One of my longstanding guilty pleasures are Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire novels, set in Trollope's fictional Barsetshire roughly a century later. The 29-book series falls into three groups: prewar, war and post-war; order doesn't matter much within them.
I'm going to nominate the second novel,
Wild Strawberries. As with many second-in-series, Thirkell was finding her legs and it's better than the first. Those who like between-the-wars jeux d'esprit will find much to laugh at here.
I couldn't find a good description that didn't give away too much, so I'll quote bits from a couple of reviews:
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Deliciously funny, to use a Thirkellism. This book is absolutely perfect to read when you are feeling glum and under the weather -- it will make you laugh out loud. The upper-class characters at its centre are ridiculously wonderful, all so self-absorbed that they pay no attention to other people and are constantly getting hold of the wrong end of the stick. Lady Emily's attempts to organise everyone and everything are sensibly ignored by the lower-class characters who actually get things done. The bunch of French royalists seemed a bit of a bizarre idea, but just added to the joyful chaos. I think my favourite scene was the lunch in the restaurant with David, Joan and Mary -- sparks fly from Thirkell's pen in a positively Austenish way.
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A summer at an English Country-house in the 1930s, with all the accompanying silliness and minor inconveniences and class issues that one might expect from such a setting. It is laugh-out-loud funny: there is a wonderfully irreverent joy in the foibles, idiocies, and innocent pleasures of minor gentry.
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Public domain in Canada and free at
Faded Page as are several other Thirkells, not in order! US$5.99, AU$12.99, UK £3.99.
Several others of the books in the series are available in the US and for as little as $3.99, but I thought I'd go with a very early one.