Virago Civil To Strangers Pym Barbara

In a provincial university town, Caro Grimstone, a dissatisfied faculty wife, becomes the unwilling accomplice to her husband Alan's ambitions. When she volunteers to read to a blind, esteemed anthropologist in a nursing home, Alan seizes the opportunity to steal his papers - research that could both advance his reputation while refuting the findings of a respected colleague. A delightful comedy of manners with a touch of mystery, An Academic Question is prime Barbara Pym territory

If Jane Cleveland and Prudence Bates seem an unlikely pair to be walking together at an Oxford reunion, neither of them is aware of it. They couldn't be more different: Jane is a rather incompetent vicar's wife, who always looks as if she is about to feed the chickens, while Prudence, a pristine hothouse flower, has the most unsuitable affairs. With the move to a rural parish, Jane is determined to find her friend the perfect man. She learns, though, that matchmaking has as many pitfalls as housewifery

Together yet alone, the Misses Bede occupy the central crossroads of parish life. Harriet, plump, elegant and jolly, likes nothing better than to make a fuss of new curates, secure in the knowledge that Count Ricardo Bianco will propose to her yet again this year. Belinda, meanwhile, has harboured sober feelings of devotion towards Archdeacon Hoccleve for thirty years • Then into their quiet, comfortable lives comes a famous librarian, Nathaniel Mold, and a bishop from Africa, Theodore Grote - who each takes to calling on the sisters for rather more unsettling reasons

Catherine Oliphant is a writer and lives with handsome anthropologist Tom Mallow. Their relationship runs into trouble when he begins a romance with student Deirdre Swann, so Catherine turns her attention to the reclusive anthropologist Alaric Lydgate, who has a fondness for wearing African masks. Added to this love tangle are the activities of Deirdre's fellow students and their attempts to win the competition for a research grant • The course of true love or academia never did run smooth

Mildred Lathbury is one of those excellent women who are often taken for granted. She is a godsend, 'capable of dealing with most of the stock situations or even the great moments of life - birth, marriage, death, the successful jumble sale, the garden fete spoilt by bad weather'. Her glamorous new neighbours, the Napiers, seem to be facing a marital crisis. One cannot take sides in these matters, though it is tricky, especially as Mildred has a soft spot for dashing young Rockingham Napier. This is Barbara Pym's world at its funniest and most touching

Wilmet Forsyth is well dressed, well looked after, suitably husbanded, good-looking and fairly young - but very bored. Her sober husband Rodney, who works at the Ministry, is slightly balder and fatter than he once was. Wilmet would like to think she has changed rather less. Her interest wanders to the nearby church, where she can neglect her comfortable household in the more serious-minded company of three unmarried priests, and, of course, Piers Longridge, a man of an unfathomably different character altogether

Formidable Miss Doggett fills her life by giving tea parties for young academics and acting as watchdog for the morals of North Oxford. Anthea, her great-niece, is in love with a dashing undergraduate with political ambitions. Of this, Miss Doggett thoroughly approves. However, Anthea's father, an Oxford don, is carrying on in the most unseemly fashion with a student - they have been spotted together at the British museum! But the only liaison Miss Doggett isn't aware of is taking place under her very own roof: the lodger has proposed to her paid companion Miss Morrow. She wouldn't approve of that at all

The daughter of a Welsh gypsy and a crazy bee-keeper, Hazel Woodus is happiest living in her forest cottage in the remote Shropshire hills, at one with the winds and seasons, protector and friend of the wild animals she loves. But Hazel's beauty and innocence prove irresistible to the men in her orbit. Both Jack Reddin, the local squire and Edward Marston, the gentle minister, offer her human -- and carnal -- love • Hazel's fate unfolds as simply and relentlessly as a Greek tragedy as a child of nature is drawn into a world of mortal passion in which she must eternally be a stranger

A diary for her innermost thoughts, a china ornament, a ten-shilling note, and a roll of flame-coloured silk for her first evening dress: these are the gifts Olivia Curtis receives for her seventeenth birthday. She anticipates her first dance, the greatest yet most terrifying event of her restricted social life, with tremulous uncertainty and excitement. For her pretty, charming elder sister Kate, the dance is certain to be a triumph, but what will it be for shy, awkward Olivia • Exploring the daydreams and miseries attendant upon even the most innocent of social events, Rosamond Lehmann perfectly captures the emotions of a girl standing poised on the threshold of womanhood

Dulcie Mainwaring is always helping others, but never looks out for herself - especially in the realm of love. Her friend Viola is besotted by the alluring Dr Aylwin Forbes, so surely it isn't prying if Dulcie helps things along? Aylwin, however, is smitten with Dulcie's pretty, young niece. And perhaps Dulcie herself, however ridiculous it might be, is falling, just a little, for Aylwin. Once life's little humiliations are played out, maybe love will be returned, and fondly, after all

В сборник рассказов "Помаши мне на прощанье" вошли некоторые из лучших писательниц поколения. Война традиционно рассматривалась как мужское занятие, но эти истории показывают, что женщины воевали наравне с ними, хотя и совершенно на другом фронте • Здесь война - это не столько прогресс на передовой, сколько ежедневная борьба за сохранение домов, семей и взаимоотношений; за то, чтобы получать удовольствие от опасности и силу от совместного опыта. Эти истории о том, как они прощаются с мужьями, возлюбленными, братьями и сыновьями - и как спустя годы пытаются начать свою жизнь заново. Комичные, стоические, сострадательные, гневные и подрывные, эти индивидуальные голоса привносят человеческое измерение в важные события, которые отражались вокруг них, и каждый из них открывает окно в скрытый ландшафт войны

Книга Майи Анджелу «Письмо к моей дочери» посвящено дочери, которой у писательницы и поэтессы не было, но незримое присутствие которой она ощущала на каждом шагу. В ней автор книги «Поэтому птица в неволе поёт» рассказывает, как прожить хорошую и осмысленную жизнь. Это произведение, написанное Анджелу в её уникальном стиле, не укладывается в наши ограниченные представления о жанрах и категориях. Оно представляет собой нечто среднее между наставлением, мемуарами и книгой стихов • Короткие эссе писательницы и поэтессы позволят читателям украдкой взглянуть на обстоятельства, не только научившие её стойкости и состраданию, но и позволившие ей занять достойное место в каноне американской литературы. Анджелу пишет то об утраченных друзьях, то о том, как важно быть честной и открытой, то о достоинствах красного риса… но вся эта книга – от первой и до последней страницы – представляет собой искреннее послание миллионам женщин