| First Written | 1980 |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Origin | UK |
| Publisher | NYRB Classics |
| My Copy | library paperback |
| First Read | September 29, 2026 |
A Month in the Country
Notes
There are so much specific language about time and place - 1920s countryside England - I was really surprised to find this was published in 1980. I suppose the ethos of it feels more modern!
Noted on September 29, 2026
I read this a few years back after Adam recommended it - it didn’t land particularly for me, and I apparently didn’t even make a listing for it here. But reading it again as part of our book club, and wow, it’s great.
Our hero is a near-penniless art restorer, whose life has blown up during WWI (wife left him, definitely has PTSD from the trenches). He arrives in a small town to work on uncovering a fresco, camps in the belfry, and is slowly drawn back to life and community. It sounds trite but it’s charming while not being cheesy at all.
Our hero is a near-penniless art restorer, whose life has blown up during WWI (wife left him, definitely has PTSD from the trenches). He arrives in a small town to work on uncovering a fresco, camps in the belfry, and is slowly drawn back to life and community. It sounds trite but it’s charming while not being cheesy at all.
Noted on September 29, 2026
Quotes
You know how it is when a tricky job is going well because you're doing things the way they should be done, when you're working in rhythm and feel a reassuring confidence that everything's unraveling naturally and all will be right in the end. That's about it: I knew what I was doing-it's really what being professional means.Quoted on September 29, 2026
Often since that long-ago Sunday, I have wondered why it is that men with large mustaches have this facility of declamatory prayer. For the stationmaster plainly had a fine relationship with his Maker (who he addressed as an old and valued friend: he also had a splendid, free-ranging mustache. Whereas Mr. Jagger's tea-time grace was more propitiatory, uneasily terser: I seem to recall that his mustache was closely clipped.Quoted on September 29, 2026