Discussions of some favourite novels and memoirs which have a village as their setting. Together we will look at the interplay between characters and setting and more particularly at the changes they experience that are due to external forces (plague epidemic, Enclosures Acts, two world wars). Beginning with J.L.Carr's poignant "A Month in the Country" and M. Laski's "The Village" we will move on to two historical novels, G. Brooks's "Year of Wonders" and Jim Crace's "Harvest" and also Flora Thompson's memoir "Lark Rise to Candleford". The term will conclude with the crime writer Edmund Crispin's exuberant "Buried for Pleasure". Throughout the course we will share suggestions for wider reading, i.e. other works which have this particular setting.