Anthony Trollope once said, "A novel should give a picture of common life enlivened by humour and sweetened by pathos." Trollope admirably fulfills his own criteria in this charming third novel in the Chronicles of Barsetshire.
Cicero remarked that old age is a strange business. No one wants to miss it, he said, and everyone complains about it when they get there. Not I, though. Old age comes to us all, and Enfield wittily advises on how to survive its trickier obstacles, not least the people who suggest you must ‘do something’. One of the great delights of the golden years is doing less – from giving up DIY and ambition to not inviting people...