The Fortnight in September

By: R.C. Sherriff

Narrated by: Jilly Bond

This charming, timeless classic about a family of five setting out on their annual seaside vacation is “the most uplifting, life-affirming novel I can think of...the beautiful dignity to be found in everyday living has rarely been captured more delicately” (Kazuo Ishiguro).

Meet the Stevens family, as they prepare to embark on their yearly holiday to the coast of England. Mr. and Mrs. Stevens first made the trip to Bognor Regis on their honeymoon, and the tradition has continued ever since. They stay in the same guest house and follow the same carefully honed schedule—now accompanied by their three children, twenty-year-old Mary, seventeen-year-old Dick, and little brother Ernie.

Arriving in Bognor they head to Seaview, the guesthouse where they stay every year. It’s a bit shabbier than it once was—the landlord has died and his wife is struggling as the number of guests dwindles every year. But the family finds bliss in booking a slightly bigger cabana, with a balcony, and in their rediscovery of the familiar places they visit every year.

Mr. Stevens goes on his annual walk across the downs, reflecting on his life, his worries and disappointments, and returns refreshed. Mrs. Stevens treasures an hour spent sitting alone with her medicinal glass of port. Mary has her first small taste of romance. And Dick pulls himself out of the malaise he’s sunk into since graduation, resolving to work towards a new career. The Stevenses savor every moment of their holiday, aware that things may not be the same next year.

Delightfully nostalgic and soothing, The Fortnight in September is an extraordinary novel about ordinary people enjoying life’s simple pleasures.

British Family on Holiday

A sweet, slow-moving tale of a middle-class British family's very routine holiday at the seashore.

life-affirming and magical

I bought it only because Kazuo Ishiguro highly recommended it. It is everything as he said. The scope is incredibly small: a lower-middle class English family’s 2-week vacation at a modest seaside hotel. I cannot believe how tender each of the characters were treated, their most delicate feelings well drawn out, and how much empathy the author has for each of the characters’ everyday struggles and aspirations without indulging in sentimentality. It truly feels that I was on this vacation with them, and laughed and enjoyed and heart ached with them. I am sure I will read it over and over in the years to come, especially when I need a break!

A perceptive account of a middle-class family on their September holiday

A finely drawn, thoughtful account of a middle class English family and their day-to-day Fortnite add a beach resort in England. Through the reflections of each individual person, the reader is introduced to their private traumas, secret thoughts, and outreach is to family and friends. The narrator lens her own cast to the mood, which I found a trifle overdone, but overall, very well-suited to the story. There’s a slight melancholy cast to this unsentimental study, but the author is deeply affectionate towards his characters, as well. I’m glad I listened to it!

Escape to a simpler time.

Quiet and lovely. One of those books where nothing really happens, but you get to know people in a deep and meaningful way.

Charming and exquisite simplicity

We are transported to the world of small people with small, ordinary lives and simple, banal pleasures but who are still able to dream and imagine ambitions. An insightful book which never loses touch with what it means to be human.