The men in this novel are very much on the periphery. Did you find that refreshing or would you have liked at least one to play a more major role? It was only on a second read that I realised that the male character feature so much on the edges. Evans draws them so well, that I saw them as playing a much more major part. The old friend she has lunch with, or the husband that brings a drink to the car. I thought the scene at the end when she realises that Inez's father is a good father was very telling. Old Baggage gives an inspiring model of womanhood. Moving, warm and wry. It is wonderful!" - Marian Keyes It seemed pretty convincing to me. I liked the fact Evans didn't try to hard to include historical details, but it felt right for the time and place. I know Hampstead and the health, and I don't think it's probably changed that much over the years.

The book group choice this month is Old Baggage by Lissa Evans. It's the story of a suffragette in middle age, and it was one of my favourite reads of last year. Funny and moving it is a quite short and easy read. You can find out more here. The cause was not won, only placated a bit. The fight was not over. Women were not equal. (They still aren’t) But Mattie’s methods don’t do her any favors, and she alienates as many people as she convinces. Probably alienates more people than she convinces.But Mattie has never given up the fight, and ten years later she is still on the lecture circuit, attempting to enlist a new generation of women into the cause. She’s failing, and her lectures are increasingly poorly attended. I loved Old Baggage. Such original characters, and so timely. And it made me weep at the end." (JoJo Moyes)

And Mattie’s need to prove herself to someone who has never had any intention but to bring her down and keep her there has no end of bad consequences. For Mattie, for her best friend Florrie, and especially for the girls and young women they have taken under their wings. Mattie Simpkin, former suffragette, is referred to by the disparaging epithet of the book’s title only once, by an insignificant young man (all the males in this novel are peripheral). It’s 1928 and at last the suffrage is to be extended to women over 21. It doesn’t come soon enough for Emmeline Pankhurst, who dies mere weeks before the act is passed, but Mattie and her fellow radicals, now stout and bedraggled, can finally celebrate victory. Except that Mattie is not the sort of person who can relax. A chance discovery leads to a daring plan of action, which risks being scuppered by the other kind of old baggage – the emotional sort. I liked Mattie as a book character, but might find her somewhat exasperating in real life. I certainly wouldn't want to share a house with her. It was understandable that she wanted to help out her niece, but seemed out of character for her to cheat and the low point of the story. The men in this novel are very much on the periphery. Did you find that refreshing or would you have liked at least one to play a more major role? Because while Mattie may be an old baggage, there are also a couple of nasty pieces of baggage who are deliberately, or not so deliberately, undermining her efforts. And her sense of self is what suffers along the way.As always, the delight of reading Evans comes from the way in which the mundane and the magical collide: a Christmas dinner is saved from disaster by a game of sardines; a bombed-out landscape becomes a country of half-hidden treasures.