Rating: 
Summary: A "slapstick" novel of manners?
Review: Could there be such a thing as a "slapstick" novel of manners? This one might qualify, for its humour both witty and broad and its country-house setting.Our highly-educated heroine Flora Poste, intelligent, witty, but fashion-addled, aimless, and seemingly shallow, descends on her rural relatives when her parents die leaving her penniless. Sharp parodies of rural England, the family includes, among others, an insane matriarch locked in her room, a love-mad and graceless granddaughter, a grandson who plays the same role among the maids that the bull does among the cows, an antique manservant who fails to notice when a cow's leg falls off. In short order Flora contrives to marry off the granddaughter to a local grandee, packs the grandson off to Hollywood, and generally manages things so craftily that everyone not only lives Happily Ever After but also does so with Good Manners and better haircuts. The most winning feature of Gibbon's book (after the fact that it is hysterically funny) is that she skewers not only the conventions of the 1930s upper classes to which Flora belongs, but also the working class denizens of the farm. At first everyone seems faintly ridiculous but over time your affections for ALL these characters grows. By the end you are actually happy to see them all happily settled, and Flora no longer seems like a conniver but a clever and sympathetic heroine-more Elizabeth Bennet than Becky Sharpe. A very neat trick on the part of the author, and one well worth the discovering. One miniscule note of caution: Gibbons, writing in the 1930s, sets her novel "in the near future," and adds a couple of futuristic features that confuse the casual reader-telephones with televisions in them so you can see the speaker, references to the "Anglo-Nicaraguan War" and the like. You may safely ignore them without diminishing the book.
Rating:
Summary: A "slapstick" novel of manners?
Review: Could there be such a thing as a "slapstick" novel of manners? This one might qualify, for its humour both witty and broad and its country-house setting. Our highly-educated heroine Flora Poste, intelligent, witty, but fashion-addled, aimless, and seemingly shallow, descends on her rural relatives when her parents die leaving her penniless. Sharp parodies of rural England, the family includes, among others, an insane matriarch locked in her room, a love-mad and graceless granddaughter, a grandson who plays the same role among the maids that the bull does among the cows, an antique manservant who fails to notice when a cow's leg falls off. In short order Flora contrives to marry off the granddaughter to a local grandee, packs the grandson off to Hollywood, and generally manages things so craftily that everyone not only lives Happily Ever After but also does so with Good Manners and better haircuts. The most winning feature of Gibbon's book (after the fact that it is hysterically funny) is that she skewers not only the conventions of the 1930s upper classes to which Flora belongs, but also the working class denizens of the farm. At first everyone seems faintly ridiculous but over time your affections for ALL these characters grows. By the end you are actually happy to see them all happily settled, and Flora no longer seems like a conniver but a clever and sympathetic heroine-more Elizabeth Bennet than Becky Sharpe. A very neat trick on the part of the author, and one well worth the discovering. One miniscule note of caution: Gibbons, writing in the 1930s, sets her novel "in the near future," and adds a couple of futuristic features that confuse the casual reader-telephones with televisions in them so you can see the speaker, references to the "Anglo-Nicaraguan War" and the like. You may safely ignore them without diminishing the book.
Rating:
Summary: What's a sensible girl to do..........
Review: Every time I pick this book up I know I will be smilling in minutes. Not only is it funny but the book is also very clever in its takeoff of mouldy Brittish storeylines.
Everything about COLD COMFORT FARM is delicious - Aunt Ada Doom who saw 'something nasty in the woodshed', the sukebind in bud, tidy Flora who is determined to tidy untidy cold comfort farm.
I don't think there is a whole lot going on below the surface of this book - I care about Flora but the other characters are mostly there for the satire they bring to the situations they are in.
This is a book meant to be read lightly for pure unadulted entertainment.
A must read - if you "get it" you'll read it over and over.
Rating:
Summary: Five and a Half Stars
Review: I can find absolutely no words to use in describing "Cold Comfort Farm" that could even begin to do it justice. Without a doubt, this is the most hilarious and entertaining book I have ever read. I learned many new words and phrases in reading it, and it did take me forever to figure out what an embryo parson was. I laughed so hard I was in tears throughout the entire reading. I have never found anything else that so perfectly appealed to and satisfied my wry sense of humour. I used to watch the movie religiously - until I read the book, which is far superior. I personally felt that it was a more modern (and funnier) version of Jane Austen's "Emma". But Flora was much more successful at making things come to the desired end than was Emma. I've always heard the phrase, "Ignore it and it'll just go away." Well, Flora did exactly that. One of my very favorite parts is at the beginning when Flora is talking to Mrs. Smiling about how she avoided coming to enjoy games while she was at school (Everyone said she was "no good"). I use this book in screening potential comrads. If a person doesn't "get" the book, he/she will never understand my own sense of humour, and we just can't be friends.
Rating: 
Summary: what a fun book
Review: I can not for the life of me understand why this book is not better known. It is such a fun book- the characters are eccentric and funny. The language is elegant and concise. You can not read this book without laughing.
Rating:
Summary: My favourite book: Funny, clever and brilliant.
