promise. What a disappointment I had! Emma's intellectual pursuit is vaguely dismissed in a solitary sentence as 'something to do with attitudes toward almost everything you could think of in one of the new towns.' As for romance, Emma and her suitors, if that is the word, manage nothing beyond a bit of inarticulate, adolescent gaping and groping. And Pym assiduously avoids evoking any sense of rural beauty or natural mystery.

Yes, Pym offers some wry descriptions of her passive characters' glancing collisions during their Brownian motion through life. Some readers may enjoy the irony with which she manipulates references to English literature and stock props of the English countryside (e.g. a spiritless protagonist named after Jane Austen's charming heroine, and dismissive references to the local 'DMV' or 'deserted medieval village'). But the craftsmanship is weak, with chapters beginning and ending for no particular reason; disjointed jumps among disparate points of view within a single paragraph; and plodding reportage of trivial incidents that never stitch together into a coherent design. While the author is at pains to tells us that her characters have interests -- the rector, for example, is described as obsessed with village history -- they display no real passion for anything, let alone for one another. The characters develop all the way from boring to dreary, which puts a rather strict limit on dramatic movement. It was a struggle getting to the end of the book.

This is another review comparing Barbara Pym's books so that readers can choose between them.

A FEW GREEN LEAVES is my favorite. After writing about London settings, Pym returns to the small country village of her beginnings. But, this village lacks the comfortable traditionalism of her earlier SOME TAME GAZELLE. Much of the book dwells on the changes that have come about in the English countryside by 1980.

A FEW GREEN LEAVES is not depressing, however. It is instead humorously realistic about the incongruities between what people have been raised to expect and what actually is. In this sense, it is the most profound of her books because it demonstrates how we can still get the most out of life when only "a few green leaves" remain. This book was written at the end of Pym's life and it contains wisdom and hopefulness as well as, of course, great humor.

"A Few Green Leaves" is one of Barbara Pym's best novels. It is full of characters familiar to readers of Pym's other novels; rectors, widows, spinsters, eccentrics, anthropologists and a cat lady. There is romance, but in true Pym fashion it is not always suitable. It is subtly funny and poignantly sad, often at the same time. The heroine, Emma Howick, is a prototypical Pym spinster, intellectual, unsure and perhaps uninterested in the classic ways to attract a man. She is an anthropologist recently moved to a small village to live in her mother's cottage. I discovered Barbara Pym's work while in college and nothing she has written has ever disappointed me.

Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini, Beyond the Grave (Carroll and Graf, 1986)

Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini team up for a novel that takes place in two times focusing on the same mystery. Elena Oliverez, in the present day, accidentally stumbles upon a piece of the report of one Detective Quincannon, hired to find the stolen treasures of a Mexican ranchero in the 1890s. As Oliverez gets absorbed in Quincannon's story, she finds herself looking to solve the mystery Quincannon wasn't able to uncover eighty years previously.

The two stories interlock without a hitch, and both Oliverez and Quincannon are engaging protagonists. This is quick, easy beach fare; fast-paced, homey, digestible, and well worth the time for mystery fans. Those who haven't yet discovered either Muller or Pronzini, this is one of many good starting points...

The best thing about being a Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini fan is that there always seems to be a book by one of them that I somehow missed. Sure, I've read every Sharon McCone and Nameless Detective novel, their short story collections, and many of Pronzini's stand-alones; however, these married authors have written and edited DOZENS of books, including many that are out of print. What a treasure trove for the discerning reader of suspense!

As far as I can determine, Muller and Pronzini have collaborated on three novels: LIGHTHOUSE, a stand-alone thriller; DOUBLE, a Nameless/McCone mystery; and BEYOND THE GRAVE, featuring two of the authors' lesser-known series characters, Muller's art museum director Elena Oliverez and Pronzini's late-19th-century San Francisco detective John Quincannon. As in DOUBLE, the authors alternate -- first, we get a few chapters told from Oliverez's point of view, and then we switch to Quincannon. What makes this collaboration noteworthy is that the Quincannon chapters take place in 1894, Oliverez's in the 1980s.

