Yes, she's experienced a bit of a revival but not nearly enough in my opinion haha. Which of hers are your favorites? I think An Unsuitable Attachment tops them all for me, but I also especially love Excellent Women, Crampton Hodnet, and No Fond Return of Love in addition to Some Tame Gazelle. Lucky for us she wrote so many!
Yes, authors that make an effort to describe meals and food always delight me. In fact, this week I’m making the Latvian stew described in A Gentleman in Moscow. As soon as we read that chapter, I turned to my husband and said, “I’m making that this winter!”
I started Some Tame Gazelle last year when I was on a Barbara Pym streak. I never finished it but now I might! Lots of great suggestions!
Wasn't the ending of In This House of Brede rather devastating from our vantage point, where we see how the changes so naively accepted, along with rather manipulative rationalizations from those in charge, destroyed the orders? And indeed, that particular order now has all the characteristics of having lost the thread.
It's been almost a decade since I read Brede and though I remember quite a bit of it (especially the child loss part--my oldest was a newborn at the time), I actually am a little hazy on the ending! I need to revisit it. How sad regarding the current order.
I hope you find some books to love here. I feel like for some of them I should have added a caveat. Sometimes I love a book for how powerfully it shows the truth by contrast. The family in Guard Your Daughters, for instance, is so affectionate and loving in some ways and quite disordered in others. But then I think a book like Never No More should be read by far more people for how it celebrates what is true and lovely while not denying the darkness that exists in this world.
I need to read more Alice Thomas Ellis. I've read The Summer House and Fairy Tale and both were quite good.
I read Elizabeth Bowen's Last September in grad school and have always meant to go back and read more of her work.
I see a few other new to me books that I'm adding to my list as well. And making a note to check out the audiobook of Howl's Moving Castle-- I love that novel!
Ooh! I'm glad to hear you had a good experience with The Summer House and Fairy Tale! I remember DWJ said that reading a loud a lot to her children made her sensitive to how her work would sound when read aloud, and as a result, her prose just sings on audio! I've listened to the entire Howl's Moving Castle and Chrestomanci series on audio and they are both really well done.
Yes!!!! I've likened her books to a portkey before. I pick them up and I can't put them down until I've raced through. And they are 400-500 pages. She is some writer!!
Your opening paragraph—I couldn't have said it better! I love reading everyone's end-of-year book lists. Yours is lovely and intriguing. I've had 'The Feast' on my to-read list for years; I just have to track down a copy. And Barbara Pym's name keeps cropping up and making me think I need to try something of hers...perhaps a candidate for my summer reading list this year.
The Provincial Lady books are a delight—they've made my own top-ten lists in two different recent years!
Barbara Pym makes for great summer reading--especially her earlier lighter novels. Her later ones read a bit more bleak, which makes sense. She was dealing with cancer, a life of unfulfilled romances, and probably the most demoralizing for her, years of publication rejection after initial success. The Feast is also perfect for summer reading!
Are any of the later Provincial Lady books as good or better than the first? It just completely captured my heart. What a delight!
The second Provincial Lady book is very like the first—essentially a continuation, really—and the third one, The Provincial Lady in America, was actually one of my favorites!
Oh good, some more titles! I am currently enjoying The Priory by Dorothy Whipple (after really loving They Were Sisters, thanks to you for your suggestion). Have you read The Priory yet?
How cool that the Benedictine Abbey that Godden's book was based on is still in existence and accepts prayer requests. There's a Carmelite monastery near my house that has a prayer line I call often, and also The Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles has a place to submit prayer requests on their website.
I'm tickled to hear about Guard Your Daughters by Diana Tutton and it sounds wonderful. We have 5 daughters, and the title will likely give my husband a chuckle.
Oh yes, Farmer Boy - don't read it on an empty stomach. Mother Wilder is always making something delicious sounding!
I loved the Priory though felt like it was a little overly long near the end. But oh my goodness I remember thinking the characterization of Anthea was wildly good. Dorothy Whipple can make you feel ten different ways about a character through the course of one of her novels.
Calling up or submitting prayers to convents and monasteries is an underutilized spiritual resource!
Guard Your Daughters is a charmer, but also one to make you think about what children really need. I read it with my sister and we laughed a lot about the relatable sister moments. I'm hoping to write a post on it soon.
I actually have the Little House Cookbook and I need to set aside time to make some of the recipes from the series with my kids!
Looks like I have a lot of good recommendations to hunt down in the coming year! I love reading twentieth century British literature, and so many of these look to be a delight.
Yes! Twentieth century Brit lit is definitely my favorite literary time period to read from. I'm actually trying to branch out more this year into works in translation, poetry collections, etc. We'll see. I always tend to gravitate back to my comfort zone :)
Great list full of some of my favourites! I can't wait to put the ones I haven't read yet on my tbr, I'm trying to figure out if I've read that Barbara Pym and I don't think I have. And it's been a couple years since I've read some Alice Thomas Ellis but I have an entire shelf devoted to her!
