Here are 100 books that Miss Aldridge Regrets fans have personally recommended if you like
Miss Aldridge Regrets.
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Growing up in Philadelphia, with school and family visits to landmarks like Independence Hall and Betsy Ross’s house, I’ve long been interested in American history. That led me, eventually, to graduate school and my profession as a historian. At the same time, I have greatly enjoyed reading American novelists, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Willa Cather, and James Baldwin, as well as the works of thinkers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and W.E.B. DuBois. The sweet spot combining those two interests has been American intellectual history.
This is my candidate for the Great American Novel. Read it for its storyline and its fascinating chapters on whales. Along the way, you’ll encounter discussions about race, religion, friendship, and the virtuous life.
Some of my students ask, “Why does Melville digress so much?” My response: persist in reading this work. What at first seems extraneous becomes vital. You’ll discover a masterpiece.
Melville's tale of the whaling industry, and one captain's obsession with revenge against the Great White Whale that took his leg. Classics Illustrated tells this wonderful tale in colourful comic strip form, offering an excellent introduction for younger readers. This edition also includes a biography of Herman Melville and study questions, which can be used both in the classroom or at home to further engage the reader in the work at hand.
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
Since spending much of my childhood on the Cornish coast, I’ve been fascinated by the ocean. Fortunately, I get to spend a lot of time at sea these days working as a cruise enrichment speaker! I’ve done 36 cruises so far aboard 15 different ships over the past 8 years. Much as I love visiting ports all around the world, I particularly enjoy a full day at sea with some time to relax and read in. I hope you enjoy your cruise and the books on this list as much as I have!
I absolutely love this quirky book in which the author travels to each of the places mentioned in the shipping forecast, one of Britain’s best-loved broadcasting institutions. I delved into it with relish as I found myself sailing through many of these myself on cruises to Norway, Iceland, UK and other countries in Western Europe.
I enjoyed the exploration of the history, geography, and culture of each shipping area. The book is packed with interesting facts and anecdotes, along with tales from people the author meets along the way. As a bonus, it’s very amusing in places!
This solemn, rhythmic intonation of the shipping forecast on BBC radio is as familiar as the sound of Big Ben chiming the hour. Since its first broadcast in the 1920s it has inspired poems, songs and novels in addition to its intended objective of warning generations of seafarers of impending storms and gales. Sitting at home listening to the shipping forecast can be a cosily reassuring experience. There's no danger of a westerly gale eight, veering southwesterly increasing nine later (visibility poor) gusting through your average suburban living room, blowing the Sunday papers all over the place and startling the…
Since spending much of my childhood on the Cornish coast, I’ve been fascinated by the ocean. Fortunately, I get to spend a lot of time at sea these days working as a cruise enrichment speaker! I’ve done 36 cruises so far aboard 15 different ships over the past 8 years. Much as I love visiting ports all around the world, I particularly enjoy a full day at sea with some time to relax and read in. I hope you enjoy your cruise and the books on this list as much as I have!
I came across this eye-opening book when I started out as a cruise enrichment speaker and sought insight into life on board a ship. It’s written by an ex-crew member and tells his story of a year working on a cruise line.
I’m sure there’s some poetic license taken, and the author’s experience doesn’t match mine, but I found it both fascinating and very funny.
In Cruise Confidential, Brian David Bruns spills the dirt -- or in this case, the dirty water -- on those romantic, fun-filled vacations at sea. His hilarious chronicle of the year he spent working for Carnival Cruise Lines takes readers down into the areas where the crew works and lives, leaving readers gasping with laughter as they're assaulted nonstop with events that range from the absurd to the utterly bizarre. Stewards fighting over food. Cutlery allowances and other nonsensical rules. What the crew calls those onboard (no, it's not "passengers"). And of course, the sex. An abundance of ready, willing,…
Coyote weather is the feral, hungry season, drought-stricken, and ready to catch fire. It’s 1967, and the American culture is violently remaking itself while the country is forcibly sending its young men to fight in a deeply unpopular war.
Jerry has stubbornly made no plans for the future because he…
Since spending much of my childhood on the Cornish coast, I’ve been fascinated by the ocean. Fortunately, I get to spend a lot of time at sea these days working as a cruise enrichment speaker! I’ve done 36 cruises so far aboard 15 different ships over the past 8 years. Much as I love visiting ports all around the world, I particularly enjoy a full day at sea with some time to relax and read in. I hope you enjoy your cruise and the books on this list as much as I have!
