Here are 100 books that My Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space fans have personally recommended if you like
My Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space.
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While using the city of Albi in southern France as a base for visiting some cave art locations I became fascinated with the history of the early Christians of the region and the brutal Cathar Crusade which happened there. I was also surprised to learn this was the home of Toulouse Lautrec and other later artists. As an archaeologist studying cave art, I became caught up in the long and important history of this one small area. The idea for a story intertwining different religious movements and art over thousands of years quickly emerged. I couldn’t resist this unique opportunity to reveal a piece of the past from a perspective I hadn't considered before.
No book list on any aspect of southern France would be complete without one of Peter Mayle’s many books on his travels and adventures in Provence.
His initial best seller is a grand introduction to the many small villages, customs, foods, and peoples who maintain the traditional aspects of the unique lifestyle to be found there, which in some places reflects hundreds of years with little change.
I have found in my travels that because this area of France was spared the ravages of the two World Wars, any trip to the region puts the visitor in touch with this remarkable past in a way few other European locales can. I often found myself wrapped up in the incredible history that surrounded me everywhere I went in the region, leading to my own attempt at expressing some of it.
I’ve learned that Peter Mayle, through his books, is like having…
A personal description of Provencal life as seen through the eyes of the author and his wife when they move into an old farmhouse at the foot of the Luberon mountains between Avignon and Aix. The bestselling work of non-fiction in paperback of 1991 in the UK.
Liza O’Connell was a horror buff in every sense of the word. But there was one deadly nightmare she would never be able to talk about … her own. A friend murdered. A business in trouble. A marriage struggling to survive. And that’s just the beginning.
I’ve felt like a fish out of water for most of my life. My mom’s English and my dad’s from Pennsylvania, so growing up it was always difficult to figure out who I was, where was “home.” So I always felt uneasy and self-conscious about not fitting in, wherever I happened to be. I always felt vaguely homesick for somewhere else. Reading was one way I could escape, travel was another, more literal way. Which is how I ended up in South Africa, where I eventually got my master's in journalism/international politics. (And my adventures there, of course, led to my book.)
I loved this book because it shows that the setting/particulars of the “journey” don’t actually matter.
It’s all about the author’s voice, perspective, and, in this case, their sense of humor. If these aspects are unique and engaging, it doesn’t matter where they went, or if you have any interest in seeing/doing those things for yourself.
I’ve always felt like I can resonate more with people that are willing to admit their fallibility, and even draw attention to/make light of it. To just how ignorant or clumsy or hapless or cowardly they are. I think that always makes for a better, more human story, a better connection with the reader.
On top of all this, I have a soft spot for the Appalachian Trail, since it crosses through Pennsylvania, only a few miles from where I grew up.
From the author of "Notes from a Small Island" and "The Lost Continent" comes this humorous report on his walk along the Appalachian Trail. The Trail covers 14 states and over 2000 miles, and stretches along the east coast of America from Maine in the north to Georgia in the south. It is famous for being the longest continuous footpath in the world. It snakes through some of the wildest and most specactular landscapes in America, as well as through some of its most poverty-stricken and primitive backwoods areas.
I love writing books that feature buildings and construction as a backdrop to life. I’ve worked as an interior designer for over 30 years, and now I teach design at a university in Sydney. Our homes offer so much more than four walls and a roof. They provide us with comfort and shelter. They offer security and stability. They help us stay sane and grounded in a sometimes confusing and turbulent world. I don’t think the importance of our homes can be underestimated.
Most romance readers know that this story is about a run-down villa in Tuscany and a heartbroken heroine (Frances Mayes) struggling to build a life after her divorce. But read the book for the beautiful descriptions of the countryside, the delicious food and wine, and the gorgeous accounts of village life—the markets, the frescos, the fading sunlight!
This memoir is not just a restoration journey; it’s a book about finding yourself.
Discover the New York Times bestseller that inspired the film. The perfect read for anyone seeking an escape to the Italian countryside.
When Frances Mayes - poet, gourmet cook and travel writer - buys an abandoned villa in Tuscany, she has no idea of the scale of the project she is embarking on.
In this enchanting memoir she takes the reader on a journey to restore a crumbling villa and build a new life in the Italian countryside, navigating hilarious cultural misunderstandings, legal frustrations and the challenges of renovating a house that seems determined to remain a ruin.
Liza O’Connell was a horror buff in every sense of the word. But there was one deadly nightmare she would never be able to talk about … her own. A friend murdered. A business in trouble. A marriage struggling to survive. And that’s just the beginning.
I have been passionate about traveling since I was a little girl and have always hit the road at every opportunity, especially now that I am retired. I’ve visited over 30 countries and have many more on my list. Reading a good book like Nothing to Declare, in which I get to know the author and that delves into a country’s culture, people and food, often lands me on a trip to the place. I’ve written two travel memoirs myself and a novel that takes place in France, and as I always say, “Travel is my muse.”