Some Tame Gazelle was her first published novel. I love it because Pym wrote it in her twenties but based the two sisters, Belinda and Harriet, off of herself and her sister, imagining what they'd be like in middle age. There's something just really charming about that to me. I'd love to know which Alice Thomas Ellis novels you've read and what you thought of them! I'd read her first volume of Home Life essays and really loved her voice. I'm so happy her fiction was even better than I anticipated!
Ohh then I haven’t read that Pym for sure! I would have to look up the titles, but I have a good collection going that I need to revisit! I also loved Home Life!
What a unique list!! Excellent inspiration for my own reading this year! And you’ve convinced me that I cannot put off reading Brideshead Revisited any longer!
I really enjoyed the Close Reads podcasts alongside reading it (for the first time). TBH I didn't love it, but I know for me, that's often been the case for first reads. Will try again, but the podcast folks really made it more rich!
Oh, Alice Thomas Ellis is a gem!! Definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but her brand of odd delights me. My favorite of hers is The 27th Kingdom. Also The Sin Eater, although that one is a bit more heartbreaking.
Glad to find another Alice Thomas Ellis fan! The Sin Eater and Fairy Tale are on my to read list this year, but I might just make it a year of ATE and plough my way through all of them.
So many new authors I’m dying to check out now. I tried getting The Feast in a recent ThriftBooks order but they didn’t have a copy. I’m even more eager to get it now! And the Maura Laverty books are also on my “buy soon” list! Agree about The Inn at the Edge of the World-I have Fairy Tale by her which I hope to read this year. And Emma is so masterful isn’t it? I think her moral trajectory is one of the best of the Austen heroines because she falls, resolves to be better, slides back into the same faults again, and then needs to have a deeper shock/moment of shame to really begin converting her heart. And it is such a fun book to reread precisely for that bit of detective work. I’ve had a Barbara Pym on my too read shelf for a while now, might have to pick it up this year! Also love the fantasy selections in your honorable mentions. I rewatched Howl this year
"she falls, resolves to be better, slides back into the same faults again, and then needs to have a deeper shock/moment of shame to really begin converting her heart." Gosh isn't that just real life? I think my other favorite thing about Jane Austen is how well she does cringe. Mrs. Elton chatting about "Knightly". Emma saying that Robert Martin needed help from his sisters to write the letter to Harriet...eeee!
I can't wait for you to read The Feast and Maura Laverty's novels and hear your thoughts on them. And same re reading Fairy Tale in 2025!
DWJ and Studio Ghibli are a match made in heaven, though funnily enough when I was reading it this time, I kept thinking how much I'd like to see a live action film of it. I have it in my mind's eye. It'd be gorgeous.
Ah, truly delightful! Everything that I've read on your Top 10 is a favorite of mine and everything I haven't read needs to be speedily acquired. Maura Laverty is at the top of the list. Lots of your honorable mentions are books I want to read or re-read. I love Jenny Stirling's Howl’s Moving Castle. Farmer Boy is always an inspiration for eating for me too. LOL One of my favorites of 2024 was Under a Changing Moon by Margot Benary-Isbert, and I took lots of food and liturgical year inspiration from that one too. Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy is part of my Catholic novels project for this year!
Ooh I haven't heard of the Benary-Isbert book yet! Adding to the list! Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy packs a punch! Also, I really want to know YOUR top ten Elizabeth haha!
I love the "ways that reading spilled over into my daily life" section!!
I'm hoping to get to some Rumer Godden myself, this year. And my husband has started Four Quartets (and is reading and listening to a bunch of stuff to supplement)..... it's seemingly referenced at every turn, but have never read.
Rumer Godden is great! Her children's book The Kitchen Madonna is one of my very favorites. I read it to my son and was having a hard time keeping it together near the end haha.
Also I don't know how anyone reads Four Quartets without stuff to supplement lol. I listened to it without helps the first go around and got maybe 15% of it. I really liked this talk from Thomas Howard about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnTqmpti6So and I'm hoping to get to Howard's book on it soonish.
Oh my husband will eat this up. He's all about finding pertinent lectures on his books and such, he even said last night he wants to find a professor's talk for like everything he reads this year. lol
Absolutely love a fellow Barbara Pym fan!! I love Austen and Waugh too but you don’t hear as much about Pym.
Yes, she's experienced a bit of a revival but not nearly enough in my opinion haha. Which of hers are your favorites? I think An Unsuitable Attachment tops them all for me, but I also especially love Excellent Women, Crampton Hodnet, and No Fond Return of Love in addition to Some Tame Gazelle. Lucky for us she wrote so many!
I love Excellent Women, but I haven’t read an unsuitable attachment yet and now I know which one to check out!!
