Customer Reviews

Summer at Fairacre

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This particular year in the English village of Fairacre has seen a cold snowy winter. On the first day of spring, the grounds are still filled with snow. Custodial worker Mrs. Pringle is not just her usual sourpuss self. She claims her leg has not flared up as it has on numerous occasions due to the mistakes of the schoolmistress Miss Read. This time Miss Read learns that Mrs. Pringle's niece with the low IQ caused the noticeable limp. However, unlike the many "bad leg" moments in the past, to the schoolmistress' shock, Mrs. Pringle quits.

Everyone looks forward to the warmth of summer. For the school employees including Miss Read and most villagers, the highlight of the summer is the wedding of teacher Miss Briggs. As Spring slowly turns to Summer and the wedding nears, Miss Read's friend Amy begins to act strange and ultimately vanishes. Miss Read wonders if Amy is okay, what else will happen before school starts anew, and who will become the new custodian?

SUMMER AT FAIRACRE is a leisurely cozy look at a small English village. The story line is fun for those readers who want to kick back and follow a relaxing tale filled with friendly charcaters (and one not so friendly individual). Anyone who wants to observe life in a small village during the latter half of the twentieth century, this novel and the entire series provides an unhurried but insightful look.

Harriet Klausner

I highly recommend Miss Read books to everyone who enjoys reading stories about small towns with characters who have English wit and humor. It is wonderful that these books are being reprinted.

My wife took this series out of our local library for a car trip. Prunella Scales (Fawlty Towers) is the reader and does a wonderful job. I've never read Miss Read before but definitely want to now. I feel like I've already visited Fairacre!

A visit to Fairacre is always a welcome trip, particularly in the village's lovely summer months. And while a trip to cozy Fairacre is always to be cherished, it is particularly nice to see Miss Read finally get the upper hand with the curmudgeonly Mrs. Pringle. It was also nice to see Miss Read's much-tested friend Amy from Bent finally get a bit of her own back against her philandering husband James. I was figuratively cheering for them at the book's end.

All in all, a summer of excellent outcomes.

Could any book about Fairacre not be great? Miss Read is a wonderful writer capturing true to life people and events. I'm trying to get every book Miss Read ever wrote! I love her books.

While I am not someone who is particularly seeking adventure and longing to live on the wild side, I'm afraid my own life story would frighten the main character to a dead faint on the spot. That is as plain true a description can be made for a novel in desperately desirous need of a little spice and sizzle. This unnapealing and even toned dud is so unwelcomed in it's old-fashioned attitude, so noticeably out of date, that is it tooth grinding to get through. In all it's faults, perhaps worse off is how the author completely fails in both capturing the essence of humanity and a timeless, lasting appeal.

I even found the book's description to be so frivolous in it's worries, (is that really all there is to this simple book?), so much that it comes across as really funny, which certainly wasn't the author's intent. No, that couldn't be true because in fact even though the book has little humor, the main character's sense of fun is worse being so commonly plain throughout, that one has to think and then upon comprehension, a first response is to dismiss it quickly having found it horribly anti-social. A good recommendation really is that one could and should in fact read a screenplay to the 'Waltons' before picking up this tiresome, out of touch, babbling and boring story which is comparable only to an old ladies' private medical journal. The questions that I ask are, how did author Miss Read get this ratty thing published? And has the world really changed this much in only 15 years, since the time of it's publishing?

I will say that Miss Read has a nice vocabulary which she incorporates flowingly into her writing style, and so the vocabulary is its saving grace, yet good writing is to be expected from an adult novel. Without that between the lines, I imagine the plot would be so utterly simple and contain character dialogue so grittingly uninteresting, that it would have no distinction from a girl's young adult oh-so-pleasant fictional published in the 1950's era.

All in all, the strong points make this book a worthwhile read, yet it still purrs one 'P' too many in pppppleasant to consider it a good, substantial read. Expect it to be found only in flea markets or antique shops come 10-15 years down the road.