Oliverez has bought a Mexican wedding chest at auction for her art museum, and when she's examining it, she finds an old report written by Quincannon inside a hidden compartment. He had been on the trail of some lost religious artifacts, but apparently was never able to find them. By using Quincannon's report, Oliverez hopes to recover the valuable pieces. In the process of searching, both characters encounter murder and face danger.

The story flows seamlessly between past and present. While these may be the authors' second-string characters, this book is definitely never second rate.

Emma Harte is the most controlling woman ever, and her granddaughter Paula isn't much better. Page after page has Emma meddling in people's lives as if she was entitled to just because she had once, long ago, suffered long and hard, and was now wealthy and on top. Annoying and irritating. And isn't she just omniscient -she always sees through everyone's motives - she's always steps ahead of everyone. Oh, sure! If you hate control freaks, don't read this book.

I most certainly enjoyed the book Hold the Dream. I read the book about a year ago and my only regret was that I was not able to get all the books in this set for I only read the one part. I like women who know what they want and set their goals to achieve it. Women are no longer just homemakers but can be expert bussinesswomen. Keep up the good work.

Unfortunately, our currency is 2 to 1 US therefore some of the prices are steep.

Paula McGill Fairley is another replica of Emma Harte. She is badly suited against Jim Fairley who is a weak person. The way she dealt with Jonathan is what Emma Harte would have done. So to speak, pride comes before a fall.

Main character was featured prominently in Autumn Vows (which was a pretty good book) and I was left with a curiosity as to what Lucy's story might be. In the first book, she was an interesting (but secondary) character with a lot of mystery and promise. I couldn't wait to read about her in her own book. How disappointing. Somehow, everything I had imagined about her life was more interesting than the actual story.

I enjoyed reading Wild Roses very much! Not only was it a cute, sweet little book but it also was a page turner! A good book for someone who likes to read romantic novels and enjoys a good read!

I have read all of Barbara Pym's published works and I find that this is one of her weaker offerings. In this book she leaves her spinsters and has a married woman with a child for her heroine. She doesn't seem comfortable with this heroine. The scenes with the child are a little stilted. She doesn't seem as real or as interesting as Mildred of "Excellent Women" or even Wilmet of "A Glass of Blessings" her other married heroine. But, as a fan I enjoyed the book. It was interesting to see her outside her usual cast of characters. There are some really good parts, especially those dealing with the academics where she is on familiar ground.

Bewildered in Berlin is one of her newer (a relative term as she has been writing since the 20's) titles and has bypassed her mid century funk that effected the dialogue in some of her other books. It is the story of a girl who is desperate to save her father from the Kaiser. She meets a British foreign agent and they work together to get the three of them out of hostile Germany intact.

Fool's hill is an okay book.I didn't like the story because it had to do with cigarettes.14 year old Libby Burke is considered a faller. She thinks that there are two categoies in the world the laughers and the fallers.She decides to change her life when her sister goes to Chicago.One day she is sitting on the lawn and two girls drive by and they stop and talk to her.They introduced each other.Thier names were Rosalyn and Linda.Rosalyn and Libby become best friends.And her other best friend Alice witch is a faller gets pushed out of the way.Rosalyn and Linda smoke so LIbby tries it.She gets hooked on it.Her dad has a very good reputaion in this town,and he told her not to ruin it with her new friends.Well she does. Her friends ask her to go to Fool's hill.So she does.And when she gets caught her dad is very angry.Her dad said that she was never to see them agian.

At the beginning of the book, when Sondra, Ruth and Mickey met, and began to study medicine, tried to solve their problems, their family and became best friends is a very good story, after that, when each one finished and went each one to work to another part of the world, the only good story is Sondra's, the story of Mickey is good but not as Sondra's story, and the story of the selfish Ruth is the worst, another thing is that they are always best friends and they saw each other only once in more than fourteen years, is that possible?

I just finished "Voice of the Heart" and it was good, if not slightly tacky. The middle section was pretty long (like about 600 pages) but held my attention though most of it, and the ending was fairly satisfying and unpredictable enough to surprise you. Good character descriptions and a good storyline. Worth a read.