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How to Indulge your Downton Abbey Craving

I must admit, as a reader, I find the television show “Downton Abbey” quite frustrating at times. I am a reader first and foremost, which means I’m used to setting my own tempo on how fast I read a story; and I can’t do that with a fixed TV series’ schedule. Like other anxious fans, I have to patiently wait for each episode while restraining myself from checking various spoilers.
 
If you’re as impatient as I am, you might enjoy my suggestions to get a similar “fix”—between episodes, which feature my favorite Downton Abbey elements.

Firstly, I love the humor so you are sure to let out a few chuckles reading An Evening of Long Goodbyes by Paul Murray.

If you enjoy the “upstairs, downstairs” class portrayals in, I would suggest the 1968 memoir Below Stairs by Margaret Powell, which recounts 10 years of her service in a noble house. The story starts in the 1920s and although the house is not quite as grand as the Downton Abbey, the “downstairs” politics factor just as much. Also falling under this category is the Booker-winning novel The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. It’s a subtle, beautiful and thoughtful portrait of dignity, love, and the class divide.
 
The history, politics, culture, and fashion of this period are long gone, but our fascination with this program proves our fascination and perhaps longing for the elegance of that time is still alive. To immerse yourself in Edwardian life, check out Habits of the House by Fay Weldon, one of the writers for the BBC series “Upstairs, Downstairs.”

Ambiguous entanglements, English nobility, and a big, gothic house? Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh has it all. British officer, Charles Ryde, recounts his time spent with the aristocratic, religiously superficial, and strangely charismatic Flyte family.
 
If it’s only Downton Abbey that can charm you, check out Lady Almina and the Story of the Real DowntonAbbey. This book examines Highclere Castle, the real-life inspiration for program and the life of one of its most famous inhabitants, Lady Almina, the 5th Countess of Carnarvon and the basis for the fictional character Lady Cora Crawley. 

For those of you who love sagas check out Phillip Rock’s The Passing Bells, a trilogy, recently re-published by HarperCollins.

You will probably also enjoy The Forsyte Saga by the Nobel prize-winning John Galsworthy. This witty and satirical story depicts the trials and tribulations of a noble family who cannot fathom the idea of adapting to the modern world.

If you’re keen to read more classics from this period, I could not say enough great things about E.M. Forster, Howard’s End or A Room with a View. You are sure to love the way Forster tackles the rigidity of class and property that made human connection so difficult during this era, particularly for women. 

For those who fancy a love story set during World War I, you simply MUST read Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. This is a powerful description of the human cost of trench and tunnel warfare in the First World War, mixed with a heart breaking love story.
I could go on and on with these suggestions, but I’ll leave you to discover more titles by searching our tag cloud. Follow these steps:
1. Click on any book titles listed above
2. Click on the tag that says “For Downton Abbey Fans” (Located on the left hand-side of the book profile page under “Tag this book”)
3. Once you are viewing the list, you can then easily add all of these titles to your bookshelf, wish list, or maybe even your 2013 reading list.
… and don’t forget to add the “For Downton Abbey Fans” tag to any of the books that you have read and that have satisfied your hunger for that irresistible Edwardian charm.
Happy Reading!
anna@thereadingroom.com

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When True Love is Stranger than Fiction

Is fact stranger than fiction? We all love a great love story, and even more so when it’s not just true love but a true story. So, we thought you might like to discover four great novels that depict true-life love.

If you love books about literature and writers you will probably enjoy The Paris Wife by Paul McLain, which features a young Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley Richardson. 

 
Hadley was considered to be instrumental in Hemingway’s writing career, providing him with confidence, a stable and comfortable income and an opportunity to participate in the salons of Paris in his early writing career. “The Paris Wife brilliantly captures the voice and heart of Hadley Hemingway as she struggles with her roles as a woman—wife, lover, muse, friend, and mother—and tries to find her place in the intoxicating and tumultuous world of Paris in the twenties.”
 
Our second choice features Flannery O’Connor and Robert Lowell. Frances and Bernard by Carlene Bauer is a novel inspired by the real-life friendship between these two giants of American letters. Written with a warm charm and fierce intelligence, Frances & Bernard is a sparkling tribute to the wonder of kindred spirits and bittersweet romance. Publishers Weekly gave it a great review saying that “Bauer’s debut novel is well written, engrossing, and succeeds in making Frances and Bernard’s shared interest in religion believable and their relationship funny, sweet, and sad. A lovely surprise.”
 
