{"product_id":"happy-returns-9781504092838","title":"Happy Returns","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"Her writing celebrates the solid parochial English virtues of stiff-upper-lippery, good-sportingness, [and] dislike of fuss. . . . Light, witty, easygoing books.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs 1951 draws to a close, Christmas approaches--but the conservative upper class of Barsetshire have already received the gift they really wanted: Winston Churchill's re-election as prime minister. Nevertheless, their individual struggles carry on. A member of the House of Lords worries that marriage is not in the cards for him due to an insufficient fortune, while another man does manage to get engaged--but frets that his betrothed doesn't truly love him. The widow Lady Lufton misses her husband--as well as the money she's lost to taxes. And an aspiring scholar falls madly in love, but must choose between Oxford and the object of his affections . . . \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[This] characteristically witty, nostalgic . . . novel in the beloved Barsetshire series describes the lingering effects of WWII on the fictional village that Thirkell adapted from its Victorian inventor and chronicler, Anthony Trollope.\" --\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAngela Thirkell (1890-1961) was a British author whose ability to produce one book a year, every year, and \u003ci\u003eset \u003c\/i\u003ein that year blurred the lines between novelist and social historian. Like so many of the writers that she admired--Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, George Eliot--Thirkell shared their X-ray vision: an unmatched ability to assess the hypocrisies, desires, and prejudices of her characters and, better still, play them for laughs. Her biggest literary project, the Barsetshire Chronicles, consists of twenty-nine novels, each acting as another slice of English country life; a utopian vision of bucolic countryside, grand manors, and village fêtes.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51998193549586,"sku":"9781504092838","price":22.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_242389f9-56c3-45da-b1db-714e3420ce93.jpg?v=1770143250","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/happy-returns-9781504092838","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}