Latest reading

Miss Buncle's Book - somehow it doesn't sound all that fascinating, does it?  Of course, the less than inspiring cover picture doesn't really help either.  However, bear with it, because this book is a great fun read which made me laugh out loud while I was reading it.  Written in the 1930s, it is the story of a spinster living in a quintessential English village who has no money coming in and has decided to write a book about something she knows - the inhabitants of the village.  Of course, this causes outrage once the villagers read the book and they cannot work out who wrote it.  Needless to say, everything works out most satisfactorily.
While I was devouring the story, which I read on Saturday afternoon having collected the book from the local library that morning, time and again I was thinking what a great film this would make, with a plethora of fantastic roles for English actors/actresses in it.  The likes of Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Celia Imrie and perhaps Emma Thompson as the eponymous Miss Buncle would bring this to life on the screen - I could almost see it as I read.  It would make a wonderfully escapist film, one with a seemingly gentle story but actually, Miss Buncle is a very shrewd, clever, witty, observant woman (I imagine her as a kind of Jane Austen of her community) and it is her perceptive words that cause the villagers such embarrassment.  I need to find out about the author too because she shares a lot with her creation in that her writing is clever, witty and funny. I do think it is a film that could be made so well...  If only I had the contacts!