If you have never heard of Persephone Books, then please start by reading all about my love for the press. I love the idea of a company that believes great books have already been written, they are just forgotten. There are over 50 titles to choose from and really, there is pretty much something for everyone, particularly if your taste runs to books from prior to 1950 and centered on the quiet domestic catastrophes and triumphs that are all too often buried in our special effects culture. (Basically, if you thought The Yellow Wallpaper was an amazing and horrific novella, then these are your people.)
The Home-maker by Dorothy Canfield-Fisher. This book, quite literally, changed the way I raise my son. I keep giving my copies away (I'm without one right now) and it drives me crazy not to have it nearby. My mother still raves about it and tells everyone they must buy it - it is that amazing. It's a simple story about role reversal in the early 20th century. The father is injured and can not work and the mother must get a job. But what is revealed in this change, what happens to the children and the adults, is nothing short of incredible. And the ending will have you on the edge of your seat - I promise. This book is all about what makes a good parent - about what a child needs from a parent - versus what society thinks is good parenting. Every new mother and father should have this book - it will blow their mind. And I mean that. Highly highly highly recommended.
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Julia Strachey. It's a novella really, a short book about a wedding day and a bride with serious doubts and a young man who is attending the wedding and suffering doubts of his own. And you read this train wreck of a situation and you laugh at all the foolish guests and what they think and what they don't know and you hope the bride will do something - that someone will do something - but you know what will happen. You know it. And you love reading about it all the same.
The New House by Lettice Cooper. This amazing book takes place over the course of one day in the life of a family who must move from their large home to a smaller one in a less desirable location. The tension is found in the daughter, Rhoda, who yearns to break free from her mother's control. Everyone has issues in this book, everyone is coping in their own way with the shock of the move, everyone is being a bit small minded or selfish. Essentially, they are all incredibly human. It's a book about one day and it has more drama to it than most titles I have read. I learned about living and writing from this book. It's wonderful.
The Far Cry by Emma Smith. A girl goes with her father to India to live with her half sister. The father is running away from one thing and towards another, the girl is lost in excitement and fear and the sister is lost in her own domestic troubles from which their seems to be no relief. This is a quiet novel that packs a slow building punch. The end will knock your socks off and it pays off perfectly on all that comes before it. And the setting in India is delicious - a great coming of age novel, and many other things as well.
The Wise Virgins by Leonard Woolf. I think a lot of people forget that Virginia's husband was published as well - this lovely novel was lost in her success and WWI. You read it now as a bit of a comedy of manners and also to offer insight into Virginia and her family from whom Leonard got some of the basis for his characters. But also, you read it to see what choice Harry will make and what Camilla (based on Virginia) will do. You read it and as the story escalates you find yourself holding your breath. It's a slow tension, but a glorious one. I'm so glad this book was republished.
Tomorrow will have some long overdue links and other bits of news. This list making has been fun though, and I hope it has given some ideas to folks looking for good books.