Not to be outdone by literary giants, our next choice details the marriage of one of the most powerful couples in the world: the ex-President of the United States George W. Bush and his First Lady Laura Bush.
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld is a novel based on a thinly veiled story of real Laura Bush, a shy librarian with Democratic leanings who married George W. Bush. This funny and scandalous novel, with some graphic sex scenes, is also a fascinating portrait of a very public marriage where “the pleasures and pain of intimacy and love are laid bare.”

Finally, if you haven’t discovered it yet, Above All Things by Tanis Rideout is definitely worth hunting down. This is the haunting story of one of the greatest adventures and climbers of the 20th century, George Mallory, and his wife and soul mate Ruth Mallory (Turner).

This riveting and devastating novel focuses on the last months of their marriage recounting the disastrous 1924 Everest expedition in which George Mallory perished. It does so through the narration, diary entries and a series of love letters that Mallory and his wife Ruth exchanged during the time of this fateful expedition. We might never find out if George Mallory did or did not reach the summit, but there’s certainly no doubt that he was deeply in love with his wife. 
Want to share your favorite love stories? We would love to hear about them. 

For more great love stories, browse through our featured bookshelf of great love stories. 
 
Happy Valentine’s Day from TheReadingRoom!



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Don’t succumb to February cabin fever! Read on…

February is just around the corner, and if you live in the Northern Hemisphere you are facing the coldest month of the year, just at the time when you probably start thinking about Spring. If you are feeling a bit glum about it I suggest you take the opportunity to curl a with a really good book, and so I have selected three great February novels that I personally recommend and hopefully will make this month memorable.

Light Boxes, a novel by Shane Jones, is a really quirky, fairy tale-like story about one little town which is experiencing perpetual February. February turns out to be a strange spirit-like figure who is punishing the town for flying of any kind, including everything from balloons to birds and planes. It all went wrong, but he, that is February, did start with good intentions: “I wanted to write you a story about magic. I wanted rabbits appearing from hats. I wanted balloons lifting you into the sky. It turned out to be nothing but sadness, war, heartbreak. You never saw it, but there is a garden inside me.” This is a lovely, tiny, magical read, which will  warm up your heart on a cold February evening. 
If you are not too bothered by the bleakness of the weather, but cherish it as a good time to snuggle in bed with a great book, I also recommend February by a Canadian literary star Lisa Moore. This fantastic novel, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2010, and is a finalist for Canada Reads 2013, is a fictional story about aNewfoundland family who deal with the loss of husband and father. It is based on the real-life tragic sinking of the offshore rig the OCEAN RANGER on Valentine’s Day 1982. I read this book a few years ago, but I still remember the powerful descriptions of the winter scenes, juxtaposed with the feelings of enormous personal loss. Lisa also has an amazing writing style, each sentence just the way it should be – like a beautiful piece of music. It is a novel about love and grief and all that falls in between. Not exactly heart-warming but unforgettable. 

There is one more novel with a February setting that I heartily recommend, although I imagine many of you would be quite familiar with it. Saturday by Ian McEwan is set on February 15, 2003. Observing family and contemporary society, this page-turning novel is set on one day, which although it starts quite innocently, turns into a violent nightmare. The story, with its glimpses of the darker side of McEwan’s writing that characterized his early books, is in my opinion one of his better ones. It really captures the time, place and anxious state of post September 11 society. It is another great read for a dark, cold February evening. 


Do you have any favorite books set in February or about February that you would like to share with us? Or maybe you would like to tell us about books you like reading in February.

anna@thereadingroom.com

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Missing Mr Darcy? Read on…

January 28th, 2013 marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, yet the novel has not lost any luster despite all this time. It might be so because many qualities of this and other novels of Jane Austen share characteristics of what many of us would recognize as superb story telling. I personally love Jane Austen for her dry wit, her very astute observations of human nature, and the fact that her characters – even though created 200 years ago – are still confronted by the same social and emotional problems as many of us face today.  Finally, imagine without Jane Austen, there wouldn’t  have been the wonderful 1995 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, … no I actually do not want to imagine it.


However, since the pool of Jane Austen novels is quite limited, there are only 6 of them, I’ve put together a short list of 11 other novels inspired by Jane Austen. These novels come from many different genres and writers, set in the Regency period and in contemporary times, and are attempts of retelling Pride and Prejudice or writing a sequel. I hope that you will find one here that will inspire you to read it.



