Our favourite writer to read in the long, dark days
A love note to Barbara Pym
The winter months post Christmas seem to go on forever, and as much as the New Year can spark a new motivation boost into your daily routine, the month quickly feels like it’s dragging.
As written previously, let’s embrace starting January in a different gear. Avoiding all the goals and schedules and leaning into compassion and tenderness. If you’re more of a fiction reader, then this follow up is just for you.
Barbara Pym was fairly new to me, and in the last two years I have gobbled her up. Excellent Women (possibly my favourite, but at the very least the best of her books to start with) has now replaced my go to lovely book gift of Nora Ephron’s Heartburn. (Important side note: I still adore Heartburn, but it’s blown up in popularity so no longer feels like a book you can introduce someone to. Enter Barbara Pym.)
Pym is the perfect dark winter day read - her wit and sarcasm cut through the gloom as a bright light. Her social commentaries of unmarried women in the 1940s in and around parish communities, both London and rural, is filled with humour and a biting sarcasm of what public perception of an acceptable life for these women is. A classic example: marry the vicar.
Disclosure: Books linked to above may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops.