Little, Brown Book Group Less Than Angels

INTRODUCED BY SALLEY VICKERS'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' RICHARD OSMAN'She is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heart-breaking silliness of everyday life' ANNE TYLERCatherine Oliphant is a writer and lives with handsome anthropologist Tom Mallow.Their relationship runs into trouble when he begins a romance with student Deirdre Swann, so Catherine turns her attention to the reclusive anthropologist Alaric Lydgate, who has a fondness for wearing African masks.Added to this love tangle are the activities of Deirdre's fellow students and their attempts to win the competition for a research grant. The course of true love or academia never did run smooth. 'Her best [novels] are sheer delight, and all of them companionable.Quiet, paradoxical, funny and sad, they have the iron in them of permanence too' JOHN UPDIKE, NEW YORKER'She can be seriously, hilariously funny - no other novelist has celebrated our national silliness with such exuberance' KATE SAUNDERS