book data
282 ratings,
4.06
average rating, 39 reviews
(more data...)
edit
published
July 1st 1994
(first published 1945)
details
Paperback, 352 pages
isbn
074512013X
(isbn13: 9780745120133)
description
Oh, the boredom of waiting to grow up! Longing for love, obsessed with weddings and sex, aristocratic Linda Radllet, her sisters and Cousin Fanny fant…more
find at:
Amazon • WorldCat • more options…
There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!
There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »
friend reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
This book is currently not featured on any Listopia lists.
Add this book to your favorite list »
other reviews (showing 1-20 of 498)
All ratings
|
5 stars (100)
|
4 stars (107)
|
3 stars (68)
|
2 stars (7)
|
1 star (0)
|
avg 4.06
editions: all | this edition
editions: all | this edition
Read in December, 2009
I'm another who found this book oddly familiar because of how much I've read over the years about the Mitfords (not even the biographies; just the reviews of the biographies). I prefer books set in the last 200 years or so that were written as contemporary. Certainly a lot of things go undefined, and you can be brought up short by outdated comments on race etc, but the immersion still feels richer somehow. This is a light read about rather shallow, silly people but most are likable. It's as inte...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Abnd now for somethign completely differnt...
Classic, kooky, eccentric rich in England during the 20's and into the 30's (right up to WWI). The writing is fantastic, the story compelling, the insights and wit spot on. Read it for the descriptions of things like the child hunt, where the rich uncle hunts the kids as a stand in for foxes to practice his hounds. It is not so much the description of the hunt but her insight into how it was tolerated and eccentric because the...more
Classic, kooky, eccentric rich in England during the 20's and into the 30's (right up to WWI). The writing is fantastic, the story compelling, the insights and wit spot on. Read it for the descriptions of things like the child hunt, where the rich uncle hunts the kids as a stand in for foxes to practice his hounds. It is not so much the description of the hunt but her insight into how it was tolerated and eccentric because the...more
Like this review?
yes
3 comments
Read in January, 2010
Mitfordillia (Mitfordima? Mitfordism?) is total comfort food, for me. I've been fairly obsessed with the family ever since a family holiday the year I was 11 when I ran out of books and had to resort to my mother's copy of Mary S. Lovell's mammoth biography of the six sisters. I devoured it over an intense two days, and ever since then have not been able to get enough of them. What's weird is that I've always gravitated more towards the non-fiction - biographies, autobiographies, collections of ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
There is in this country a whole cottage industry existing just to write about the Mitford sisters, so I've read a lot about Nancy without actually reading anything by her. That made this very funny book even more interesting, as I was able to see the bits that were drawn from her own life.
We're in England between the wars, and much the same territory as Evelyn Waugh covered in Vile Bodies. Two women grow up in a sprawling country house, with an eccentric extended family which plays ...more
We're in England between the wars, and much the same territory as Evelyn Waugh covered in Vile Bodies. Two women grow up in a sprawling country house, with an eccentric extended family which plays ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in December, 2008
This was a brilliant book! I especially loved the first half, when they were children, the picture nancy Mitford drew of their growing up at Alconleigh with Uncle Matthew's booming voice, always hollering, with Linda's romantic fantasies and crying depression (her suicide attempt after her dog died, I know it should be sad, but that was one part I roared with laughter, it sounded so melodramatic coming from a child of 6 years or so :-D), so that part was such a hilarious, sarcasticly funny in a ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in June, 2008
recommends it for:
Jennifer Bobalik, Sue Spaull
A classic, must read. So well written, so much better quality than today's "chick lit" genre.. I want goldfish around my bathtub !!!
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in February, 2009
"In the photograph Aunt Sadie's face, always beautiful, appears
strangely round, her hair strangely fluffy, and her clothes strangely
dowdy, but it is unmistakably she who sits there with Robin, in oceans
of lace, lolling on her knee. She seems uncertain of what to do with
his head, and the presence of Nanny waiting to take him away is felt
though not seen."
Irresistible! Such a droll tone which I found very, very funny. The parts about childhood are the...more
strangely round, her hair strangely fluffy, and her clothes strangely
dowdy, but it is unmistakably she who sits there with Robin, in oceans
of lace, lolling on her knee. She seems uncertain of what to do with
his head, and the presence of Nanny waiting to take him away is felt
though not seen."
