Lark Rise to Candleford

If you are looking for the same thing you saw in the TV series, this is not going to satisfy you. Dorcas Lane, who is one of the main characters in the TV series, does not even make an appearance until 2/3rds of the way through the book. The story of Laura moving over to Candleford (Candleford Green in the book) happens even later. 

All that said, the first book (this book is a trilogy: Lark Rise, Over to Candleford, and Candleford Green) is a detailed description of Laura's hamlet of Lark Rise. It is not a story with a plot. Really, there is only a little bit of story even in the third book. I found the first part a bit of a slog to get through because it was a little too detailed for my taste. I liked the last book the best because there was a bit of a story, and it had many of the characters that are in the series. 

It was a good read though. I have wanted to read it for years. One of my acquaintances even gave me this book to read for an indefinite period of time, but I finally gave it back to her thinking I would never get around to reading it. Then it appeared on James Mustich's 1000 Books to Read Before You Die list. So it was required reading! (LOL!)

I loved the last paragraph that sums up the book pretty beautifully:

"As she went on her way, gossamer threads, spun from bush to bush, barricaded her pathway, and as she broke through one after another of these fairy barricades she thought, 'They're trying to bind and keep me.' But the threads which were to bind her to her native county were more enduring than gossamer. They were spun of love and kinship and cherished memories." 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

Detailing life in a country village in the years before the Industrial Revolution, Lark Rise to Candleford is a fictionalized autobiography. Its charming remembrance of local customs, crafts, and culture is distinguished by its fidelity to the roaming curiosity of a child’s eye, as an early passage illustrates: "One old woman once handed the little girl a leaf from a pot-plant on her window-sill. 'What’s it called?' was the inevitable question. 'Tis called mind your own business,' was the reply; 'an’ I think I’d better give a slip of it to your mother to plant in a pot for you.”' What’s most pleasing about Thompson’s writing is the easy confidence of her affectionate portrayal of times past. Farmers and traveling vendors, family and schoolwork, seasonal festivals and the small matters of community life are recalled, and the natural beauty of the English countryside is quietly honored by exact description. This is not only a book that evokes a lost world, but one that transports us to a simpler era with clarity and calm attention.

The real towns were Juniper Hill (Lark Rise) and Cottisford (Candleford), but in the second to last episode, Laura (who is Flora Thompson), mentions all the towns she goes to in the area, and those are real towns. So, being the nerd that I am, made a map of all those towns in the area. We were so close to them when we were in England. It would have been fun to stop by!