The Richard & Judy Book Club Pick and Sunday Times Bestseller. Irresistibly funny and enormously moving, Dear Mrs Bird by AJ Pearce is a love letter to the enduring power of friendship, the kindness of strangers and the courage of ordinary people in extraordinary times. 'The sweetest, most uplifting, lovely book about courage, friendship, love': Marian Keyes, author of Grown Ups. London, 1941. Amid the falling bombs Emmeline Lake dreams of becoming a fearless Lady War Correspondent. Unfortunately, Emmy instead finds herself employed as a typist for the formidable Henrietta Bird, the renowned agony aunt at Woman's Friend magazine. Mrs Bird refuses to read, let alone answer, letters containing any form of Unpleasantness, and definitely not those from the lovelorn, grief-stricken or morally conflicted. But the thought of these desperate women waiting for an answer at this most desperate of times becomes impossible for Emmy to ignore. She decides she simply must help and secretly starts to write back: after all, what harm could that possibly do? 'A proper comfort read': India Knight, author of Don't You Want Me? 'A joy from start to finish. Dear Mrs Bird is as funny as it is heartwarming': John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas