It is the Mirabile Dictu summer giveaway! Leave a comment if you would like either or both of the following books. You have an excellent chance of “winning,” especially compared to your very slight chance of winning a book at Goodreads!
Barbara Trapido’s Brother of the More Famous Jack. The winner of the Whitbread Special Prize for Fiction in 1982, this charming comedy is slightly reminiscent of the early novels of Margaret Drabble (The Millstone, etc.). The heroine, Katherine, is a very pretty girl who loves fashionable clothes. When her “date,” a middle-aged bisexual man who picks her up in a bookstore, takes her for the weekend to the home of her philosophy professor, Jacob Goldman,she falls in love with the whole family. After a disastrous affair with one of the sons, she moves to Italy. When she returns a decade later, her circumstances have changed and so have the Goldmans’. A poignant and witty novel.
Nancy Mitford’s The Blessing. I love Mitford’s novels, and while this comedy of manners is very slight, it is entertaining. This is a 1951 Book-of-the-Month edition with a charming if sightly tatty cover.
The jacket copy says: “Grace Allingham, a naive English rose, marries Charles-Edouard de Valhubert, a French aristo who doesn’t believe in fidelity. Both are duped, meantime, by their son Sigismund — the Blessing of the title — a juvenile Machiavelli who mixes Gallic cunning with Saxon thoroughness to become one of Mitford’s most memorable characters.”
Bona fortuna! as we say in Latin.
Americans and Canadians welcome to enter! I love the rest of you, too, but the postage is too high.
mirabile dictu 
Throw my name into the hopper for The Blessing!
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What a pity! And why do I read blogs in English instead of French: I would have a chance to get a give away. “The Blessing” is wonderfully funny, as is “Don’t Tell Alfred” – speaking of novels placed in France. Barbara Trapido, I don’t know: heard of her but never read anything. I shall add her to my TBR list… 🙂
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I love Mitford! Trapido is also great.
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I would like the Mitford as it is one I haven’t read yet.
I’ll even send you one of my surplus books in return!
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I’ve just re-read the Trapido and have every intention of re-reading ‘Temples of Delight’ and ‘Juggling’ as well. I read somewhere that she i.e. writing a new book that is about Jane’s eightieth birthday party, which would allow us to catch up with all the characters we have got to know so well in the earlier books.
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Ooh! I’ll look forward to the new Trapido. Bloomsbury is reissuing her work in paperback, and I am just moving on to Temples of Delight.
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Set “Brother of the More Famous Jack” in Texas and it’s a bullseyefor for my sister! Seriously, who hasn’t loved their professor and his family? I want this book!
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Two for The Blessing? One for the Brother? Is that all we’ve got? I’ll get back you you later today.:)
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I can’t believe more people don’t want the Trapido. She’s wonderful! And Alex said a new book is coming out. Yay!
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Everybody has a good chance of winning my giveaways.:) Strangely, I thought people would be more interested in Trapido than the Mitford, which just shows I don’t know. Anyway, I’m more than happy to give it to Nell. I just thought, Where are the others?
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Summer vacations?
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There’s a thought!
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