Dear Great Book Guru, I will be spending this Sunday- Mother’s Day- with friends and family here in Sea Cliff and I would love to give gifts to everyone. A book is always my first choice so if you have a suggestion…..

Perennial Book Giver

Dear Perennial Book Giver,  I just finished a wonderful book I would definitely recommend: MOTHERING SUNDAY by Graham Swift.  Mothering Sunday was celebrated in England on the fourth Sunday of Lent –it was the day wealthy landowners would give their servants time off  to return home to visit their mothers. This very short novel (177 pages) takes place on one Mothering Sunday in 1924 – an unseasonably warm day that would change Jane Fairchild’s life forever.  As an orphan , Jane has no mother to visit so instead she spends the afternoon with the young heir to the neighboring manor Paul Sheringham, who has been her lover for the last six years. He is to be married in two weeks so this is to be their farewell.  Jane describes in exquisite detail the luminous beauty of the day, the house, the food, the gardens. She will remember this day throughout her very long life- we learn she lives well into her nineties  and will become an internationally celebrated author. Reminiscent of Virginia Woolf’s  “Mrs. Dalloway,” the novels of Barbara Pym, Joseph Conrad’s “Youth”and, yes- a touch of “Downton Abbey,” this  book- this day- is one you too will long remember.  Recommended!