 | Out of Africa (Penguin Modern Classics) by Isak Dinesen
Buy new: £6.55 / Used from: £0.01 A memoir of colonial life in Kenya in the 20s (oh, all right, and during WW1). You won't get the romantic narrative of the film, but something more elusive and in the end more satisfying.
|
 | A Dance to the Music of Time : Autumn by Anthony Powell
Buy new: £9.97 / Used from: £12.32 Four volumes following a wide gallery of characters in Britain between the wars. If you're lazy, the Beeb did a lovely adaptation of it some years back - look out for the DVDs.
|
 | Vile Bodies (Penguin Modern Classics) by Evelyn Waugh
Buy used from: £22.48 A satire set among the bright young things of Jazz-Age Mayfair - who wouldn't want to read about that?
|
 | The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Buy used from: £4.89 A dispossessed family's journey during the American Depression, told with all of Steinbeck's compassion and humanity.
|
 | I Capture the Castle (Vintage Classics) by Dodie Smith
Buy new: £5.96 / Used from: £0.01 A whimsical tale about first love in a derelict castle - no, it's not full of gritty realism (fancy that!) but sometimes you don't want to be either gritty or realistic.
|
 | The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Essential Penguin) by Muriel Spark
Buy used from: £0.01 Black comedy in an Edinburgh girls' school. I'll rap you over the fingers if you don't read this one. It's only short, after all.
|
 | The Autobiography of Alice B.Toklas (Penguin Modern Classics) by Gertrude Stein
Buy new: £6.47 / Used from: £4.26 Gertrude Stein's account of artistic Paris after WWI. Oui, s'il vous plait!
|
 | The Lover (Flamingo) by Marguerite Duras
Buy used from: £0.01 An account of the author coming of age in 30's Saigon - oh, and it's got lots of sex in it.
|
 | Cold Comfort Farm (Essential Penguin) by Stella Gibbons
Buy new: £5.92 / Used from: £0.68 A comedy set in the British country-side, with the oh-so-British & utterly lovely Flora bringing order into a world of chaos.
|
 | Atonement by Ian McEwan
Buy used from: £0.01 A melodrama of guilt and redemption in a middleclass country house, and so much more. The tension builds slowly in this contemporary classic.
|
 | Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder by Evelyn Waugh
Buy new: £5.94 / Used from: £0.01 Oxford and the disappearing Arcadia... and the lavish BBC adaption, of course.
|
 | West with the Night (Virago Travellers) by Beryl Markham
Buy new: £5.98 / Used from: £0.86 A memoir of horse-racing and flying in Africa in the 20s.
|
| Busman's Honeymoon: A Love Story with Detective Interruptions: Play by Dorothy L. Sayers
Buy new: £9.95 Murdery mystery in the English countryside, complete with vicar, gardener and Lord Peter Wimsey
|
 | To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Buy new: £4.31 / Used from: £1.50 Racial oppression in the Deep South, seen from a child's perspective. It really is as good as people have been telling you.
|
 | Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
Buy used from: £4.96 Low-life in Brighton in the 30s.
|
 | As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Buy new: £5.29 / Used from: £1.56 Southern gothic, I believe they call this stuff.
|
 | The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
Buy new: £7.19 / Used from: £2.20 A bittersweet comedy of manners in set in England and France
|
 | Mrs Dalloway (Penguin Popular Classics) by Virginia Woolf
Buy new: £2.16 / Used from: £0.01 London during one day after WW1, full of the despair and joy of the ordinary.
|
 | Goodbye to Berlin (Vintage Crucial Classics) by Christopher Isherwood
Buy used from: £4.49 Stories from Berlin during the rise of the Nazis. The film Cabaret is based on this book.
|
 | The Murder on the Links (Poirot) by Agatha Christie
Buy new: £4.48 / Used from: £0.01 Classic Christie!
|
Listmania!