Review: I can't tell you how many times I've read Cold Comfort Farm but everytime I do I can't help but laugh out loud and enjoy it just as much as the first time I read it. It is the story of expensively educated Flora Poste, whose parents die when she is only 20. Rather than make a living for herself by working she decides to foist herself onto her relatives at Cold Comfort Farm in Sussex. The Starkadders are a decidedly odd bunch consisting of; Aunt Ada Doom who saw "something nasty in the woodshed" when she was two and is assumed to be mad, Judith, alone with her grief, Amos, called by God to preach of hellfire and damnation, Seth smoldering with sex and obsessed with the 'talkies', Elfine who runs wild in the woods and the fields, and other crazy characters. Flora feels it is her duty to bring order into this chaos and to tidy the lives of these uncivilised relatives as she is an excessively tidy person and dislikes a mess. Stella Gibbon's novel is charming, incredibly funny and parodies the earthy, melodramatic novels (Thomas Hardy and D.H Lawrence et al) of the period extremely well. It is a must read and shall remain my favourite book for many years to come.
If you want to see one of the tv adaptations of the novel I would recommend the version starring Kate Beskinsale as the best.
Rating: 
Summary: A book to pass the time
Review: I first saw the movie, then decided to read the book. Well, I was confused by the timeline. This book was first published in 1932, yet one of the characters makes reference to Clark Gable and Gary Cooper being hot "20 years ago." Another reference is made of a man, Flora's date for a dance, who served in a war "in '46." I can't imagine Flora being escorted by a man over 90 years old (as he would have had to be if he served in 1846) yet it is clearly not yet 1946 in this book. Perhaps the author had a rather simplistic view of the future, where nothing has changed since 1932? So this has disturbed me ever since I read this book. Granted this is a work of fiction but when Flora is talking to her friend Mrs. Smiling at the beginning and she deduces from her cousin's name "Judith" that the husband will be Amos and the sons Reuben and Seth...well, I had no idea how she pegged that (because they ARE all named those things). I assume it's a Biblical reference, but how many people are going to know that? With almost all the characters Flora meets in Sussex, she is omniscient about them. She tells us all about how they think and what they will say and wear just by meeting them for the first time, and of course she is always right. I suppose we are meant to feel that Flora is an excellent judge of character but it seems to me that she was TOO right all the time. Like the author is hammering home Flora's sense of character judgment. They are almost all one-dimensional and Flora is easily able to sum up each character and make a simple decision which results in the improvement of each person. Too easy. Otherwise, if you can mentally transport yourself to a decaying English farm in the '30s, where owners of small planes can simply land them in convenient fields, enjoy yourself.
Rating:
Summary: A book to pass the time
Review: I first saw the movie, then decided to read the book. Well, I was confused by the timeline. This book was first published in 1932, yet one of the characters makes reference to Clark Gable and Gary Cooper being hot "20 years ago." Another reference is made of a man, Flora's date for a dance, who served in a war "in '46." I can't imagine Flora being escorted by a man over 90 years old (as he would have had to be if he served in 1846) yet it is clearly not yet 1946 in this book. Perhaps the author had a rather simplistic view of the future, where nothing has changed since 1932? So this has disturbed me ever since I read this book. Granted this is a work of fiction but when Flora is talking to her friend Mrs. Smiling at the beginning and she deduces from her cousin's name "Judith" that the husband will be Amos and the sons Reuben and Seth...well, I had no idea how she pegged that (because they ARE all named those things). I assume it's a Biblical reference, but how many people are going to know that? With almost all the characters Flora meets in Sussex, she is omniscient about them. She tells us all about how they think and what they will say and wear just by meeting them for the first time, and of course she is always right. I suppose we are meant to feel that Flora is an excellent judge of character but it seems to me that she was TOO right all the time. Like the author is hammering home Flora's sense of character judgment. They are almost all one-dimensional and Flora is easily able to sum up each character and make a simple decision which results in the improvement of each person. Too easy. Otherwise, if you can mentally transport yourself to a decaying English farm in the '30s, where owners of small planes can simply land them in convenient fields, enjoy yourself.
Rating:
Summary: warm praise for cold comfort
Review: I must have read this book 5 times now and each time find new things to laugh and be amazed about....I love its mocking tone, the predictions of the future(phones you can see people with, private planes called "Speed cop 11", the changes in prestige of different London suburbs etc....) This woman was a genius! The characters are hilarious but somehow real - how about the jazz band! and the depiction of human weakness (eg Amos being tempted by a Ford Van to extend God's Kingdom!). The names of the characters are better than those in Gilbert and Sullivan Operas. My favourite line has to be the telegram Flora sends to Mrs Smiling (whose maid is called Riante!) - "Worst fears realized darling seth and reuben too send gumboots". A Masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: An absolute joy
Review: I saw the movie twice; for some reason I left the book sitting on my shelf for almost a year before I picked it up. What a mistake! Get this book! It is a delight to read, Ms. Gibbons has a true gift. It's all too rare that I come across a book that I enjoy as much as I did this one.
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