My final choice is a rollicking 900-page blockbuster for those lazy sea days. I’ve read it three times now and plan to read it again one day. I adore the wonderful love story between Edouard and Helene, even though I know the mind-blowing ending.
The plot spans 35 years and several countries, including the UK, the USA, and France, which are all vividly described. It’s full of secrets, which allowed me to immerse myself in the characters’ lives. Certain locations and scenes stay in my mind after each reading, and I never want to finish and say goodbye to the characters.
One Evening in Paris, Edouard de Chavigny becomes a man obsessed. A wealthy, notorious womanizer, he is captivated by a mysterious young Englishwoman, Helene Craig, and knows that she is the woman he has been searching for all his life.
But Helene is not what she seems. While Edouard offers her wealth, freedom and passion, she must weigh these attractions against the demands of her own secret life and her determination to exact revenge for the destruction of her childhood world.
What neither Helene nor Edouard knows is that their lives are already linked, and that ahead of them lie…
My expertise as a scholar of the women’s music movement spans 40 years--ever since I attended my first concert and music festival in 1981. A lecturer at UC-Berkeley, I’m the author of 19 books on women’s history, and published the first book on women’s music festivals, Eden Built By Eves, in 1999 (now out of print.) More recently I’ve organized exhibits on the women’s music movement for the Library of Congress, co-authored The Feminist Revolution(which made Oprah’s list), and I’m now the archivist and historian for Olivia Records.
This wonderfully written memoir by one of the most successful singers in American rock and popular music offers a thoughtful look at the artist’s rise to fame in multiple musical genres—from folk clubs to sold-out stadium concerts, to Broadway, torch songs, and the Mexican Canciones music of the author’s Sonora heritage. The book is a keen glimpse at the pressures of the road (and expectations for women in the spotlight), but a triumphant story of talent and artistic innovation.
Linda Ronstadt was born in 1946 to a modest family outside Tucson. From an early age, she, her brother and sister began making their own music, eventually performing their own shows in the folk and Mexican traditions of the area.
By the time Ronstadt was in community college, she realized the music scene in LA was where she wanted to be, just in time for the folk revival that was sweeping the nation. Despite some setbacks with her first band-the Stone Poneys-she quickly found her niche as a soloist with the new record label run by David Geffen. Soon she…
Almost all of my books have been historical novels, but this one is the one most dear to me, an attempt to understand the fault line that the Vietnam War laid across American society, leaving almost every man of my generation with scars physical or psychic. My picks are all books that illuminate the multiple upheavals of that time.
If there is any cultural icon that defines this era, it is music.
Positively 4thStreetchronicles the personal and musical lives of these four, a portrait of extravagant, quarrelsome genius and the transformation of folk music from academic song-collecting to an era-defining musical form, by way of Greenwich Village, the anti-war movement, and shifting personal entanglements.
When twenty-five-year-old Bob Dylan wrecked his motorcycle near Woodstock in 1966 and dropped out of the public eye, he was already recognized as a genius, a youth idol with an acid wit and a barbwire throat; and Greenwich Village, where he first made his mark, was unquestionably the center of youth culture.
In Positively 4th Street, David Hajdu recounts the emergence of folk music from cult practice to popular and enduring art form as the story of a colorful foursome: not only Dylan but also his part-time lover Joan Baez -- the first voice of the new generation; her sister…
Homeless following the death of his adoptive parents in a car crash and the subsequent loss of their farm tenancy, Seb decides to enrol as a residential student at the Asklepios Foundation, a College of Natural Medicine, boasting a sanctuary modelled on an ancient Greek healing temple. Spending a night…
I love reading about life experiences, however raw or unflinching they get. Many of the books on this list inspired me to be just as honest in my own creative work. While writing Alligator Meat, which began as my English honors thesis and became my memoir, I kept coming back to these books for guidance.
As a lifelong Britney Spears fan, I was first in line for The Woman in Me.
The book became a pivotal reference point during a semester I later wrote about in my memoir. Despite Britney’s iconic status and once glamorous life, her experiences felt heartbreaking, tragic, and deeply relatable on a human level.
