INTRODUCED BY KATE SAUNDERS’I’m a huge fan of Barbara Pym’ RICHARD OSMAN’My favourite writer . . . I pick up her books with joy’ JILLY COOPER’Beneath the gentle surfaces of her novels is a slow-building comedy, salt wit in a saline drip’ NEW YORK TIMESIn a provincial university town, Caro Grimstone, a dissatisfied faculty wife, becomes the unwilling accomplice to her husband Alan’s ambitions. When she volunteers to read to a blind, esteemed anthropologist in a nursing home, Alan seizes the opportunity to steal his papers – research that could both advance his reputation while refuting the findings of a respected colleague. A delightful comedy of manners with a touch of mystery, An Academic Question is prime Barbara Pym territory.