{
    "id": 538695,
    "slug": "civil-to-strangers-barbara-pym",
    "nstc": null,
    "title": "Civil to Strangers",
    "subtitle": null,
    "collection_title": null,
    "collection_part_number": null,
    "annotation": null,
    "description": "'Barbara Pym is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heartbreaking silliness of everyday life'  ANNE TYLER\n\nWhen Barbara Pym died in 1980, she left a considerable amount of unpublished material. This volume contains an early novel, Civil to Strangers, three novellas and an autobiographical essay, 'Finding a Voice', Pym's only written comment on her writing career.\n\nIn Civil to Strangers, the lives of a young couple, Cassandra Marsh-Gibbon and her self-absorbed writer husband Adam, are thrown into upheaval when a mysterious Hungarian arrives in their village.\n\n'A sublime social comedy . . . It exists inside the Pym Eden of safety, silliness and a kind of subdued hilarity. Look out for one of her best curates - the starchy, spinster-dodging Mr Paladin - and a typically deliciously insensitive vicar' KATE SAUNDERS, THE TIMES\n\n'Brilliant, hilarious, poignant and so very, very English' TIME",
    "additional_content": null,
    "bestseller_60": null,
    "imprint": null,
    "language_code": "eng",
    "original_language_code": null,
    "page_count": 400,
    "duration_seconds": null,
    "publication_date_first": "1936-01-01",
    "publication_date_latest": "1936-01-01",
    "cover_url": null,
    "editions": [],
    "ratings_count": 0,
    "read_count": 0,
    "review_count": 0,
    "favorite_count": 0,
    "reading_status_read_count": 0,
    "reading_status_reading_count": 0,
    "reading_status_want_to_read_count": 0,
    "rating_average": null,
    "ratings_distribution": {
        "1": 0,
        "2": 0,
        "3": 0,
        "4": 0,
        "5": 0
    },
    "hebban_rank": null,
    "created_at": "2025-09-19T14:42:31+00:00",
    "updated_at": "2025-11-16T03:54:26+00:00",
    "publisher": {
        "id": 3585,
        "slug": "virago-press-ltd",
        "name": "Virago Press Ltd",
        "gau": false,
        "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:14:00+00:00",
        "updated_at": "2025-09-19T15:03:40+00:00"
    },
    "contributors": [
        {
            "id": 325863,
            "slug": "barbara-pym-2",
            "key_names": "Pym",
            "names_before_key": "Barbara",
            "prefix_to_key": null,
            "contributor_role": "A01",
            "readable_contributor_role": "Author"
        }
    ],
    "genres": [],
    "subjects": [],
    "tags": [],
    "campaigns": []
}