The Official Recommendations Page
Every time I ask for recommendations on a particular subject, you guys come up with many wonderful things. Actually, sometimes you come up with wonderful things totally unprompted. And recently I’ve received several emails from readers suggesting books and authors I might like (If you’ve emailed me and I haven’t responded, I’m sorry! I’m terrible about replying to emails. I probably still mean to write back and haven’t realized how much time has passed since you wrote), which has been very cool
Anyway, I thought it would be cool if there was a place here for people to recommend things to me, and to anyone else who happens to be passing by, and the comments on this post are going to be that place. Be as brief or as long-winded as you like.
I just finished reading an awesome children’s book that I’m pretty sure you would love. It’s the first of three books published so far with the same characters. The title is “The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy”
It is sort of like a cross between Little Women and The Moffits but set in today’s time period. The Little Women bit is mainly due to the four interesting sisters who lost their mother shortly after the birth of the youngest sister who is four years old with the oldest sister being twelve. The Moffits bit is due to no sad bits as in Little Women but many bits of adventures with their neighbors and their togetherness as a family. It has the feeling of a book that was written during the 1950s or the 1960s at the latest.
I stumbled across this book while looking up reviews for a different book that was at a rather electic book reading blog “The Ineluctable Bookshelf”. Quite a few interesting reviews there and some books I’ll be checking out because of the reviews!
Another book that you might find interesting is “The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: A Flavia de Luce Novel”. It’s about an 11 year old girl who really loves chemistry and poisons who jumps at the chance to investigate a murder. It is set in 1950 England and the character is very British and quite interesting.
Those both sound like fun, especially the second one. I don’t buy that many new books, but I’ll keep an eye out for them.
I liked “Cinderella Jane” by Marjorie Benton Cooke rather a lot. It’s a feminist romance novel from 1917 – at least, the heroine is a feminist, and the hero is most emphatically not. I’d love to see your thoughts on it.
(It’s on Project Gutenberg here: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33657/33657-h/33657-h.htm.)
That sounds excellent, and I’ll be sure to check it out. I feen like Marjorie Benton Cooke’s name sounds really familiar, but I can’t figure out why.
In the sort of non-fiction side of the house, you might try & snag Marjorie Hillis’s “Live Alone & Like It” and “Orchids on a Budget” (http://thepaintedwoman.blogspot.com/2009/09/live-alone-girl-marjorie-hillis.html). Both are awesome books, although they definitely show their age. The general idea is “Sometimes life sucks, but here’s what you can do about it.”
In the fiction– you’ve read the Moving Picture Girls books, right? So much fun!
And, of course, I know you’ve read the awesome, horrifying Elsie books, but they always bear another mention. And the Little Prudy books. And OMG, Slovenly Betsy (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19915/19915-h/19915-h.htm).
Good housekeeping, Volume 69, July 1919
Kathleen Norris
Kate Douglas Wiggin
Gertrude Brooks Hamilton
William J. Locke
Dorothy Dix
James Oliver Curwood
Rose O’Neill (Kewpies!)
Zona Gale
James Montgomery Flagg illustrations
a Jessie Wilcox Smith on the cover
http://bit.ly/phG6sB
Ooooh.
“Letters of a Woman Homesteader” (1914) and “Letters on an Elk Hunt” (1915) by Elinore Pruitt Stewart. Basically, these books are just made up of the letters this woman sent from her Wyoming homestead to her friend in Denver. Mrs. Stewart was a charming and captivating storyteller, and she was a sharp judge of character with a delicious sense of humor.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search.html/?default_prefix=author_id&query=6829
Stupid me, I didn’t realize the recommendations page was a place to *make* recommendations, so I left one in the comments section of the About Blog: Long Version. Sorry! But while I’m here … I’d like to suggest “That Affair Next Door” by Anna Katharine Green. Unike her other novels it’s written in the first person, and that person is Amelia Butterworth, whose voice is much terser and more sardonic than Green’s usual narrator. She’s a character I really enjoyed, and I wish Green had used her more.
Not a problem — all comments end up in the same place. Mostly I put this page here to encourage people to make more recs.
I’m probably overdue to give Anna Katherine Green another chance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_C._Lincoln
I just finished “Galusha the Magnificent”, which was sweet and delightful, and am currently reading “Cap’n Eri: A Story of the Coast”, which is also proving to be funny and interesting. There are a bunch of his books available over at Project Gutenberg, and I foresee being pleasantly entertained for quite a while.
Oooh, he sounds really interesting. Thanks for the rec!
Thank you so much for all your interesting reviews. In the past few months I have had a great time picking out some new reads from this site. I have now read the ENTIRE Patty Fairfield series, and I feel enriched! I look forward to reading your reviews if you finish doing the series sometime. I also adored Rose-Garden Husband, and Patricia Brent Spinster, and enjoyed several others to a slightly lesser degree.
