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Book recs...
...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. :)
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. :)