Tuesday 29 June 2010

Cold Comfort.



It's summer, and almost everyone is looking for that special book to read in the shade of a swaying palm. A book that you can pick up and put down at will, between sips of Champagne, or dips in the Caribbean Sea.

This has to be one of my all time favourite novels. Predictably it takes place in Sussex, and is the story of city girl Flora Poste (Robert Poste's child), and her visit to the run-down family farm in the (fictional) Sussex village of Howling. I shall say no more.

I believe Ms Gibbons wrote two sequels to Cold Comfort, but I've neither read them, nor heard spoken well of them.

There's also a film version of the book which is excellent. John Schlesinger's 1995 film, with Kate Beckinsale as Flora, is a beautifully filmed and faithful interpretation of the book, but I would always recommend to read the book first. There are so many small details in a book that the medium of film is simply unable to express. The film also features Joanna Lumley, Stephen Fry, and Ian McKellen, amongst other notables.

If you're looking for a fun read (that you'll never forget) I can 'wholeheartedly' recommend Cold Comfort Farm. The Library maybe?

9 comments:

  1. A trip to the library is on my list of things to do today. I'll have to have a look!

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  2. Okay. You got me! That's all I needed to hear and I'm getting it. Sounds like a great book club book. I've heard of it and the movie also. I think I'll put that on my queue on Netflix. May I make a suggestion for a book that is fabulous by a new author and true Americana? It's called "The Help" and all about the black maids in the South in the 1960's around Martin Luther King's time. Very thought provoking and so funny what those maids say about their white bosses. I heard the book on tape is fabulous also.

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  3. Tom, it's one of those books I like to read at least once a year. I've just bought a new copy, but the box it was in couldn't fit into the compact Royce (too full up), so it's now in an attic in Brighton.

    Julie, that sounds like a good read. Could you give the author's name?

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  4. I've seen the film adaptation, but have never read the book. I need to add it to my ever growing Tower of Pisa stack of must reads!

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  5. How does one find time? So many things to read, see, and do. I need a second life!

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  6. Another book for my want to read list. I know what you mean about a second life! No time to retire!

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  7. One of my all time favourite reads - like you I tend to re-read it perhaps every other year and it never palls.

    Second on my list of re-reads is Steinbeck's 'Cannery Row' which I first came across at much the same time as CCF. Must have been a stage in my lfe when I was easily influenced.

    I love 'I Capture the Castle' too but I think that's one for the girls.

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  8. We have very good friends in Monterey, so 'Cannery Row' is quite special for us too. I don't know 'Capture the Castle'. Maybe, as you say, I should leave it for the gals.

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