Book recs...

[telophase]

...for my mother this time. I'm probably going to be doing the usual Christmas thing of panicking when I realize I have no idea what to get her for Christmas and running into Borders and buying everything I can find on the social history of women in the 18th and 19th centuries. It worked out beautifully last year - I got her three or four books that sounded so much like her thing that I was positive they were on her shelves already and moreso that I'd seen them on her shelves. Which is why I bought four instead of two - I panicked when I thought I remembered the first two, so rushed out and bought two more. At any rate, since I've got a chunk o'change in my Borders holiday gift account thingy, I'll probably use that for it.

OK. There are two main genres that I know she likes to read and for which I can occasionally find books she hasn't read. (I'd never buy her mysteries or Regency romances, because of that.) If you have recommendations in these genres, please, please let me know. :)

1) Social history/biographies of women - preferably focusing on the U.K., 17th-19th centuries, although she's ventured into the Renaissance on occasion, and up to World War II sometimes. Usually middle- to upper-class women: I can't see her sinking into a book all about the horrors of the workhouse, for instance. We've both read Liza Picard's books and enjoyed them very much, so a light, readable historical overview might also work.

Books I know she's read that fit into this genre:

Princesses: THe Six Daughters of George III - Got her this last year.
Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge
Courtesans: Money, Sex and Fame in the Nineteenth Century
Ladies in Waiting: From the Tudors to the Present Day
Period Piece - The autobiography of Darwin's granddaughter, growing up in Cambridge.
I was trying to find the biography of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire that I've seen on her shelves, and there was one about the daughters of Victoria, I think, that I don't think is the one below, but I'm going to check her shelves for it first.

Books I'm not sure she's read that I'm going to look for on her shelves at Thanksgiving:
(i.e. ones I just found when poking through Amazon.com looking for the above category and am listing here to remind myself)

Ungrateful Daughters: THe Stuart Princesses WHo Stole their Father's Crown
Arbella: England's Lost Queen
Born to RUle: Five Reigning COnsorts, Granddaughters of Queen Victoria
An Uncommon Woman - The Empress Frederick: Daughter of Queen Victoria, Wife of the Crown Prince of Prussia, Mother of Kaiser Wilhelm
The Titled Americans: Three American Sisters and the English Aristocratic World into Which They Married
Grandes Horizontales
Sex with the Queen: 900 Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers, and Passionate Politics
Perdita: The Literary, Theatrical, Scandalous Life of Mary Robinson
Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and a Mother in the Gilded Age - I'd be surprised if she hasn't read it, though. :)
My Lady Scandalous: The Amazing Life and Outrageous Times of Grace Dalrymple Elliott, Royal Courtesan
Charlotte: Being a True Account of an Actress's Flamboyant Adventures in Eighteenth-Century London's Wild and Wicked Theatrical World
A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne Jones, Agnes Poynter, and Louisa Baldwin
Mistress of the Elgin Marbles: A Biography of Mary Nisbet, Countess of Elgin





Er, ok, it seems I found a lot of possibilities just while writing this from following the "Customers who bought this book also bought..." links on Amazon, but I'd still like recommendations if you have any. :)

What I'd really like, though, is recommendations from this second category, because it's hard to find books like this:



2) Pastoral, bucolic books in which nothing happens. These are books usually set in village England in the early part of the 20th century, but which don't angsting over the horrors of war, instead they chronicle the daily lives of villagers and the small dramas contained therein, with no attempt to make Meaning or to make the dramas seem deeper than ordinary drawing-room gossip.

Angela Thirkell is the best example of this. I know Mom's willing to try similar books set in America, but we both read Jan Karon's first Mitford novel and declared it too religious to really qualify. Other than that, it was good - small-town America with ordinary people leading ordinary lives. I just finished my ILL copy of D. E. Stevenson's Miss Buncle (omnibus edition of Miss Buncle's Book and Miss Buncle Married), which would also be perfect for her if it weren't for that whole pesky out-of-print thing. I'm going to try to find her copies anyway, as I've told her she'd love it because nothing happens. :)

ETA: Miss Read is another author whose books fit into this genre.

I'm not sure if Mom's tried Alexander McCall Smith's Precious Ramotswe books, but I know she's had the opportunity to, so I won't give them to her. Same with his Edinburgh mysteries - she buys enough mysteries that she's had plenty of opportunity to try.




I expect I may repost this on Monday, when more of you are actually reading LJ instead of having lives. :)

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Cold Comfort Farm? Also, though this is completely the wrong era and continent, it sure sounds like she'd enjoy the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I think she's read CCF. I also just remembered another author that I think she's read that is just like the general run of Books In Which Nothing Happens: Miss Read.

And I just found what has to be Teh Most Awesomest Online Bookstore Evar: http://www.anglophilebooks.net They just sound like it's a dark, dusty bookstore staffed by nice old men in carpet slippers with a twinkle in their eye who interview you before selling you a book because they want to make sure it's going to the right sort of home. I think I'll poke through their Fiction section to see if there's anything that sounds right. The prices, which seem like they ought to be really high from the amount of description the books' condition is given, are quite reasonable.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

What about L.M. Montgomery's Avonlea books? They're rural Canada around 1900 but don't seem dated. They're at Project Gutenberg. Village tempest in lovely teapots. (The only one that got serious was RILLA OF INGLESIDE.)

