Without further ado – I love this quirky little book! Its gentle, understated humour had me chuckling and chortling like one of those horrible laughing toys we used to give our kids. As I do a lot of my reading on the loo I’m sure the neighbours must be totally mystified by the sounds coming from my house. But I care not! I’m still in Barsetshire and I’m still smiling.
Now, for some facts. ‘My Barsetshire Diary’ is written by Lord David Prosser [yes he is a real lord] and is set somewhere in England or Wales. All of the characters are based on real people living ordinary lives. Nothing terrible or scurrilous happens. There is no gossip. There are no shocking scandals. In fact all the events in the book are so ordinary that you would think the book must be boring, yet it is anything but boring because Lord Prosser finds the comic in the everyday and carries us along for the ride.
The style of this book reminds me of those stand-up comedians who make us laugh because they show us the funny side of our own lives. Of course Lord Prosser lives the life of those to the manor born but his humour shows us that ‘they’ are no different to ‘us’. We all have the same sorts of problems and we all have the same sorts of foibles. This is human scale humour at its best.
I would have to rate this little gem 11/10.
