Have you read any of these authors?
Saturday, March 16, 2024
Spell the Month in Books - March
Spell the Month in Books is hosted by Reviews From the Stacks and occurs on the second Saturday of each month or maybe the third!
The Midwife by Jennifer Worth (2002). In 2013, I watched a season of Call the Midwife and was drawn to the memoir that inspired the series. It is the first book in Worth's best-selling trilogy about her work as a nurse and midwife practicing in the poverty-stricken East End of London in the 1950s. For those fascinated by the show and interested in midwives, I created a reading list.A Dream of Hunger Moss by Mabel Esther Allan (1983). During WWII, Alice and her brother Adam are evacuated from Liverpool to a farm in Oxfordshire where their mother spent summers as a child. Adjusting to country life is challenging but like their mother they are fascinated by Hunger Moss and its Roman tower. I don’t think I read this one until I was an adult; it is memorable for its sense of place and you must know I like evacuation stories.
Rebel in Right Field by Duane Decker (1961). Danny Redd is a rookie baseball player with great potential in the outfield except he is afraid of getting injured, having once seen his brother carried off the field. His hesitation in going after fly balls angers his coach, his teammates and the fans. Danny has to decide how much he wants an MLB career before he is sent down to the minors (although solving a deep psychological fear is really not that easy!). This is part of the famous Blue Sox series which I discovered in my elementary school library.
Circles of Time by Phillip Rock (1981). A sequel to The Passing Bells (set during WWI), Circles of Time takes the aristocratic Greville family and their friends through the early1920s. A generation has been lost on the Western Front. The dead have been buried, peace is now guaranteed (ha!), and both upstairs and downstairs want to forget the war and enjoy themselves. This was a good trilogy, republished by HarperCollins to take advantage of Downton Abbey popularity.The Heritage by Frances Parkinson Keyes (1968). On his way to Ireland in the 1800s to learn about his inheritance, Peter Bradford falls in love and spends a magical night with a beautiful stranger, who disappears and cannot be found. But when he arrives at his deceased uncle’s estate, he finds the woman he met is his uncle’s widow, so of course neither can admit they have met before. I am a big fan of Keyes; this book is dated and improbable but entertaining. My review.
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6 comments:
I just looked to see how much the Mabel Esther Allan book was on Amazon. £26 or £363!!
I read The Midwife a few years ago, shortly after I fell in love with the series. Thought it was good and worth reading, but I was never really inspired to read the rest of her books.
Yes, Sue, that MAE is expensive; I am pretty sure I got it from the library.
Jane, I did not read the others either. However, when I was looking this one up, I noticed several readers were very offended by a chapter about a prostitute, which I don't remember at all (and presumably was not offended by - I mean, she was working in a gritty area). I did like the show but only watched one season. I never really got a sense of the different women's personalities.
Did you read all the baseball ones in the series? I had not heard of this series .... but I grew up in SoCal far from Red Sox nation. Though my favorite player in the 1970s was Johnny Bench, lol. The Big Red Machine ... and you liked Carlton Fisk right?
I've read Mullion and In Pursuit of Clarinda by M.E. Allan, they can be expensive for some reason but I've been lucky a couple of times to get reasonably priced books.
My favorite MAEs are The Ballet Family, The Ballet Family Again, We Danced in Bloomsbury Square (which has a different title in the UK), Time to Go Back, and Romansgrove. All except The Ballet Family Again were in one or two of the libraries I frequented as a child. I own a good 30 or so of her books now but there are dozens I've never even seen.
The Blue Sox books were hard to find - someone told me it's because boys are hard on their books but eventually I found or read most of them, although never in proper order. My best friend in law school checked my bookshelves and randomly found one online for me for Christmas once, which was very sweet because they are scarce/expensive. They are't set in Boston or Chicago but I always thought it was a midwest town. I did and do love Carlton Fisk!
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