Yes, authors that make an effort to describe meals and food always delight me. In fact, this week I’m making the Latvian stew described in A Gentleman in Moscow. As soon as we read that chapter, I turned to my husband and said, “I’m making that this winter!”
I started Some Tame Gazelle last year when I was on a Barbara Pym streak. I never finished it but now I might! Lots of great suggestions!
Mmmm! I hope your Latvian stew turns out as good as it sounds! I remember my mouth watering while reading that part in AGIM.
I'm excited about this list!
Wasn't the ending of In This House of Brede rather devastating from our vantage point, where we see how the changes so naively accepted, along with rather manipulative rationalizations from those in charge, destroyed the orders? And indeed, that particular order now has all the characteristics of having lost the thread.
It's been almost a decade since I read Brede and though I remember quite a bit of it (especially the child loss part--my oldest was a newborn at the time), I actually am a little hazy on the ending! I need to revisit it. How sad regarding the current order.
I hope you find some books to love here. I feel like for some of them I should have added a caveat. Sometimes I love a book for how powerfully it shows the truth by contrast. The family in Guard Your Daughters, for instance, is so affectionate and loving in some ways and quite disordered in others. But then I think a book like Never No More should be read by far more people for how it celebrates what is true and lovely while not denying the darkness that exists in this world.
Also Five for Sorrow Ten for Joy is one of my favorites and I also was delighted when I found out the order still exists.
Yes! The story of their founder is so powerful!
I need to read more Alice Thomas Ellis. I've read The Summer House and Fairy Tale and both were quite good.
I read Elizabeth Bowen's Last September in grad school and have always meant to go back and read more of her work.
I see a few other new to me books that I'm adding to my list as well. And making a note to check out the audiobook of Howl's Moving Castle-- I love that novel!
Ooh! I'm glad to hear you had a good experience with The Summer House and Fairy Tale! I remember DWJ said that reading a loud a lot to her children made her sensitive to how her work would sound when read aloud, and as a result, her prose just sings on audio! I've listened to the entire Howl's Moving Castle and Chrestomanci series on audio and they are both really well done.
Such a good list! You’re the 3rd person in a couple of weeks I’ve seen recommend Dorothy Whipple, so gonna have to pick her up soon!
Yes!!!! I've likened her books to a portkey before. I pick them up and I can't put them down until I've raced through. And they are 400-500 pages. She is some writer!!
Your opening paragraph—I couldn't have said it better! I love reading everyone's end-of-year book lists. Yours is lovely and intriguing. I've had 'The Feast' on my to-read list for years; I just have to track down a copy. And Barbara Pym's name keeps cropping up and making me think I need to try something of hers...perhaps a candidate for my summer reading list this year.
The Provincial Lady books are a delight—they've made my own top-ten lists in two different recent years!
Barbara Pym makes for great summer reading--especially her earlier lighter novels. Her later ones read a bit more bleak, which makes sense. She was dealing with cancer, a life of unfulfilled romances, and probably the most demoralizing for her, years of publication rejection after initial success. The Feast is also perfect for summer reading!
Are any of the later Provincial Lady books as good or better than the first? It just completely captured my heart. What a delight!
The second Provincial Lady book is very like the first—essentially a continuation, really—and the third one, The Provincial Lady in America, was actually one of my favorites!
Oh good, some more titles! I am currently enjoying The Priory by Dorothy Whipple (after really loving They Were Sisters, thanks to you for your suggestion). Have you read The Priory yet?
How cool that the Benedictine Abbey that Godden's book was based on is still in existence and accepts prayer requests. There's a Carmelite monastery near my house that has a prayer line I call often, and also The Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles has a place to submit prayer requests on their website.
I'm tickled to hear about Guard Your Daughters by Diana Tutton and it sounds wonderful. We have 5 daughters, and the title will likely give my husband a chuckle.
Oh yes, Farmer Boy - don't read it on an empty stomach. Mother Wilder is always making something delicious sounding!
I loved the Priory though felt like it was a little overly long near the end. But oh my goodness I remember thinking the characterization of Anthea was wildly good. Dorothy Whipple can make you feel ten different ways about a character through the course of one of her novels.
Calling up or submitting prayers to convents and monasteries is an underutilized spiritual resource!
Guard Your Daughters is a charmer, but also one to make you think about what children really need. I read it with my sister and we laughed a lot about the relatable sister moments. I'm hoping to write a post on it soon.
I actually have the Little House Cookbook and I need to set aside time to make some of the recipes from the series with my kids!
Looks like I have a lot of good recommendations to hunt down in the coming year! I love reading twentieth century British literature, and so many of these look to be a delight.
Yes! Twentieth century Brit lit is definitely my favorite literary time period to read from. I'm actually trying to branch out more this year into works in translation, poetry collections, etc. We'll see. I always tend to gravitate back to my comfort zone :)
Been looking forward to this since the first! :)
Haha! If you read any of them I want to know your thoughts!!