I have now read most of Margaret Widdemer’s public domain books and can recommend them (except for The Boardwalk, which is totally depressing). “The Year of Delight” is another he/she fell in love with his/her wife/husband story. It’s fairly good, although the ending seemed a little anti-climactic. “Why Not” and “The Wishing-Ring Man” are pretty nice.
Also, have you ever read:
The First Violin by Jessie Fothergill
The Rosary
The Mistress of Shenstone (both by Florence Barclay)
The Doctor’s Dilemma by Hesba Stretton
The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett
All of the above are pretty splendid…especially The Shuttle!!! I have done reviews of all of the above on Goodreads.
Thanks again for writing such entertaining reviews and giving me some new books to treasure.
Thanks for reading, and yay Patty Fairfield! Margaret Widdemer is always on my TBR list, and The Wishing-Ring Man, in particular, I’m saving for a rainy day. I like Why Not a lot, too.
I haven’t read the others your recommend, although I’ve been meaning to read The Shuttle for a while now, and I’ve read a fair amount of Hesba Stretton. The First Violin is an intriguing title — what’s it about?
The First Violin is set in the late 1800s, and it’s about a girl named May who lives with her family in England. She is totally repulsed by her neighbor’s attempt to court her (he’s a wicked, creepy, middle-aged man), and so when another neighbor, an eccentric older lady, offers her a chance to be a companion on a trip to Germany and study music, she jumps at it. On the way, she gets separated from this lady at a railway station, and starts to panic. Right then she meets Eugen Courvoisier, and he chivalrously helps her out, since he’s able to translate for her, buy her a new train ticket, and entertain her the whole afternoon while they are waiting for the train. That part is just lovely. Then, when she gets to her destination, they part ways, but only until they realize that they are part of the same orchestra–Eugen has the position of first violin, and May sings. From there on it’s a bit of mystery (Eugen has a sad past that involves him doing Noble Stuff he doesn’t want anyone else to know about), romance (Eugen trying desperately to keep his distance from May, for several reasons), and art (all of these young musicians discovering their craft and falling in love with their music).
The narrative switches back and forth a few times, from May’s perspective to that of Eugen’s best friend, and you have to realize that’s what is happening because it’s not really spelled out.
The only thing that might mar this novel is the rather unbelievable coincidence used near the end to help resolve things. But the story is so splendid that I can suspend disbelief without any trouble. It’s a book that is easy for me to lose myself in.
If you haven’t already read it, I suspect you might like “The Fifth Wheel”, by Olive Higgins Prouty. It’s the tale of a young woman who is expected by her family to make a good match, but who instead strikes her own path. Not a classic, by any stretch, but given your predilection for heroines who stick to their own guns, this one might – at least partly – interest you.
I mostly like The Fifth Wheel, but I much prefer Bobbie, General Manager, the book to which it’s a sequel.
“Hepsey Burke” (1915), by Frank Noyes Westcott.
one of my favorite passages:
“Do you think that I would talk about
such a delicate matter before others?”
“Oh no; I suppose not. But you could look wise and foolish at the same
time when Maxwell’s name was mentioned, with a coy and kittenish air
which would suggest more than ten volumes of Mary Jane Holmes.”
“You are not very sympathetic, Mrs. Burke, when I am in deep trouble.
I want your help, not ridicule and abuse.”
This book sounds really familiar to me and I can’t figure out why. Oh well. Going on the reading list.
“The Magnet” by Henry C. Rowland – it might be because I have two brothers, but I absolutely love books about sisters. Not only does it give you several heroines / storylines, but they’re often contrasted against each other (in this case – the flirt, the nice sister, the tomboy).
It’s also all set on a boat, and the sisters are motherless – again a plot device that I love (purely in fiction, of course!) because they are usually allowed to be far more unconventional that way.
http://archive.org/details/magnetromance00rowluoft
I know one of your posts mentioned that you don’t enjoy many Westerns, but here is one that I think you might:
http://archive.org/details/ranchatwolverine00boweiala
Thanks! Both of your recommendations sound really interesting, and I’m adding them to the TBR list.
Have you read Cytherea, by Joseph Hergesheimer? http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6847 I’m reading a biography of Frances Marion, and it mentions the book being adapted to film and being too scandalous for the censors. I’m curious!
I haven’t but it’s actually been on my TBR list for years — I came across a reference to it in a biography of Lillian Gish, who was apparently the model for one of the characters.
Nice! I also just stumbled across The City of Masks, by George Barr McCutcheon. It looks like it has possibilities. :)
Let me know — I’m sort of wary of George Barr McCUtcheon, but sometimes he’s awesome.