Very easy recommendation as one of my all-time favourites.

Of course, Gibbons wrote the book as a parody of authors such as Mary Webb, DH Lawrence, and Thomas Hardy, and I'm sure that those who are familiar with one or more of them – as long as they don't mind a few sacred cows being sacrificed (not literally!) – will get even more enjoyment out of this novel, but even for readers like myself with just a passing familiarity with them there's a huge amount to love That fake but authentic-sounding dialogue, though, is part of the charm, along with a cast in which pretty much every character is wonderfully memorable, especially Flora herself, while I defy anyone not to be desperate to find out exactly why such a debt is owed to the daughter of Robert Poste.

Yes, the language is deliberately impenetrable in places – particularly the dialogue of the Starkadders, with Seth mollocking with the local ladies, Adam clettering the dishes, and the sukebind forever growing. This has a reputation as one of the funniest books ever written, and it's a well-deserved one. As she meets the preacher Amos, his over-sexed younger son Seth, his flighty sister Elphine, and the hugely memorable – if barely seen – Aunt Ada Doom, the first person in literature to see something nasty in the woodshed – she resolves to take the family in hand and solve their problems. Orphaned at 19, Flora Poste – a London sophisticate – is led to retreat to deepest Sussex to live off her relatives the Starkadders at the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm, a mournful bunch who take her in as they couldn't refuse anything of Robert Poste's child, but seem less than happy with having to do so. Summary: One of the great classics of the 20th century, a riotous romp which never fails to amuse.

Cold comfort farm gibbons