B.J. Chute's GREENWILLOW isn't exactly English village, but it's ... wonderful. The only thing that happens is that something doesn't happen, or at least turns out good rather than bad, leaving things safely unchanged.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I'll check out GREENWILLOW. I think she's read the Avonlea books - she spent a few years as a children's librarian at the time I was born, so she's read most of the classics. :)

[fuchsoid.livejournal.com]

She might like The Weaker Vessel (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Weaker-Vessel-Women-History/dp/1842126350/sr=1-1/qid=1163877880/ref=sr_1_1/026-0871664-0966038?ie=UTF8&s=books), about women in the 1600s, before and during the Civil War.

Is the book about Georgiana this one? (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Georgiana-Duchess-Devonshire-Amanda-Foreman/dp/0006550169/sr=1-2/qid=1163878007/ref=sr_1_2/026-0871664-0966038?ie=UTF8&s=books) Not an autobiography, though.

Aristocrats (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aristocrats-Caroline-Louisa-Lennox-1750-1832/dp/0099477114/sr=1-1/qid=1163878094/ref=sr_1_1/026-0871664-0966038?ie=UTF8&s=books) was a huge best-seller over here, so she may have already read it - it's a group biography of the four Lennox sisters. Oh, and Jane Digby's biography (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scandalous-Life-Biography-Jane-Digby/dp/1857024699/ref=pd_sim_b_3/026-0871664-0966038) is pretty good - she was an English aristocrat, married to an elderly lord in her teens, who ran off and led a really intresting life with a succession of Greek counts, Albanian generals and Bedouin chieftans.

As for the rural stories, all I can think of are Lark Rise to Candleford (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lark-Rise-Candleford-Trilogy-Classics/dp/0141183314/sr=1-1/qid=1163878328/ref=sr_1_1/026-0871664-0966038?ie=UTF8&s=books)and Cider with Rosie, (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cider-Rosie-Vintage-Classics-Laurie/dp/0099285665/sr=1-1/qid=1163878292/ref=sr_1_1/026-0871664-0966038?ie=UTF8&s=books) which are both autobiographical, pretty old and very well-known (at least here in Britain), but both lovely, especially Cider with Rosie, if she hasn't already read them.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Hah - paperbackswap.com had copies of both Lark Rise and Cider, so I've requested them both. XD

I mistyped on the Georgiana sentence and meant biography. :) I think it might have been that one. Thanks for the recs - I've noted them and will scan her bookshelves next week to see if she's got any of them. :)

[frostedelves.livejournal.com]

She's read the wonderfully hilarious James Herriot books that start with All Creatures Great and Small, right? I mean, plenty of things happen, but they're pastoral vet things and the status quo is more or less maintained throughout at least the first two iirc, unless you count him eventually getting married. I think he never does leave his country vet practice, but I can't swear to it since it's been more than a decade since I last read them.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Has she read a Midwife's Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich? It's fascinating and engrossing, a mix of a real contemporary diary, and social history and speculation. Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/Midwifes-Tale-Martha-Ballard-1785-1812/dp/0679733760

[the_rck]

Some of Rosamunde Pilcher's books might fit the second category. I've seen some of those remaindered in hardcover fairly recently.

[keelieinblack.livejournal.com]

I kind of want to rec Mapp and Lucia (http://www.amazon.com/Mapp-Lucia-E-F-Benson/dp/1559212322/sr=1-1/qid=1163883703/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-9388372-8961634?ie=UTF8&s=books) for the second category, but it might be a little too snarky and there's probably a good chance she's read it already. So, uh, clearly I fail.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

The collected letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh-- hysterically funny, witty, erudite, and a good portrait of the Mitford sisters and their world and large parts of the Brideshead generation. And she almost certainly doesn't have them.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

She may or may not have heard of this one, because I get the impression it's a bit obscure: Madeline Robins' Point of Honour and Petty Treason (http://www.amazon.com/Point-Honour-Madeleine-E-Robins/dp/031287202X). They are hard-boiled Regency mysteries. :) Light reading fun.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I don't know if she's read them, but I've got Point of Honour on its way to me from BookMooch. XD I'd had it on my list of book recs for ever so long - I don't even remember who recommended it to me in the first place - found it there a couple of days ago and mooched it. I should be getting it sometime in the next week, if all goes well. :D

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I recommended it, but I like it!

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

What about DIARY OF A PROVINCIAL LADY?

I suppose eveyone has read MRS MINIVER, which is city rather than country, and a war does happen.

[riofriotex.livejournal.com]

I believe this book is out of print, but I've managed to find two hardcover copies of it at library friends book sales, and I understand it also came out in paperback:
Desiree (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/102-1956845-0457716?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=desiree+selinko) by Annemarie Selinko

It's historical fiction about Desiree Clary Bernadotte, who was originally (supposedly) the fiance of Napoleon (and whose sister did marry Napoleon's brother), and who instead married Jean Baptiste Bernadotte and ultimately became queen of Sweden. It's written like a diary and was adapted for a movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046903/) starring Jean Simmons with Marlon Brando as Napoleon and Michael Rennie as Bernadotte.