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A funny and heartbreaking new book from one of Britain's favourite and bestselling writers.A Frenchman once pointed out to Louis de Bernieres that Britain was the most exotic country in Europe, adding that it was 'an immense lunatic asylum'. Casting his mind back to the village in southern Surrey where he grew up in the sixties and seventies, but plagued by a novelist's inability to stick to the truth, Louis de Bernieres brings us in Notwithstanding stories of a vanished England which will delight readers of his much-loved novels. The English village was a place where a lady might dress as a man in plus fours and spend her time shooting squirrels with a twelve bore, or keep a vast menagerie in her house. A retired general might give up wearing clothes, a spiritualist might live in a cottage with her sister and the ghost of her husband, and people might think it quite natural to confide in a spider that lives in a potting shed. De Bernieres' characters roam through the book, appearing in each other's stories and painting a picture of an entire community. Here we find the atmosphere of those times as it was in the countryside. Notwithstanding is not about an imagined idyll; it is about people who are worth remembering, whose lives are worth celebrating, and who would otherwise have been forgotten.
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I first heard about this book in a YouTube video and decided to check it out when I saw that my library had a copy. It lived up to its cozy recommendation. A quick and easy read, and at its core, cute.
Nothwithstanding is a collection of short stories set in a small English town. The stories sometimes intertwine and go in and out of different perspectives. There isn't a whole lot of action. Each story is very character (focusing on certain characters more than others) oriented while each individual represents their role in this community.
I liked some of the stories, others I could have done without. One in particular had me perplexed (and not in a good or inquisitive way). Otherwise, I enjoyed the quaintness of the book even though I didn't connect deeply with any of the characters.