Free Christmas At Cold Comfort Farm Conveyed By Stella Gibbons Provided As EPub

book is so depressing I gave up halfway through!!! Dreary and disappointing, The story 'Christmas at cold comfort farm' appears to be set on a hellish farm peopled by those who are mentally ill, 'Sisters' is desperately sad, and 'A charming man' is simply horrid, This is more scandi noir than Christmas cheer!!!! I have no idea why it took me so long to find and then read this book, It's hard to believe it was written in, the style of humour and the witheringly dry observations are so current, I won't churn out the plot again, as others have more than covered that along with a load of spoilers, but this book had me in stitches, Ok, it's wildly far fetched, but then the best humour so often is.
Don't be put off by it being "a classic" or by the period when it was written, it could have been written last week, and it's a belting read.
More light holiday reading for this year, This book consists of someshort stories by the author of “Cold Comfort Farm, ” I must say the title story is the best of the bunch by far, but I may be biased by having read “Cold Comfort Form” see my review and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Nonetheless, most of these tales are, I think, geared towards women of thes and have a common theme of finding love where and when one is not really looking for it, often after having looked elsewhere with mightily negative results and/or seeing the person for who they really are.
The most enjoyable of these stories for me were “The Friend of Man” sort of a variant on Jane Austins “Emma,” or perhaps the movie “Clueless,” based upon same “The Wild, Wild Party,” “More than Kind,” and “Golden Vanity,” in which the protagonist learns first hand the axiom that one shouldnt meet ones heroes.

Nonetheless, there are several other stories with different themes “To Love and Cerish” is O, Henrys “The Gift of the Magi” but with a sad twist, “The Murder Mark” is what happens when perhaps the likes of Sherlock Holmes and Inspector Poirot were to join forces to solve a mystery, “The Little Christmas Tree” describes the redemption, if you will, of a lonely spinster from an unexpected source,
All of these are enjoyable to a greater or lesser extent, However, the title story is the crowning jewel in this collection, Warning: Read “Cold Comfort Farm” before this story, as the former introduces and fleshes out the characters and the deplorable state of both the family and the farm itself, before the arrival of the plucky Flora Poste.
This is everyones favorite bunch of derelicts, led by the aptly named Ada Doom, a more hilariously dysfunctional bunch Ive not run across, So Adam, the farmhand, puts on a couple of Adas red shawls to play Santa Claus and goes about with a feed bag for his Santa bag, filling everyones hung stockings with fruits and vegetables but the stockings have holes in them, so the family keeps tripping on the “presents” that have fallen through the holes.
And in another scenario, there is the tradition of “The Years Luck,” a sort of variation of the Mardi Gras King Cake with the baby baked therein to either represent the Baby Jesus or General good luck, or to identify who will bake next years King Cake.
Well, baked into the Dooms Christmas Pudding are various articles representing negative happenings to family members over the next year, for example, a coffin nail signals death before the New Year a menthol cone signals going blind with headache a roll of stickingplaster means breaking a leg, and so on.
The only family member with any common sense at all is the freespirited Elfine, who finds a way to celebrate that has at least some positivity to it.
Great fun all around.
Alexander McCall Smith, in the books introduction, acknowledges that Ms, Gibbons success as a writer tended to wane after the wild success of “Cold Comfort Farm,” because its hard to top that plot and character description, I would agree. All the same, I did enjoy this collection and would recommend it, I also plan to read “Conference at Cold Comfort Farm,” the sequel to the original, Four.
The book title is slightly deceiving, Its not all Christmas nor Cold Comfort Farm, But, it is all enjoyable, This is a book of short stories, I loved them all. Ms. Gibbons wrote during a time when morality and good standards still mattered, Thankfully, she also enjoyed a tidy happy ending even if much of it was left to your imagination, Im so glad I own this one,

Quotes from Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm that I liked,

“Tolerance has two sides, you know, ”

“A marriagehas got to have a wall around it, like a garden, Inside the wall everythings safe, Its got to be, so that the fruit can growand the children, ”
“But surely all marriages arent like a wall garden”
“All proper marriages are,” answered her husband, I love the line "'The turkey gave out, . . " I have been looking forward so much to reading these stories, although I approached it nervously as I had read some fairly luke warm reviews, If anything I was disappointed in the title story it was too short I wanted more, the only other Christmassy story was charming though, Overall I so enjoyed these old fashioned stories, and it has made me want to read more Stella Gibbons, I of course read Cold Comfort farm years and years ago, and it is now time for a reread I think, I also have Westwood and Starlight on my ever expanding TBR, Theses new Vintage editions are very attractive looking books, Stella Gibbons' stories are obviously set in a world that no longer exists, they are about bored housewives, aging Bright Young Things, "modern" career women, spinsters in country villages and librarians.
Often the endings are not much of a surprise, but they are generally just what the reader wants, and this makes them wholly satisfying, In his introduction to the new Vintage edition, Alexander McCall Smith writes about the short story as an art form, His description of the modern short story made me smile and nod in agreement, These short stories come from a different time, They were written before it was fashionable to create a mood or to leave the reader artistically hanging, The modern short story are just the kind I usually hate, These lovely stories however, are just the kind I love,
I wasnt expecting much from this volume of short stories because in the recesses of my mind I thought I remembered tepid reviews of it, Well, perhaps that was another Cold Comfort Farm title of hers, . . Conference at Cold Comfort Farm I dunno, all I do know is that I like these stories, For one reason or another they hit the spot,for me. I am on a quest to read as many of Gibbons works of fiction as I can,

There is an Introduction to this book by Alexander McCall Smith fromyears ago, . . he likens her to Barbara Pym although he says Pym is a better writer, . . I

dont know about that and writes I think correctly that the stories in this collection are rather clearcut, . . the plot is usually easy to understand and there is a clear ending in most cases, Youre not left with “What the hell did I just read I dont understand it, ” None of that.

Here they are in the order in which they appeared, The stories were originally published in The Lady, The Bystander, Nashs Magazine, Penguin Parade, The Good Housekeeping, and The Evening Standard,
. The Little Christmas Treestars
, Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm,stars
. To Love and To Cherishstars
, The Murder Mark.stars
. The Hoofer and the Ladystars
, Sisters.stars
. The Walled Garden.stars
. A Charming Manstars
, Golden Vanitystars
. Poor, Poor Black Sheepstars
, More Than kind.stars
. The Friend of Manstars
, Tame Wild Partystars
, A Young Man in Ragsstars
, Cakestars
. Mr. Amberlys Brother.stars

These stories will probably not stick with me for more than a week, Theyre relatively light. Some of the endings were sappy, Lots of stories where people fall instantly in love, . . Still and all, perhaps because I went into this thinking this was going to be a bad read, I was pleasantly wrong!

Note:
In two of the stories there was reference to The Four Years War.
This book was published in, so I am assuming she was referring to World War One, And it dawned on me that that was indeed a possible name for it, because inthere was no World War Two it was just around the corner, however.
But when I googled that term, I could find no reference to it being another name for WWI, Has anyone else heard WWI being referred to as the Four Years War, It makes sense, doesnt it, . .
This is theth work of fiction I have read by Stella Gibbons, I havemore to go that includesother collections of short stories,

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Nice review, . . sitelink theguardian. com/books/
another good review bit read it after you read the stories, . . she gives a bit too much away regarding them, . . sitelink co. uk/
sitelink thebookbag. co. uk/reviews/C
sitelink com/christm
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