Try Anything Twice

There are often times when I have 15 or 20 minutes to spare – waiting in the doctor’s surgery, waiting for a child to finish a swimming lesson, waiting for a train, etc, so, although there is nothing like immersing oneself a novel, a book that you can read in short bites is good too. TRY ANYTHING TWICE by Jan Sturther is that kind of book. It’s a collection of short pieces written in the thirties by the author of MRS MINIVER and they are similar: dispatches from middle-class domestic life, but written in the first person. Some of the period details are a little quaint – this is a world of nannies and prep schools – but many of her observations are still spot on. Take for instance her remark that a ten-year old address book makes ‘good, though cryptic reading. How few people one knew in those day . . . And what has become, I wonder, of the Hartley-Whitneys. And who the devil was Mrs Broole?’ And take her comment on parties: ‘Giving a party is very like having a baby: its conception is more fun than its completion, and once you have begun it it is almost impossible to stop.’