a really beautiful summer read about a war veteran who gets a job restoring a painting in a church in rural England and finds his own restoration among the people and the life there
Jun 29, 2025
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I read this novella all in one sitting on the train to Bath, and I haven't been able to stop thing about it. Set in the 1920s, the main character is shellshocked WWI veteran who ventures into the British countryside to restore a mural in an old church. But it feels like more than an anti war novel, its about the end of summer, the passage of time and modernity, finding your place in a changing world. A Month in the Country is a celebration of brokenness — not the suffering of brokenness but, rather, the vulnerability that brokenness brings.
“We can ask and ask but we can’t have again what once seemed ours for ever — the way things looked, that church alone in the fields, a bed on a belfry floor, a remembered voice, the touch of a hand, a loved face. They’ve gone and you can only wait for the pain to pass.
All this happened so long ago. And I never returned, never wrote, never met anyone who might have given me news of Oxgodby. So, in memory, it stays as I left it, a sealed room furnished by the past, airless, still, ink long dry on a put-down pen.”
Mar 18, 2025
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Tom Birkin, a WWI vet, moves to an idyllic northern English small town to restore an uncovered mural at the town’s old chapel. This short and focused poetic little story is subtle but great, and basically a 1 day read for anyone.
Jan 5, 2023
😃
feels a little bit like a summer book and i love hemingways writing style
Jun 15, 2025
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Oct 6, 2024
did not expect to catch a bunch of Italian punk bands from Como in the middle of England last night - but it was a dream. And a reminder of the fucking strange, beautiful nature of music, and the organic networks of community that blossom from picking up instruments and starting a band.
East Anglia has a p strong punk/hardcore/everything adjacent scene and a couple of old heads started a regular all-day gig - East Angrier. These heads had supported a band in Italy and they promised to return the favour.
So here they were, flooding the bar by early evening with sweat, angst, charm and frenetic bursts of Italian as they ordered pints of Guinness.
Pictured is The Forest Calling, who took the roof off the place 🇮🇹
Oct 13, 2024
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(getting high and organising my playlists)
Mar 1, 2025