The Fortnight in September

The story of this lovely novel is simple: will the Stevenses, a lower-middle-class family of five from the outskirts of London, enjoy their holidays? It's no small matter: their two weeks at the seaside are the highlight of their somewhat drab and dutiful lives, and require for their success all the foresight and organization of a military campaign. Do they succeed? Well, I hope I won't give the game away entirely by saying that this 1931 novel, recently brought back into print, has joined The Women in Black and Leonard and Hungry Paul as our favorite recommendations for readers looking for heartening and delightful books about life's most modest, but hard-won, victories.