2008-03-23 An obsessive look into another world.

What a wonderfully different book - a cross between an autobiography, a history lesson in the important and less important houses of the English countryside and the romantic tale of a man obsessed with one thing - Thrumpton Hall.

Miranda Seymour writes in the first instance about her fathers' obsession with the house, which although he is not by birth entitled to inherit but has an overwhelming desire to live in from the age of about 4. The book is based on some historic researched items which Miranda has access to, her fathers' diaries and other correspondence. Anecdotes from her mother help to strengthen the book but also weaken Miranda's obsession for finding out the absolute truth about her father and his relationship with the house, his family both maternal and paternal and also his wife and children.

Miranda lets us look with her as discovers how much like her father she really is and how his life was shaped over the years by this love affair with the bricks and mortar of Thrumpton Hall.

It is a wonderful tale, no doubt some of it has been fleshed into fiction, something which the author admits to doing, and there is an element of truth in it all.

There are a lot of characters in this book, like there is in anyone's family if you went back digging through history, with plenty of closets with skeletons in, which actually help shape Miranda's father and in some ways herself. There is a helpful family tree at the front, which for the first half of the book I referred to on countless occasions to establish just exactly who we were reading about.

A very different book, but worth a look.