Currently reading
A London Family, 1870-1900: A Trilogy
The Cellist of Sarajevo
Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher
All the Names
A History of the World in 100 Objects
Down the Garden Path
Virtue Betray'd, Or, Anna Bullen
Year of Wonders
Swallows and Amazons
Illusion in java
I have been reading a lot of domestic fiction from Britain of the 1930's and 40's, mostly diary-style and short stories. I must say that this book, which takes the form of letters from a housewife and mother in Devon to her "Childhood's Friend" Robert who is at the front, is gentler and more wistful than other books I've read in this particular genre. E. M. Delafield's funny "Provincial Lady" books, which I read snd enjoyed just before this book have a similar venue (small town, trying to make do on a budget, parenting, volunteering, and local gossip, although they are pre-WWII), but are a little more cynical and less forgiving of others' failings, getting quite a lot of mileage out of the vicar's wife, the local gentry, the bluestockings, etc. Both books, it happens, have a Lady B in them. But the Lady B in Delafield's book is an unremitting snob and rarely has a nice thing to say. The Lady B in Henrietta's War is very sweet and unsnobby. The aggressively feminist, tweed-wearing woman in HW is funny, but is treated as a human being too, not just a caricature. I found HW a refreshing and more realistic read, being both funny and sad about the reality of life in wartime.