Queen Lucia (original 1920; edition 2011)

First novel in his Lucia series that has been praised since it was published. It's just an exquisite portrait of a society where pretentiousness, fake emotion, fake culture are the norm. A wonderful satirical view of a class of people that are still very much alive today. Human nature doesn't change that much. Best example the poor Mrs Quantock and her addiction to fads from yoga to medium to Christian diet and so on. There is no real plot but the incisive portraits of the people inhabiting this little quaint bourgeois village of Riseholme is very entertaining. The plotting of who's on top of the food chain and the sweet but hardly innocent artiste that moves to the village and runs to the ground Lucia's little castle offer quite a romp. These characters aren't bad, a little shallow, a little short in compassion but highly fun to read about or to listen to since Queen Lucia is available in audiobook at LibriVox (free to download) ( )

This book, recommended as "just like Wodehouse", turned out to be as much like Wodehouse as the fluid given Arthur Dent when he asked the Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser for tea. Which is to say- not my cuppa. ( )

This book and the others in the series were so much fun that I'm tempted to hunt it up and read it again. ( )

Wow, what an incredibly bitchy book. My goodness, how dare middle-class people enjoy art and music?!

i remembered the tv show as i listened yo this. very silly but entertaining. ( )