Snap!

    I read Simon's post yesterday about Mary Norton's The Bread and Butter Stories, and exercising restraint didn't order a copy at once as I might well have done as it sounds very much my cup of tea, but instead added it to my wishlist to remember for later. Then I happened to pop into a local charity bookshop this morning and there was a fine copy which I snapped up without a second thought!
   Do read Simon for the general gist, but just to add a sentence, my copy says, "Masterfully crafted, the stories unveil the small coincidences and short-sighted mistakes that shape our lives". The cover picture, by the way, is "La table de fruits a l'atelier" by Henri Manguin, and is much prettier than what is on the current edition.


     

Comments

[Darlene]

Sounds like a delicious read!

[Simon T]

Wonderful - you were rewarded for your restraint - and isn't it a beautiful picture on the cover? I've so far rectified my never having read The Borrowers, but haven't started the stories here yet.

[Lyn Baines]

I hope you enjoy the book. I'm Simon's friend, Lyn, who started this whole thing with a vague question in our reading group, Has anyone heard of these? I'd been searching for Elizabeth Von Arnim on the Virago website & this popped up as MN is compared to EVA & Elizabeth Taylor in the blurb. I knew MN's Borrowers books but not these. I've just about finished reading the copy I borrowed from my library & I've enjoyed the stories very much. The autobiographical ones (well, I assume so from her daughter's introduction) are very good. The one about appearing in the TV play had me feeling just as nervous as the protagonist. Also the stories set in Portugal.