What sets this book apart is its writing style and is pretty much what you'd expect from Bourdain: direct, honest, and irreverent.
He doesn't sugarcoat his opinions, and his sense of humor keeps things fun along the way. And of course, there's food. Lots of it and his passion for it. He’s always on the hunt for the best local bites, and whether he’s slurping noodles from a street cart in Southeast Asia or savoring a long, indulgent meal in Paris, his enthusiasm is contagious. He’s clearly a foodie, as am I, and great food is always the best part of a travel story.
The book is organized by region, which I really liked, with each section packed with stories, tips, and recommendations to inspire your next adventure.
'Terrific ... His love for his subjects - both the food and the cook - sings' Telegraph 'Christ, could Bourdain weave words ... the guy wrote like a poet' Guardian A celebration of the life and legacy of one of the most important food writers of all time - the inimitable Anthony Bourdain Anthony Bourdain saw more of the world than nearly anyone. His travels took him from his hometown of New York to a tribal longhouse in Borneo, from cosmopolitan Buenos Aires, Paris, and Shanghai to the stunning desert solitude of Oman's Empty Quarter - and many places beyond.…
We had money for a while when I was a kid in the Midwest and then, suddenly, we did not. I watched my world of opportunity change dramatically almost overnight, and my mother struggle to redefine herself as not only a mother but now also a breadwinner. It took time for me to understand that the questions I was asking then about gender and access to money weren’t unique to my life, or the lives of Midwestern white women; they got at some grand-scale problems that people had been writing about for a long time about gender and capitalism. Those are the works that helped me formulate my own memoir.
Writers are not generally supposed to publicly acknowledge books that track too closely to their own, but of the spate of autobiographical books by women about property ownership that came around at the same time as my book, Levy’s stood out for its intellectual honesty and consideration of the meaning of home. Haunting.
Fearless and essential - the highly anticipated final instalment in Deborah Levy's critically acclaimed 'Living Autobiography'
Following the international critical and commercial success of The Cost of Living, this final volume of Levy's 'Living Autobiography' is an exhilarating, thought-provoking and boldly intimate meditation on home and the spectres that haunt it. It resumes and expands Levy's pioneering examination of a female life lived in the storm of the present tense, asking essential questions about womanhood, modernity, creative identity and personal freedom. From one of the great thinkers and writers of our time, Real Estate is a memoir and a manifesto…
When I was a little girl, my parents bought me a children’s edition of Pride and Prejudice. Ever since, I have loved Jane Austen’s works. As I grew older, I really enjoyed learning about her, and researching the history of her times. I hope you will enjoy reading these books as much as I did!
Hundreds (possibly thousands) of biographies of Austen have been written, but Tomalin’s work has long been a favourite of mine.
Her sympathetic portrait of Jane digs deep into her early family life, schooldays, literary influences, and early authorship. Jane’s relationship with her mother; her family’s encouragement of her writings; the fear of poverty after her father’s death; the disastrous (rejected) marriage proposal, and her literary legacy are all detailed with warmth and energy.
The novels of Jane Austen depict a world of civility, reassuring stability and continuity, which generations of readers have supposed was the world she herself inhabited. Claire Tomalin's biography paints a surprisingly different picture of the Austen family and their Hampshire neighbours, and of Jane's progress through a difficult childhood, an unhappy love affair, her experiences as a poor relation and her decision to reject a marriage that would solve all her problems - except that of continuing as a writer. Both the woman and the novels are radically reassessed in this biography.
My passion started as a personal quest in my twenties, struggling with my relationship with my own mother. When my daughter was born, I knew that I could not repeat the difficult dynamics between my mother and I. What started as a personal quest to understand the underlying dynamics between mothers and daughters quickly grew into a professional quest. Today, I have worked as a mother-daughter therapist with thousands of mothers and daughters of all ages and from different countries and cultures and have developed the Mother-Daughter Attachment® model that helps therapists and mothers and daughters uncover the hidden dynamics in their relationship and create a roadmap for change.
Patriarchy has silenced women for generations, and in my first book, I uncover how women have been taught to “play nice” and be “care-givers” rather than “care-receivers.” Uncovering women’s emotional reality, I expose the culture of female service and how no one is looking after mothers, not even mothers themselves. This book provides exercises to help women claim their voice, needs, and rights in all of their relationships.
