54 Books Like The Vacillations Of Poppy Carew

I’ve never read a book as quickly as I read this one. Our eponymous lead character is quirky and odd, but the story is written with so much empathy, depth, and humor that I was rooting for her from the start.

I loved how the relationship between Eleanor and Raymond plays out and avoids the predictable ‘boy meets girl’ ending. It doesn’t surprise me that the book is ‘in development’ as a movie, as the story plays out like a film when you read it. Definitely read this one first before you see the film! (It probably won’t take long as I couldn’t put this book down.)

This isn’t a book about middle age as much as it is a book about a middle-aged woman. Margery Benson, schoolteacher and spinster, has been overlooked and overworked. She’s ready for an adventure and to find the beetle she’s been obsessed with since childhood.

Margery doesn’t go on this adventure alone, and the friendship between Margery and the younger, flashier Enid Pretty is the real heart of this novel. Adventure, friendship, women finding their strength: it’s exactly what I want from a book.

Feisty female protagonists don’t come any better than Catriona Da Vinci. The Renaissance was a dangerous time for women when they were marginalized and bound by societal constructs. Not this lady, though. She was a brilliant, single mother—an alchemist and risk-taker. She devised a scheme that allowed her to be part of her illegitimate son, Leonardo’s life, which was nothing short of genius. She did what she had to do to protect him, no matter the cost to herself. She reminds me of my two amazing sisters and the lengths they would go to be there for their children, and for that—Catriona is my hero.

Artemisia Gentileschi was a 17th-century Italian Baroque painter. One of the most fascinating and progressive artists of her time, she was also the first woman ever accepted into the prestigious Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence. Her personal life was riddled with turmoil—from rape to torture and public humiliation, but she endured it all to pursue her passion for painting. Many artists sacrifice for their art, but this woman took on an entire city and the Inquisition, and still went on to paint what are considered some of the most brilliant paintings of all time. For me, she is the quintessential feisty female protagonist, beating the odds and the establishment and standing tall. 

An admirable sense of rebellion and freedom that the Second World War brought young people is encapsulated in this book by the author, who herself lived through those times. Mary Wesley’s novels are quirky and unexpected, and peopled with eccentric, sympathetic, and lovable characters who face the dangers of the Blitz and all the uncertainty of war with a certain poise. I love the concepts of escaping convention and the kindness of strangers. To read this novel—which I have done at least five times—is like stepping into a warm bath. It’s my go-to when I need a dose of familiarity and comfort.

In my book I talk about how many people miss out on the love they expect—the love of a mother, father, spouse, or child—and yet how most of us survive by finding the love we need elsewhere. In Cider with Rosie, Laurie’s father abandons his family, but Laurie’s mother shines: her frisks and gaieties, her fits of screams, her love of man. This is the childhood memoir of one of the great (somewhat unacknowledged) poets of the twentieth century.

One of the earlier classic accounts of the whole of the Desert War from the pen of a celebrated war correspondent of the era who was actually there. This is a good and accessible history of the War which features all the main advances and retreats of both sides and includes interesting commentary on the desert generals, ours and theirs.

This is the story of the men from the New Zealand R Patrol, Long Range Desert Group. Their stories are told mostly in the words of the participants themselves through wartime operational reports, diaries, personal letters, and post-war interviews.

Owen was an officer in the LRDG and recollects various escapades he was involved in during operations. Lloyd Owen took command of the LRDG after being involved in the Battle of Leros.

This remarkable tale is not as well known as others, in part because it was written in 1817 and by a less accomplished writer, but it is hard to beat as a true account of nearly unsurvivable hardship. Captain James Riley, captured when his American ship—Commerce—runs aground south of Morocco, is taken into the Sahara desert along with several of his crew as slaves of Bedouins. Barefoot, terribly sunburnt, forced to drink camel urine, they walk hundreds of miles behind their master’s camels until finally ransomed by an American consul. This shocking reversal of the usual slavery tale is a poignant indictment of the slave trade. Abraham Lincoln claimed that Sufferings in Africa, along with The Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress, had the most effect on his political ideology.

 All the books in this list worry about the relationship between revolutions and liberty and democracy. Is democracy desirable? Does it mean the same thing in different societies? Do revolutions bring democracy closer? Or do they start conflicts that make it more distant? These questions arose again in the Arab Uprisings against dictatorships from Tunisia to Syria that occurred in 2010-2011. Unfortunately, instead of bringing democracy, they brought instability, and in some cases horrifically violent civil wars, that continue to this day. Mark Lynch is angry about this outcome, but he is also one of our finest scholars of Middle East politics, and has written a passionate, detailed account of these uprisings and how they produced anarchy and violence.