For all those who loved the original book, and could not get enough of both the TV and the movie adaptations, Mr and Mrs Fitzwilliam Darcy is  volume one in a  series that you will probably really enjoy, the happy ever after just goes on and on…. 


Some of us had favorite characters, and judging from the numbers of Austen sequels written on the subject, that favorite is probably Mr Darcy. If you are after Mr Darcy’s perspective you have a lot of books to choose from. You can start with Mr Darcy’s Diary by Amanda Grange: charming and elegant, just like Mr Darcy himself. However, if you really can’t get enough of Mr Darcy, look for the Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman trilogy by Pamela Aiden. An Assembly Such As This is the first installment of this fun series that lifts the veil on the biggest question from Pride and Prejudice ‘when did Darcy fall in love with Elizabeth?’ 



For those who would like a bit more “steamy” fun, look for Mr Darcy Takes a Wife by Linda Berdoll: sexy, epic, hilarious, poignant and romantic sequel to Pride and Prejudice that goes far beyond what Jane Austen was able to write in her life time. 

Mr Darcy’s is not only the most popular character – his dark, brooding nature, his good looks and his sexual undercurrents have inspired a whole list of novels in very different genres. Many writers imagined him as a vampire; in fact there are so many vampire versions of Mr Darcy that one can divide them into further subcategories of serious vampire stuff and pastiche like cameos. I am listing three that will either send  shivers down your spine or make you crack-up with laughter every few pages.



For fans of paranormal romance, check out Mr Darcy Vampyre a tale full of danger, darkness and deep romantic love that imagines the life of Elizabeth and Mr Darcy after Pride and Prejudice.



If you are seriously into vampires and like something that connects Jane Austen with some other stories on this subject check Vampire Darcy’s Desire. Regina Jeffers is a huge fan of Austen and had a few different takes on Austen novels but in this one she used an actual Scottish ballad to tie the story line with Pride and Prejudice … and then there is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I have to confess that I am not a massive fan of zombies, but I still could not resist this retelling of Jane Austen. I remember reading it in the course of an evening and laughing out loud for a good part of it, very clever and very funny.



Jane Austen is loved by many contemporary authors, quite a few of them are very successful in their own right, but not many “have the nerve” to try to retell Austen’s work.  The 2011 release of   Death comes to Pemberley by P D James is a notable exception. Arguably, P D James is one of the greatest living British mystery writers, and yet interestingly the mystery plot of this book might be the weakest part of it. However, I would still highly recommend it, because where P D James failed in terms of mystery, she more than made up for it in terms of amazing description and a really fantastic way of weaving other Austen novels into  one story , not to mention the  introduction of a few new characters that will leave you wanting more…






Not surprisingly Jane Austen’s writing has also inspired some comedy and exploration of identity and destiny in the present day world. If you love imagining yourself in the Regency world don’t miss Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, a hilarious and sassy story of a contemporary LA girl who wakes up as an Englishwoman in Austen’s time.




For those who would love to meet Mr Darcy outside their dreams, I would also suggest Austenland by Shannon Hale, another contemporary novel with a young American heroine who just can’t find a man of her life because all her choices pale beside 
Mr Darcy. Her luck takes a different turn when she arrives in an English resort catering to Austen-obsessed women.

Karen Joy Fowler turned her love for Jane Austen into a New York Time bestseller The Jane Austen Book club. This novel is set in contemporary California where a small group of mostly women join the book club which discusses Jane Austen novels. Much like in the actual Jane Austen novels, this book is also a sort of comedy of contemporary manners where relationships are tested, affairs develop and love happens.


I hope that this list has whetted your appetite for more because there is a lot more and you can find a sample of it on our site by searching by tags.

If you are member on our site and would like a quick way to see the whole list of these books, follow these instructions:
1. Click on any book title listed in this blog
2. Click on the tag that says “For Jane Austen Fans” (Located on the left hand-side of the book profile page under “Tag this book”)
3. You will see the whole list of titles that has been tagged as books for Jane Austen fans. There are already over 40 books on this list.
4. Once you are viewing the list, you can then easily add all of these titles to your bookshelf, wish list, or maybe even your 2013 reading list.
5. If any of your favorite Jane Austen inspired novels is not on the list please add it. You can do so by simply adding a tag ‘For Jane Austen Fans’ in the “tag this book box” which exists on every book profile page
Happy Reading!
anna@thereadingroom.com