"The Silent Female Scream" teaches "how to believe that as a woman you have the right to be heard, valued and respected, and to know that anything less is just not okay." Through case studies and discussion, the author exposes that women's sense of self-worth and entitlement to speak their needs, especially in relationships, is an area that feminism has ignored to its peril. By looking at the legacy of emotional silence that many women have inherited from long before grandmother's day, she warns that emotional silence damages the mother-daughter relationship, women's relationships with themselves and each other, and their…
I grew up in the ‘60s, when women were not in charge of anything much. I’ve always been fascinated by strong women. Amelia Earhart was a particular favorite, as were the suffragettes, Michelle Obama, and others. The strongest thing I’ve done in my life is to seize opportunities when they arise. I forged a second career that way, taking more than one leap of faith to do what I’ve always known I could do, be a writer. During and after my first career as a dental hygienist I took opportunities to be a newspaper wire editor, then a columnist, a magazine writer, an indexer, a nonfiction writer, and a novelist.
This is more historical fiction than nonfiction, but the backmatter contains notes, a bibliography, and a decent index.
It details the work of four Civil War-era women who made significant contributions to the war effort on both sides. Flamboyant teenager Belle Boyd and scheming temptress Rose O’Neal Greenhow spied for the South; Emma Edmonds enlisted in the Union Army as Frank Thompson; and secret abolitionist Elizabeth Van Lew managed an espionage ring under the noses of her Richmond neighbors.
I cheered each one of them through the entire book, wondering if I could have been as strong and resolute as they were. They didn’t cower in their homes. They stood up and made their lives count in an era when the overwhelming majority of women did no such thing.
“Not for nothing has Abbott been called a ‘pioneer of sizzle history.’ Here she creates a gripping page-turner that moves at a breathtaking clip through the dramatic events of the Civil War.” — Los Angeles Times
Karen Abbott, the New York Times bestselling author of Sin in the Second City and “pioneer of sizzle history” (USA Today), tells the spellbinding true story of four women - a socialite, a farmgirl, an abolitionist, and a widow - who risked everything to become spies during the Civil War.
After shooting a Union soldier in her front hall with a pocket pistol, Belle…
I’ve always been a thinker, asking big questions and playing around with crazy ideas. That’s why I’ve been fascinated by the Bible since I was fourteen, reading it cover-to-cover multiple times and studying it academically for—approaching four decades now. It’s a classic for a reason! At first, I read it because I became a Christian, and it’s part of the package, but within a short time, I was hooked. I was especially interested in the tough parts, the bits I didn’t like or couldn’t make sense of. They were invitations to explore, think, and learn. It never ceases to surprise me with new ideas and inspirational insights.
In which I discover that St Paul’s was not a misogynist! It is easy to see why we might think otherwise. His first letter to the Corinthians has had a profound and often negative impact on the place of women in Christianity. And just when I thought there was nothing left to say about it, along comes Lucy Peppiatt, and blows my mind!
I loved the complete left-of-field interpretation she offers and the fact that she turns traditional interpretations on their head. She plausibly argues that Paul was not for forcing women to veil and be silent in church. According to Peppiatt, Paul argued against the domineering men who insisted on such things. Wowza! And, by Jove, she could well be right! Invigorating stuff! (The author’s academic version is her Worship and Women at Corinth)
Whether people realize it or not, the ideas in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 have had a huge impact on the role of Christian women in the church through the centuries. These fifteen verses have shaped worship practices, church structures, church leadership, marriages, and even relationships between men and women in general. They have contributed to practices that have consistently placed women in a subordinate role to men, and have been used to justify the idea that a woman should not occupy a leadership or teaching position without being under the authority or "covering" of a man. It is strange, therefore, that…
I moved to New York when I was 15 and fell in love with the city. I was starting high school then, and arriving in Manhattan felt like the world opened up to me. Suddenly, I could ride the subway anywhere I wanted, see the best theater in the world, and feel as if anything was possible. The female journey has also been a topic I have long been fascinated by, and when I began my journalism career and became a wife and mother, the need to explore those dynamics grew ever more pressing. I recommend these books because they combine my two favorite topics—New York and women’s history.
This book is a deeply researched account of one of the most famous women-only hotels, the go-to place for ambitious, aspiring career women from writers like Joan Didion and Sylvia Plath to actresses like Ali MacGraw and Jaclyn Smith. It is my favorite kind of history, a journey through the twentieth century told through the lives of fascinating women.
A “captivating portrait” (The Wall Street Journal), both “poignant and intriguing” (The New Republic): from award-winning author Paulina Bren comes the remarkable history of New York’s most famous residential hotel and the women who stayed there, including Grace Kelly, Sylvia Plath, and Joan Didion.
Welcome to New York’s legendary hotel for women, the Barbizon.
Liberated after WWI from home and hearth, women flocked to New York City during the Roaring Twenties. But even as women’s residential hotels became the fashion, the Barbizon stood out; it was designed for young women with artistic aspirations, and included soaring art studios and…
