Wednesday, March 06, 2024

2024 book 50

 Barbara Comyns' Our Spoons Came From Woolworths

So this has been on my to-read list for years (my best guess is I read a good review when it got reissued like ten years ago), but I’m reading it now because Ann Patchett raves about it in one of her recent videos where she discusses backlist books, and she compared it to both The English Understand Wool AND Nancy Mitford, so you bet your bippy I bought it immediately. Buuuuut maybe my expectations were too high after those comparisons? It was fine, but didn’t reach the heights of those books, and I really felt like the characters weren’t super well developed. Very charming narrative voice though. (Oh, plot summary: it’s narrated by a naive young woman who has married a young artist and they have to try and survive in poverty because he won’t get a real job.) B+.

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