Christmas pudding

An outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease may have terminated the hunting at the Compton Bobbins' in the Cotswolds, but it has not dampened the Yuletide spirit of the Bright Young Things who find themselves among the oddly assorted guests of the not-so young and quite formidable Lady Maria Bobbin. Hilarious misadventures abound as Lady Bobbin's serenely beautiful daughter, Philadelphia, meets the advances of the very eligible, and equally dull, Lord Lewis and of the charming but penniless Paul Fotheringay, whose terribly serious first novel has, to his dismay, just been hailed by critics as the funniest book of the year. With signature wit and gentle mockery, not to mention her acid malice for the second-rate, Nancy Mitford romps rippingly through the wold and the life of the county set in the cozy English 1930s.