The popular British novelist discusses her childhood and her visits to her two grandmothers in a biographical celebration of life in an English village.
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Miss Read has written so extensively about the English countryside that it may come as a surprise to learn that she was a London child until the age of seven. During those early years, she was in almost daily contact with Grandma Read, her mother's mother, who lived in a typical late Victorian house in Lewisham. Equally dear was her paternal grandmother, Grandma Shafe, who lived at Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex where most of the family holidays were spent. The welcome there was somewhat overshadowed by Grandpa Shafe's presence, but his religious beliefs, of a fanatically narrow variety, would have cast more gloom if it had not been for the bubbling affection and good spirits of his wife.
Miss Read's vivid memories of her two grandmothers and their families give an unforgettable picture of everyday living in the shadow of the First World War, seen through the eyes of a fortunate grandchild.
"If you don't know Fairacre, you are twenty novels behind."—New York Times Book Review
"Each page tingles with zest... Here, clearly, is somebody happy in her work."—Elizabeth Bowen
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