Books like Mary Bridgette — picked by fans

What I love most about The Stage Driver’s Daughter is that it’s inspired by the true story of Charley Parkhurst, a woman who disguised herself as a man to make a living as a rancher and stagecoach driver. The book digresses from real events, but the author effectively evokes the experience through vivid description and dialogue. I could smell, see, and hear what it was like to navigate the rutted and treacherous roads of the Old West. I was later than most learning to drive, and I have a poor sense of direction so driving to new places can be challenging and somewhat frightening for me. I admired Winnie’s fearlessness and try to remember her bravery when I am on my own in the car headed into unfamiliar territory.

I love a book that teaches me something, and A Brides Portrait of Dodge City, Kansas taught me a lot, from photography (complete with technical descriptions that somehow weren’t too dry!) during the late 1800s/early 1900s to laws about women (they differed by territory). I appreciated that although Adeline was a strong protagonist, she wasn’t “modern” or behaved in ways that didn’t fit with her time period. There was an element of mystery to the story when her shop is vandalized, and I enjoyed trying to solve the whodunit. I have read this book multiple times.

This is a collection of four novellas that feature pack horse librarians, a project of the Works Progress Administration that delivered books to remote regions in the Appalachian Mountains between 1935 and 1943. I knew nothing about the program and was captivated by these brave women who traveled deep into the mountains by themselves to bring reading and education to the poor (As someone who loses her car in a mall parking lot I can’t imagine doing this). What I loved most about the stories is the impetus it created for me to dig deeper into the program and the women themselves. Being a book lover and former library trustee, what these women did moved me on a deeply emotional level.

Having worked for a jewelry designer in the Washington, DC area, The Gem Thief caught my eye. The story took me back to my days in the shop (good memories!), and the author has obviously done her research, because her accuracy is impeccable. I liked all of the characters, but I bonded with one of the secondary characters so much that I felt we could be friends in “real life.” I’ve been to New York City often, so I also enjoyed revisiting the city. The book was both comfortable because of all the associations to “past lives,” and exciting as I turned pages wondering what would happen next.

Successful amphibious operations are hard to pull off. The Allies failure at Gallipoli is well known.

This book tells the story of Operation Albion, the successful German seizure of the Russian islands in the Baltic. A large part of the German Fleet was involved and had to overcome stubborn resistance by the battleships, cruisers, and destroyers of the Russian Fleet to break into the Gulf of Riga.

The Baltic is a little-known theatre of naval operations. The book draws on both Russian and German sources to show how the German Fleet and Army worked hand in hand to achieve a decisive victory in this theatre of the naval war.

One of the most popular explanations for the outbreak of war between 1918 and 1939 was that it had been caused by the ‘Merchants of Death,’ i.e. the large armaments firms and their financiers who profited from international animosity. Although the conspiracy theory tendency in this belief gradually dissipated, the idea that the arms race was a significant contributory factor leading to war has long featured on any list of ‘causes’.

David Stevenson’s exhaustive research in the archives of most of the combatant states has provided us with massive and fascinating detail on the thinking of those involved and the relationship between geopolitical ambitions, strategic calculations, and financial realities. His treatment makes for fascinating reading, enhanced by crisply argued interpretations of the role of military and naval preparedness in the crises that plagued prewar Europe.

This is the book that got me into naval history and made me want to be a naval historian.

Bennett was a serving officer in the RN and the son of a naval officer. He writes with pace, experience, and clarity about the major naval encounters of the First World War. It is a book that would be a good primer for anyone wanting to start the WW1 at sea journey. I purchased it in a second-hand bookshop in Cambridge and never looked back.

If there is one story to fire the imagination about naval action in the First World War, it is that of the German cruiser Emden and her crew. Her commander, Karl von Müller, showed skill and chivalrous humanity in equal measure.

Emden raided the Indian Ocean, pursued by numerous Allied warships, causing havoc to commerce. The cruise ended in an epic final action with the Australian cruiser Sydney. Part of the crew then made an audacious escape home across the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Desert.

Lochner’s research is thorough, making extensive use of archive material to tell the story. This is essential for writing well-informed history, but he also brings the crew and their adventures vividly to life.

I’ve included Ana, Jan, and María’s book on my list not because it is entirely about neutrality and war (although that theme plays a major part in the book) but because it pushed me to appreciate the effects of the First World War at a more global level. 

The modern name of the war, of course, includes the word ‘world’ in it, but the fighting was primarily European-focused. This book shows, however, that the war had a much wider reach–influencing China, Japan, South America, Mexico, and Africa, amongst other places. For example, the book shows that there was a clash of Empires in Africa–between neutral Portugal and belligerent Germany; and in neutral Argentina, Mexico, and Spain, societies were split down the middle between the rival camps supporting the Allies and the Germans.

I found the book to be a really important demonstration that we need to think differently about wars–the… show more.

This novel absolutely blew me away. There are many books set during World War One and I’m fascinated by this war, particularly after studying WW1 poetry at school. The central image of the trench has stayed with me forever since. However, this novel is set on the home front in 1916 and shows the effects of war at a distance from the fighting. But don’t be lulled into any sense of comfort – this novel is heart-breaking, with a stunning twist. Merciless writing in the very best way, an excellent piece of war writing by West. When I wrote my own book I was determined to make the home front just as dramatic as any combat scene, just as West does so brilliantly.