The Woman in Me is a brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith, and hope.
In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice-her truth-was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey-and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.
Written with remarkable candour and humour, Spears's ground-breaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and…
Rock music has been in my blood and my soul for as long as I can remember. I’ve recorded two albums, "Twice Upon a Rhyme" (1972) and "Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time" (2020). My most recent novel is It’s Real Life. I’m also Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, and my students will tell you that from time to time, I’ll sing a bar or two from a song in my class. A book about music is always a hard-to-resist temptation.
Billy J. Kramer had some great hit records with songs written by Lennon and McCartney—my favorite is “From A Window,” actually written just by McCartney—and Kramer knew The Beatles first-hand. Turns out that Kramer (born William Howard Ashton) not only has an ear for music (he’s still rockin’) but an eye for detail.
His autobiography is chock-full of memorable details. I couldn’t put it down.
When Billy J. Kramer's "Do You Want To Know A Secret?" by Lennon and McCartney topped the charts in 1963, he was the first singer in the world to have a number one hit with a Beatles song, apart from the Fab Four themselves. This propelled the teenage Kramer into the fast lane, and he followed it with another five top twenty singles in the next two years.
In this autobiography, Billy J. Kramer (born William Ashton) tells his rags to riches story, from his working class childhood in Liverpool to the racy world of international pop music. Managed by…
Sadly, I was born without an ounce of musical talent. After realizing I was never going to effortlessly play the guitar or sing in tune, I focused a lot of my energies on listening to music. I came of age in the 80s and the rise of MTV brought loads of fantastic music to explore: punk, new-wave, post-punk, pop. My love for music grew and expanded as I grew up in the 90s. It was those I reached back to musical memories in creating my books, 80s Redux and Lived Through That. I also host a popular podcast called Lived Through That that combines my love of music and storytelling.
Kristin Hersh’s book documents a pivotal year in the Throwing Muses’ singer and songwriter’s life. The book is at times funny and warm, sometimes confounding – she befriended Betty Hutton, an American film star in the 30s. What?!As I was reading the book, memories of seeing her band in the early 90s kept flashing through my mind – the intensity of her performances and songs make a lot more sense after reading her story.
"One of the 25 Greatest Rock Memoirs of All Time” --Rolling Stone Magazine (#8)
“Sensitive and emotionally raw… it’s also wildly funny”--The New York Times Book Review
A powerfully original memoir of pregnancy and mental illness by the legendary founder of the seminal rock band Throwing Muses, 'a magnificently charged union of Sylvia Plath and Patti Smith' - The Guardian
Kristin Hersh was a preternaturally bright teenager, starting college at fifteen and with her band, Throwing Muses, playing rock clubs she was too young to frequent. By the age of seventeen she was living in her car, unable to sleep…
Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS
by
Amy Carney,
When I was writing this book, several of my friends jokingly called it the Nazi baby book, with one insisting it would make a great title. Nazi Babies – admittedly, that is a catchy title, but that’s not exactly what my book is about. SS babies would be slightly more…
I have read a ton of self-help books. A ton. I have a whole library of them – a bookcase of "shelf-help." And I have now written 7 of them as well! I love it when a little or a lot of the author’s story is woven into a self-help book as it demonstrates the author’s personal growth. I don’t need more self-help tools or trite suggestions. I want to feel emotionally connected and moved in a way that encourages me to reflect on and enhance my one precious life. For me, reading a well-written self-help memoir is one of life’s greatest joys.
This book checked all the boxes for a rollicking read – a strong woman, a memoir, and a smattering of self-help and it did not disappoint. I didn't read it, I devoured it. Loved all the interesting stories and pearls of wisdom. Take the donut! If you like self-help and memoir, or like me, love a combo of both, then this is the book for you. It is the kind of book that stays with you for a long, long time. I can't recommend this book enough. Just read it.
"When we really see each other, we want to help each other." -Amanda Palmer Imagine standing on a box in the middle of a busy city, dressed as a white-faced bride, and silently using your eyes to ask people for money. Or touring Europe in a punk cabaret band, and finding a place to sleep each night by reaching out to strangers on Twitter. For Amanda Palmer, actions like these have gone beyond satisfying her basic needs for food and shelter--they've taught her how to turn strangers into friends, build communities, and discover her own giving impulses. And because she…
