Summer Half

Preview

Failed to add items

Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.

Add to basket failed.

Please try again later

Add to wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Remove from wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Adding to library failed

Please try again

Follow podcast failed

Unfollow podcast failed

£0.00 for first 30 days

LIMITED TIME OFFER

Get 3 months for £0.99/mo

Get this deal

Try Premium Plus free

Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.

Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.

1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.

Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.

Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.

Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.

Access exclusive sales and deals.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Summer Half

By: Angela Thirkell

Narrated by: Penelope Freeman

Get this deal

Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

A captivating comic novel from Angela Thirkell's much-loved 1930s Barsetshire series: trainee barrister Colin Keith makes an ill-advised foray into teaching at Southbridge School.

To his parents' dismay, Colin Keith - out of the noble but misplaced sense of duty peculiar to high-minded young university graduates - chooses to quit his training for the Bar and take a teaching job at Southbridge School.

Little does Colin imagine that he will count among his pupils the demon in human form known as Tony Morland; or that the master's ravishing, feather-brained daughter Rose will, with her flights of fancy and many admirers, spread chaos throughout school and village. Humorous, high-spirited and cleverly observed, Summer Half is a comic delight.

Classics

Comedy

Witty

Feel-Good

Listeners also enjoyed...

Barbara Pym: A BBC Radio Drama Collection cover art

The Best of Jeeves and Wooster cover art

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and The Marvelous Land of Oz Bundle (Annotated) cover art

Most relevant

This is the fourth Angela Thirkell book I’ve read this week, and by quite a distance it’s my favourite. The characters are really well drawn, I particularly like the two school boys who treat the school & its masters as a sort of science experiment that they are conducting.

Over all I really enjoyed the book, but be warned; the social mores of the age are writ large across the book and these are very interesting if occasionally disconcerting. There are brief, but eye popping bits of casual racism which stopped me in my tracks. In the other Thirkell books I’ve read it’s usually been Jewish people (I’m Jewish) who got it in the neck, but what I’ve noticed is the characters will often say something that to modern readers is awful, but the way it’s said is as if it’s just a statement of fact, not a criticism. No more note worthy to the other characters than if they’d remarked on the weather.

The other elements of Thirkell’s books, like the way clever women either downplay their cleverness or are dismissed as not really clever, are fascinating and horrifying in equal measure. I hope that this was written with the author’s tongue firmly in her cheek.

I don’t think these moments should put you off reading an otherwise enjoyable book, to me it’s interesting to see how far society has come in 80 years. It’s a vision of Britain that I for one would not like to return to even if endless summers of tennis on the lawn & house parties sound wonderful.

Some wonderful characters.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I loved it soo much! can't stop laughing 🤣.I will recommend it to anyone who loves to read funny reads

🤣really fantastic

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

summer in a preparatory school between the wars. narrator excellent, very good to hear language free from obscenity and violence.
characters well drawn living in the last decade of security

a gentle entertaining read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

The more you listen, the funnier it is. The humour comes from the author’s ability to understand and portray the psychology of real human beings. Within a couple of chapters, you love all the characters − except of course for Rose who we all despise and rightly so. It is lovely to return to the honest common sense of the 1930s, and spend the summer with these characters. The narrator is perfect, brilliantly performing all the voices both male and female. This is the kind of novel that you can listen to over and over again. I highly recommend it.

Very funny and really delightful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.