Irresistible! Such a droll tone which I found very, very funny. The parts about childhood are the...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in August, 2009
Esperaba mucho más de 'A la caza del amor'. En realidad esperaba que fuera como Jane Austen ambientada en la época de entreguerras. Y esperar esto es esperar demasiado. Esperaba sarcasmo hiriente y un ojo clínico capaz de retratar la hipocresía de una época y una clase social. Y lo único que encontré fue una ironía espumosa e inofensiva. Este libro es como una Coca-Cola que abriste ayer y hoy descubres que ha perdido todo el gas y todo el sabor. Es un libro superficial, intranscendente e...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
3 comments
Read in February, 2010
recommends it for:
nix, louise
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in February, 2007
There's times when I felt so happy after reading a novel. That's what I feel after this one. The very witty novel of Nancy Mitford.
It's a new writing style for me. Where Fanny is not the main character, but Linda, her cousin. It has unique characters, too. Like explosive voice Uncle Matthew, Linda herself, the perfect health maniac Uncle Davey, etc.
It's a great fun that I want to read the others from Mitford soon.
It's a new writing style for me. Where Fanny is not the main character, but Linda, her cousin. It has unique characters, too. Like explosive voice Uncle Matthew, Linda herself, the perfect health maniac Uncle Davey, etc.
It's a great fun that I want to read the others from Mitford soon.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in October, 2009
First half of the book (Radletts as children), 4 stars, latter half (Linda as "adult") 2 stars. Linda is too much of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl to tolerate for very long, but the first part is magical. My interest is piqued to read more about the Mitford sisters, but I'll be somewhat cautious about picking up anything else by a Mitford, or at least by Nancy.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in February, 2009
Amusing.
I enjoyed "Hons and Rebels" so much, written by Nancy Mitford's sister Jessica. This is a fictionalized short novel about the Mitfords written by Nancy. I have the flu and it was the perfect book to pass the hours with. It gives the reader a glimpse of what life must have been like for these five daughters of a landed British nobleman (duke? earl? lord? - I'm sure there are differences) who grew up in the 20s and 30s. At times I actually laughed out loud.
...more
I enjoyed "Hons and Rebels" so much, written by Nancy Mitford's sister Jessica. This is a fictionalized short novel about the Mitfords written by Nancy. I have the flu and it was the perfect book to pass the hours with. It gives the reader a glimpse of what life must have been like for these five daughters of a landed British nobleman (duke? earl? lord? - I'm sure there are differences) who grew up in the 20s and 30s. At times I actually laughed out loud.
...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 2010
I loved the use of language, though I know it was really no more than what Nancy Mitford knew, that was how people spoke in her circles. I thought the story dragged a bit in the middle but got more interesting again towards the end (and I was VERY surprised by the ending!).
One big mistake that I made was to read this book immediately after finishing the biography of the Mitford girls. The first half of the book covering the characters' childhoods exactly mirrors the Mitford experienc...more
One big mistake that I made was to read this book immediately after finishing the biography of the Mitford girls. The first half of the book covering the characters' childhoods exactly mirrors the Mitford experienc...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 2010
This was fun. It was light reading, and I loved how English it was. The little details made it great - how Sussex was viewed as 'not real countryside', how only "Hons" were good people, how they thought all MPs should have to have lived in the country. Really really good.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
The very best escapist literature: magical, charming, but also containing essential truths and just a few tragic events. Hilarious at points too. I have reread these books many times.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
This series is one of my favourites, and one I come back to again and again.
The story is a very funny and semi autobiographical account of an eccentric English family in the 1930's/40's
The story is a very funny and semi autobiographical account of an eccentric English family in the 1930's/40's
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Satirical look at a society that doesn't exist anymore. The British upper classes between the wars. Told by an author who lived in it and who's writing from her own experiences.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Ah, post-war British humor. This book is great escape from the warm, muggy Memphis days of summer. I want my own Alconleigh to escape to... fires or no fires in the hearth!
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in November, 2009
I really liked this light, irreverent, keen-eyed look at aristocratic British country life between the wars. The fact that it was a quasi-memoir made it even better for me.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
This looks like a good version and I'd like to read Zoë Heller's forward. It is one of my all-time favorite books.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
to-read
(on 174 people's shelves)
fiction (on 15 people's shelves)
1001-books (on 13 people's shelves)
1001-books-to-read-before-you-die (on 9 people's shelves)
1001 (on 9 people's shelves)
classics (on 5 people's shelves)
novel (on 4 people's shelves)
british (on 3 people's shelves)
currently-reading (on 3 people's shelves)
More shelves...
fiction (on 15 people's shelves)
1001-books (on 13 people's shelves)
1001-books-to-read-before-you-die (on 9 people's shelves)
1001 (on 9 people's shelves)
classics (on 5 people's shelves)
novel (on 4 people's shelves)
british (on 3 people's shelves)
currently-reading (on 3 people's shelves)
More shelves...
