Paradais

by Fernanda Melchor

Quartet in Autumn

by Barbara Pym

Shadows on the Rock

by Willa Cather

This work of historical fiction, set in Quebec in 1697-98, is a quiet charmer. By that time, the early, renowned explorers, fur traders, and missionaries were passing away and their deeds spun into the lore of the 100-years-young French colony. Instead, the story focuses on the town apothecary and his young daughter, arrived from Paris eight years earlier. Their home is an oasis of European comfort but the highlights of their year—a moonlit picnic with a sea captain’s talking parrot and unpacking a crèche from across the ocean—reflect both the New and Old Worlds. The family’s experience echoes that of Cather’s other pioneers, and more faintly, today’s immigrants. While reading, I felt like we’ve almost come full circle: the next chapter is when we resettle to other planets or galaxies! The novel opens and closes in October, and painterly renderings of autumn at that latitude—the golden foliage, gray rock, and silver mist—bookend a feel-good yet thoughtful tale that’s perfect as winter closes in.

O Caledonia

by Elspeth Barker

While reading O Caledonia, I thought an apt subtitle would be: Portrait of the Spinster as a Young Girl, even though our protagonist is found murdered—at age 16—on the first page. Janet definitely has the quirks and qualities which—in her upper-class, 1950s milieu—brand her as a potential spinster. But it was more that I was reminded of some British women who often wrote about that demographic so cruelly expanded by WW1. Barker’s intelligence has the micro/macroscopic focus of Sylvia Townsend Warner—Janet could have been her generation’s Lolly Willowes! And her hilarious grasp of human peculiararity reminds me of Elizabeth Taylor. There’s even a whiff of Stella Gibbons’s Cold Comfort Farm in the ramshackle family castle and its weirdest residents. Despite these echoes, the book is as singularly bewitching as its heroine. And don’t fear that its opening portends mystery and tragedy. Just as Janet refuses to conform, her story breaks all bonds of literary expectation.

My Phantoms

by Gwendoline Riley

South Riding

by Winifred Holtby

Here’s the pitch: a soap opera about local government with hints of Middlemarch and Peyton Place. Well. You’d forgive a publisher for taking a pass, but this 1937 novel was an instant bestseller, adapted for film and TV, and has never been out of print (though it's not always easy to find in the U.S.). The secret ingredient is the author herself. Holtby was a native of Yorkshire (location of the fictional South Riding) and a well-known progressive journalist-activist. Chapter by chapter, she moves from the Shacks to Maythorpe Hall, focusing on residents who are never entirely heroic or evil or foolish. The marquee romance may echo the Janes (Eyre/Austen), but Holtby was an expert on the plot twist. As she was writing, she knew she was dying of kidney disease—her most tender portrayals are characters who share that fateful perspective. Her final novel is often called a “beloved classic” because in both challenging and comforting herself, Holtby did the same for generations of readers.

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

by Elizabeth Taylor

Within a few paragraphs, I knew I was in good hands. The hands of a writer at the top of her game, exhibiting perfect control without apparent effort. The story is set in late-1960’s London and follows the still estimable Laura Palfrey (we assume she was once estimable from her handful of memories of married life in Burma) as she settles into the Claremont Hotel as one of its elderly residential guests. Her routine livens up when, on one of her forays outside, she befriends Ludo Myers, a would-be writer the same age as her grandson. The humor—understated zingers, “bits” of comedy gold—is perfectly balanced with a tone of, I won’t say sadness, but an acceptance of the fact that one’s way of life has died and one is merely waiting to follow. I don’t think I truly understood the term “bittersweet” until I finished the last paragraph. Elizabeth Taylor is my new literary crush and I plan to read one of her novels each month, like savoring treats from a box of exquisite chocolates.

The Road to Wigan Pier

by George Orwell

Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (Memoirs of George Sherston #1)

by Siegfried Sassoon

Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (Memoirs of George Sherston #2)

by Siegfried Sassoon

Sherston’s Progress (Memoirs of George Sherston #3)

by Siegfried Sassoon

Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History

by Lea Ypi