I Capture the Castle

Oct 10, 2024 4:17 AM

Author:Dodie Smith,Valerie Grove

'This book has one of the most charismatic narrators I've ever met' J K Rowling

'I write this sitting in the kitchen sink' is the first line of this timeless, witty and enchanting novel about growing up.

Cassandra Mortmain lives with her bohemian and impoverished family in a crumbling castle in the middle of nowhere. Her journal records her life with her beautiful, bored sister, Rose, her fading glamorous stepmother, Topaz, her little brother Thomas and her eccentric novelist father who suffers from a financially crippling writer's block. However, all their lives are turned upside down when the American heirs to the castle arrive and Cassandra finds herself falling in love for the first time.

'I know of few novels that inspire as much fierce lifelong affection in their readers' Joanna Trollope

**One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**

Reviews

I know of few novels that inspire as much fierce lifelong affection in their readers

—— Joanna Trollope

Everyone I've passed it on to has found it a hit - it works every time, for absolutely everybody

—— Nigella Lawson

Smith rivals Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate series for 1930s toff charm

—— Katy Guest , The Independent

A deliciously evocative portrait of England

—— Tasmina Perry , Daily Mail

Dreamy and funny...an odd, shimmering timelessness clings to its pages. A thousand and one cheers for its reissue. A +

—— Entertainment Weekly

It is an occasion worth celebrating when a sparkling novel, a work of wit, irony and feeling is brought back into print after an absence of many years. So uncork the champagne for I Capture the Castle

—— Los Angeles Times

This rite of passage story about a precocious teenager and her eccentric family is romantic, off-beat and totally magical

—— Red

Influential and much loved novel

—— Sunday Tribune

Much more fun than the reader has any right to expect

—— Weekly Standard

It's as fresh as if it were written this morning and as classic as Jane Austen. I'm very happy to have met it

—— Donald Westlake

A good story, flourishing characters, and the most persuasive narrative voice

—— Guardian

A classic tale of the triumph of youthful naivety over middle-aged cynicism

—— Good Book Guide

Classic coming of age novel

—— Oxford Times

An astonishing graphic novel/memoir whose precise drawings capture Bechdel's life-long hunt for transcendence through physical exertion.

—— Simon Kuper and Murad Ahmed , Financial Times, *Books of the Year*

The biggest event of the year was the return of Alison Bechdel... Bechdel's previous books have made her one of the superstars of graphic fiction, and this funny, perceptive and merciless account shows that...her talent remains undimmed.

—— James Smart , Guardian, *Books of the Year*

The Secret to Superhuman Strength... demands to be reread immediately... and does the reader far more good than a Peloton class and a cup of turmeric tea.

—— Rachel Cooke , Observer, *Books of the Year*

A joyful book, a feast of colour, wit and ideas about living in ever-changing times

—— Max Liu , iNews, *Books of the Year*

The brilliant cartoonist traces her own history of (sometimes obsessive) exercise in this stunning graphic memoir.

—— Bill Hayes , Reader's Digest

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