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Old FilthSeries

This series delves into the lives and memories of three contrasting characters against the backdrop of a declining empire. With impeccable wit and humanity, the author crafts a portrait of aging, friendship, and the inevitable disappointments and consolations life offers. Told from shifting perspectives, these novels explore complex relationships and the unexpected recollections that shape our twilight years. It's a poignant reflection on the enduring, unpredictable experiences we carry into life's final chapter.

The man in the wooden hat
Last Friends
Old Filth

Recommended Reading Order

  1. 1

    Old Filth

    4.0(13261)Add rating

    "Old Filth was a 'child of the raj'. His earliest memories are of his amah, a teenage Malay girl - not of his mother who is dead, nor his father who can't cope. But very soon he is torn away from the only person who loves him, and sent to be educated at 'Home', where he is boarded out with strangers. What is the terrible secret that the children shared? What exactly happened at the farmhouse in the Lake District from which Filth is rescued by 'Sir' whose 'outfit' is one of the oddest schools in England? Old Filth is funny and heart-breaking at the same time." "It is peopled with characters who astonish the reader - monsters, eccentrics, blessings in disguise."--Jacket

    Old Filth
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  2. 2

    The man in the wooden hat

    • 288 pages
    • 11 hours of reading
    4.2(116)Add rating

    Filth (Failed in London, try Hong Kong) is a successful lawyer when he marries Elisabeth in Hong Kong soon after the War. Reserved, immaculate and courteous, Filth finds it hard to demonstrate his emotions. But Elisabeth is different - a free spirit. She was brought up in the Japanese Internment Camps, which killed both her parents but left her with a lust for survival and an affinity with the Far East. No wonder she is attracted to Filth's hated rival at the Bar - the brash, forceful Veneering. Veneering has a Chinese wife and an adored son - and no difficulty whatsoever in demonstrating his emotions ...How Elisabeth turns into Betty and whether she remains loyal to stolid Filth or is swept up by caddish Veneering, makes for a page-turning plot in a perfect novel which is full of surprises and revelations, as well as the humour and eccentricites for which Jane Gardam's writing is famous.

    The man in the wooden hat
  3. 3

    Last Friends

    3.8(3122)Add rating

    Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat told with bristling tenderness and black humour the stories of that Titan of the Hong Kong law courts, Old Filth QC, and his clever, misunderstood wife Betty. Last Friends, the final volume of this trilogy, picks up with Terence Veneering, Filth's great rival in work and - though it was never spoken of - in love. Veneering's were not the usual beginnings of an establishment silk: the son of a Russian acrobat marooned in northeast England and a devoted local girl, he escapes the war to emerge in the Far East as a man of panache, success and fame. But, always, at the stuffy English Bar he is treated with suspicion: where did this blond, louche, brilliant Slav come from? Veneering, Filth and their friends tell a tale of love, friendship, grace, the bittersweet experiences of a now-forgotten Empire and the disappointments and consolations of age

    Last Friends