Great list full of some of my favourites! I can't wait to put the ones I haven't read yet on my tbr, I'm trying to figure out if I've read that Barbara Pym and I don't think I have. And it's been a couple years since I've read some Alice Thomas Ellis but I have an entire shelf devoted to her!
Some Tame Gazelle was her first published novel. I love it because Pym wrote it in her twenties but based the two sisters, Belinda and Harriet, off of herself and her sister, imagining what they'd be like in middle age. There's something just really charming about that to me. I'd love to know which Alice Thomas Ellis novels you've read and what you thought of them! I'd read her first volume of Home Life essays and really loved her voice. I'm so happy her fiction was even better than I anticipated!
Ohh then I haven’t read that Pym for sure! I would have to look up the titles, but I have a good collection going that I need to revisit! I also loved Home Life!
What a unique list!! Excellent inspiration for my own reading this year! And you’ve convinced me that I cannot put off reading Brideshead Revisited any longer!
Ahh yes you must read Brideshead! One of the very best novels I've ever read.
I really enjoyed the Close Reads podcasts alongside reading it (for the first time). TBH I didn't love it, but I know for me, that's often been the case for first reads. Will try again, but the podcast folks really made it more rich!
That's a really good tip, Haley! Thank you for sharing!
Oh, Alice Thomas Ellis is a gem!! Definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but her brand of odd delights me. My favorite of hers is The 27th Kingdom. Also The Sin Eater, although that one is a bit more heartbreaking.
Glad to find another Alice Thomas Ellis fan! The Sin Eater and Fairy Tale are on my to read list this year, but I might just make it a year of ATE and plough my way through all of them.
So many new authors I’m dying to check out now. I tried getting The Feast in a recent ThriftBooks order but they didn’t have a copy. I’m even more eager to get it now! And the Maura Laverty books are also on my “buy soon” list! Agree about The Inn at the Edge of the World-I have Fairy Tale by her which I hope to read this year. And Emma is so masterful isn’t it? I think her moral trajectory is one of the best of the Austen heroines because she falls, resolves to be better, slides back into the same faults again, and then needs to have a deeper shock/moment of shame to really begin converting her heart. And it is such a fun book to reread precisely for that bit of detective work. I’ve had a Barbara Pym on my too read shelf for a while now, might have to pick it up this year! Also love the fantasy selections in your honorable mentions. I rewatched Howl this year
"she falls, resolves to be better, slides back into the same faults again, and then needs to have a deeper shock/moment of shame to really begin converting her heart." Gosh isn't that just real life? I think my other favorite thing about Jane Austen is how well she does cringe. Mrs. Elton chatting about "Knightly". Emma saying that Robert Martin needed help from his sisters to write the letter to Harriet...eeee!
I can't wait for you to read The Feast and Maura Laverty's novels and hear your thoughts on them. And same re reading Fairy Tale in 2025!
DWJ and Studio Ghibli are a match made in heaven, though funnily enough when I was reading it this time, I kept thinking how much I'd like to see a live action film of it. I have it in my mind's eye. It'd be gorgeous.
Ah, truly delightful! Everything that I've read on your Top 10 is a favorite of mine and everything I haven't read needs to be speedily acquired. Maura Laverty is at the top of the list. Lots of your honorable mentions are books I want to read or re-read. I love Jenny Stirling's Howl’s Moving Castle. Farmer Boy is always an inspiration for eating for me too. LOL One of my favorites of 2024 was Under a Changing Moon by Margot Benary-Isbert, and I took lots of food and liturgical year inspiration from that one too. Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy is part of my Catholic novels project for this year!
Ooh I haven't heard of the Benary-Isbert book yet! Adding to the list! Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy packs a punch! Also, I really want to know YOUR top ten Elizabeth haha!
Whew, I’ll try to be ready for the Godden. 😂 My Top Ten list is still disorderly but I will send it to you asap!
I love the "ways that reading spilled over into my daily life" section!!
I'm hoping to get to some Rumer Godden myself, this year. And my husband has started Four Quartets (and is reading and listening to a bunch of stuff to supplement)..... it's seemingly referenced at every turn, but have never read.
Rumer Godden is great! Her children's book The Kitchen Madonna is one of my very favorites. I read it to my son and was having a hard time keeping it together near the end haha.
Also I don't know how anyone reads Four Quartets without stuff to supplement lol. I listened to it without helps the first go around and got maybe 15% of it. I really liked this talk from Thomas Howard about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnTqmpti6So and I'm hoping to get to Howard's book on it soonish.
Oh my husband will eat this up. He's all about finding pertinent lectures on his books and such, he even said last night he wants to find a professor's talk for like everything he reads this year. lol