As Simon has just reminded everyone, the 1940 Club is fast approaching. I’ll still be travelling so won’t be participating, which is a shame as it’s a superb year for books.
If you’re looking for ideas of what to read, you can make Simon happy and try his beloved Miss Hargreaves but if you want other suggestions, here are a few books from 1940 that I wrote about previously:
Cheerfulness Breaks In by Angela Thirkell – my very favourite Thirkell
Mariana by Monica Dickens – the first Persephone book I ever read and one of my earliest reviews
Behind the Lines by A.A. Milne – a collection of poems about the early days of the war. Not great but fascinating, especially for AAM fanatics
The English Air by D.E. Stevenson – probably my favourite DES book about a young German man whose experiences visiting his English cousins cause him to rethink his views of his own country. Now available from Dean Street Press
Bewildering Cares by Winifred Peck – the fictional and heavily Provincial Lady-inspired diary of clergyman’s wife, I found this disappointing but other readers loved it
Ten Way Street by Susan Scarlett – typical Scarlett romance and now much easier to track down than when I first wrote about it as it too has been reissued by Dean Street Press
The Captive Reader 
Some great ideas – thanks, Claire!
Thanks Claire! Bewildering Cares is on my list, so will be interested to see whether we agree or not.
Sounds like you have some fun reading in store.
Mariana and Bewildering Cares are both good, and I might add fellow DSP book Beneath the Visiting Moon. I would also recommend Too Dear for my Possessing by Pamela Hansford Johnson. I have The Stone of Chastity and The English Air waiting for club week.
I’ve got The English Air and Ten-Way Street and also The Stone of Chastity, all Furrowed Middlebrow books from Dean Street Press! I like that I’m reading two of the same books as Ali …