For the first time since its original publication fifty years ago, a reprint of Stella Gibbons's short story collection Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm is going hit bookshelves next week. Cold Comfort Farm is one of my all-time favorite books, but I've only seen this prequel on AbeBooks, where an original edition can run you between $200 and $4000(!!!) dollars. I had no idea a reprint was in the works, so I'm regarding this news as a glorious, totally unanticipated holiday gift from the literary gods, for which I am sincerely grateful.

Labels: Classic books, Stella Gibbons

Aw, my beloved Cold Comfort Farm got a shout-out in Laura Miller's Salon article about Invisible Libraries, collections of books that only exist within works of fiction. (Books like the guidebook The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which lives inside Douglas Adams's novel of the same name.) Like Ms. Miller, I've always yearned to read the imaginary philosophical tracts written by the (equally imaginary) Abbé Fausse-Maigre, a French cleric whose wise words guide the heroine through her various trials in Cold Comfort Farm. Author Stella Gibbons only features a few direct quotes from the Abbé, but they're clearly words to live by:

"Never arrive at a house at a quarter past three. It is a dreadful hour; too early for tea and too late for luncheon..."

"Condole with the Ugly Duckling's mother. She has fathomed the pit of amazement."

And my favorite:

"Never confront an enemy at the end of a journey, unless it happens to be his journey."

Labels: Stella Gibbons

And speaking of reprints, I see they're finally reproduced something of Stella Gibbons' other than my beloved Cold Comfort Farm! Thanks to the fine people at Virago Press, the first edition of Nightingale Wood since the '70s comes out in April.

Note: Don't get your hopes up, Cold Comfort fans. Thanks to the generosity of my friend Keith (who lent me his library card with no thought of self), I've had a chance to read Nightingale Wood, and, while amusing, Cold Comfort Farm II: The Equally Awesome Return it isn't.

Labels: Reprints, Stella Gibbons, Upcoming Books

According to my mother, who saw it on the news, today is supposed to be the gloomiest day of the year. The weather tends to be bad, Christmas bills are due, and most people have broken their New Year's resolutions. (It's also the day after my birthday, so I choose to believe that the world is just recovering from the massive celebrations they held in my honor the day before.) Anyway, if you're feeling particularly ghastly today, here are the Wordcandy staff's picks for best comfort reading:

Meg's pick:


Nathan's pick:


And mine (which is, of course, the best):

Labels: Bone, Comic, Stella Gibbons, Susan Elizabeth Phillips

...check out this new cover art for Cold Comfort Farm. I'm not sure what I think of it:


Naturally, any new cover art means that the book will once again be re-released, and that's always awesome. But I'm still ambivalent about this particular style.

Labels: Book Cover, Stella Gibbons

Excerpt from:
Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons

Why you should buy a copy of your very own:
Well, it's one of my favorite books...what, don't you trust me? Fine, then. It's the story of a young woman named Flora Poste, who fights a brave battle to force her wackjob relatives to behave like normal human beings, rather than extras from a D.H. Lawrence novel.

In this scene...
Our heroine, Flora, and her cousin Reuben, are discussing Aunt Ada Doom. Aunt Ada Doom is the weirdest of the bunch, so there's a fair amount to discuss.


"'She-she's mad.'

Fat and dark, the word lay between them in the indifferent air. Time, which had been behaving normally lately, suddenly began to spin upon a bright point in endless space. It never rains but it pours.

'Oh,' said Flora, thoughtfully.

So that was it. Aunt Ada Doom was mad. You would expect, by all the laws of probability, to find a mad grandmother at Cold Comfort, and for once the laws of probability had not done you down and a mad grandmother there was.

Flora observed, tapping her shoe with her walking stick, that it was very awkward.

'Aye,' said Rueben, ''Tes terrible. And her madness takes the form of wantin' to know everything as goes on. She has to see all the books twice a week: the milk book an' the chicken book an' the pig book and corn book. If we keeps the books back, she has an attack. 'Tes terrible. She's the head of the family, ye see. We mun keep her alive at all costs. She never comes down but twice a year-on the first of May and on the last day of the harvest festival. If anybody eats too much, she has an attack. 'Tes terrible.'

'It is indeed,' agreed Flora. It struck her that Aunt Ada Doom's madness had taken the most convenient form possible. If everybody who went mad could arrange in what way it was to take them, she felt pretty sure they would all choose to be mad like Ada Doom."

(c)Stella Gibbons, 1932

Labels: Snippet, Stella Gibbons