Old Style Inspiration Books

reader12

This is called 'The Ripening Sun' by Patricia Atkinson and is really inspirational. the vineyard is near Bergerac and is required reading if you ever dreamt of doing the same - VERY hard work! she has since written a sequel I have yet to read but have elsewhere for a barren book moment!

Also set in France are the three books 'A House in the Sunflowers' by Ruth Silvestre about a holiday home in France and the two sequels. My mum and I re-read them on a regular basis- real good feel factor and a non-patronising relationship (real friendship) with their French farming neighbours.

My other French favourite, translated from the French, is the trilogy starting with Firelight and Woodsmoke by Claude Michelet about a farming family from the end of the
nineteenth century and nearly up to date. it is fascinating to see the 1st WW from the French viewpoint but the books are really about the depopulation of the countryside and the complete changes in lifestyle during that period. they are novels but the author still lives in the northern Dordogne region in which they are set.


You wrote:
I did read a wonderful book about a couple who bought a vineyard in France. He eventually got sick and left France but she continued and turned the shambles into a great success with the villages help. Really annoyed I can't remember the name but I think the title was the name of the vineyard. hmmm. Ring any bells with anyone? Have a feeling it was dramatised on tv.[/QUOTE]

Hardup_Hester

Don't forget John Seymore's books, the guy was into self sufficiency in a big way & though his books are more like instruction manuals, they are very funny in places, he & his wife bought a farm/smallholding & moved there with their 3 small children. He used to have people come to stay & would teach them how to become self sufficient, some were fine, but some of them thought it was a sort of holiday & were horrified by the amount of work involved.

tesuhoha

I would recommend A Woman of Substance by Barbara Taylor Bradford (a rags to riches story) and the Potters House by Rosie Thomas.

Spangle_O'Malley

THIRZAH wrote: »

I enjoyed "The Country Child" by Alison Uttley (she wrote the Little Grey Rabbit books). It's based on her own childhood in Derbyshire. Her father was a farmer and she was an only child. The farm was four miles from the school and she had to walk, alone, cross country, every day.She describes the life on the farm, their meals and what she got for Christmas-it's a lovely book.

OMG!! Thank you Thank you Thank you!! I've been trying to recall the name & author of this book for aaaaages! All I could remember was her walking along this frozen track in the winter. Nothing else. So I couldn't search for it online or anything. This is it! Oooh, I'm so excited! Can you tell? lol

competitionscafe

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Country-Child-Alison-Uttley/dp/1903252016

Dolly_Mixture

I have really enjoyed this thread. I love Laura Ingalls Wilder, Christine Marion Fraser, Helen Forrester. My daughter has just started reading Milly-Molly-Mandy because I dug the books out.

Some other books I would recommend are the trilogy The Light Years, etc oops I cannot remember them all but they are about a family living through the second world war. Although the family is well-to-do and has servants etc it makes you realise how they and the servants lived, how the war affected everyone and shaped the world after the war. Another one I have read recently is "Nobody in Particular" by Cherry Simmonds. She grew up in Liverpool just after the war and was from a poor family. She remembers needing to have a navy cardigan for the school prize giving and having to knit it herself, how much her first house cost (and the state it was in!), going to the Cavern to see the Beetles - it is a very interesting and funny memoir. Another favorite is the "Tightwad Gazette" although that is not really a novel, the author does tell you a lot about her life and philosophy which is interesting.

System

As a young child i grew up loving Enid Blytons books. I read them over and over again and they enchanted me every time. As i reached my teenage years i fell in love with the Waltons who lived on Waltons Mountain. I went on to have my own 'Walton sized' brood as the years progressed.

Sweet_Pea_2

I love this thread its great!
I absolutely loved Enid Blyton when I was young, and I have tried so hard to wrestle my daughter away from Jacqueline Wilson and persuade her to read a Famous Five, or an Adventure story, I also liked the Five Find Outers (and dog) and the circus stories, but she's not interested. Like Lillibet I also got a set of Enid Blyton audio books from the newspaper last year, Ive also bought a couple of Famous Five videos from ebay which both DD's enjoyed but not enough to want to read the books. (Although DD2 is listening to the Paddington Bear audio books that were free with the newspaper and has been sufficiently interested to ask me to get my old Paddingtons from the loft - she was even more captivated when she discovered that I had written my name, age and address on the inside cover and I was exactly her age (8) but peeved because my handwriting was neater than hers!)
I have read a lot of the books that have been mentioned and really enjoyed them, but I have never watched or read any "Little House on the Prarie" but managed to buy a copy of "The Little House in the Big Woods" on Friday from the Oxfam bookshop (with 3/6 on the front cover!) and I have ordered a couple from the library.
I recently bought a set of "The Good Life" videos from a charity shop, I think I was too young to really take this in when it was on originally but am really enjoying watching it.

twink

i am now going to the library with a big list of books to look for i also enjoy Margaret Dickinsons books, they are historical rural sagas among them are paupers gold, chaff upon the wind and without sin

Plum_Pie

Lizzie_Jane wrote: »

The Unlucky Family by Mrs Henri de la Pasture*, mother of E. M. DelaField, who anglicized her name when she authored Diary of an Edwardian Lady, another excellent read.

* Loved it in childhood and tracked down years later at the Folio Society (Introduction by Auberon Waugh and young daughter Daisy). For children of all ages!

I could go happily on...

OH MY GOD!!! :j

I read this once in a holiday cottage when I was about 10. Decided I wanted to reread it last week when I was on a nostalgia trip due to buying a couple of picture books for a friend's new baby and spent 2 HOURS doing internet research trying to find out it's title and author! (Now proud owner of old, hardback edition from ABE books.:T )

I can't believe you've heard of it as well. When I was trying to find out the title I honestly thought I must have imagined it!