Mom's Reading Cards

Recently I wrote about finding my mom's old travel journals. The insight into her life and thoughts was priceless. At the same time I found a large stack of index cards. These contained the names of every book she had read over an eight year period from the mid 1990's until her eyesight became too poor to continue, around 2004. At that point she shifted to audio books, but for any book lover, you know that isn't the same.

Several blog regulars asked if I would provide a list of some of the books mom gave high marks to.  Most of her choices were fiction, many leaning toward female-oriented plot lines (seems logical) or pure escapist fare with strong female characters. There were some historical fiction choice, too.

I did locate a few cards of non-fiction that contained some high marks. Each card averaged about 20 books and usually three or four of those received one, two, or even three stars.

There is no particular order to this list. I have only selected the ones I could find that had at least one star (up to three for real favorites). In many cases she only listed the author's last name so you will have better luck searching by title. Frankly, I have no idea what many of these books are about. Also, I don't know if all are still in print, so I leave that to your research.

These titles are from no more than 30% of the cards I found. If you think this type of listing is valuable I'll produce a part two.



Birmingham   Carriage Trade
                      The Rothman Scandal
                      The Lebaron Secret

L. Blair           With this Ring

Booth             The Sisters

J. Katz            Sign Off

P. McCabe      Wasteland

C. Leavitt       Into Thin Air
                      
M. Palmer      Critical Judgement

C. Allen           Illusions
                       Mixed Emotions
                       Somebody’s baby

E. Adler          The Secret of the Villa Mimosa
                       All or Nothing

Alcorn            Vestments

Wolitzer         Tunnel of Love

Tyler               Ladder of Years
                       Accidental Tourist
                       Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
                       Saint Maybe
                       Back When We were Grown-ups
                       Morgan’s Passing

Thayer            Everlasting
                      An Act of Love

Van Slyke      A Necessary Woman

Van Wormer  Jury Duty
                      Only You  
                      West End

M. Atwood     Alias Grace

L. Battle         Storyville
                      The Past is Another Country

Barber            A Farewell to France

Banis              This Splendid Earth

Berg              Until The Real Thing Comes Along
                      Say When
                      Ordinary Life
                      True to Form

Wolf               The Harbinger Effect

Archer            Sons of Fortune

Howard          Dirt Rich

Inman            Old Dogs and Children

Hunter           Far From the Sea

Feldman         Looking For Love

Fielding          See Jane Run

Cookson         The Parson’s Daughter

Freeman         Illusions of Love

Coscarelli       Living Color

B. Bradford    Voice of The Heart
                      Act of Will
                      To be The Best

Bright            Parting Shots

Binchy           The Copper Beech

C. Alexander  The Endurance


Non-fiction:

Holland           One's Company (Reflections on Living Alone)

LeShan            It's Better To Be Over The Hill

Ellerbee          And So It Goes 

Buscaglia        Bus 9 to Paradise


In looking up some of these titles I discovered a new side to my mother: one who didn't mind a bit of violence and intrigue in her reading choices. For a proper Bostonian school teacher I thought I'd find more "high brow"titles. But, actually, it was nice to discover the very human side of a woman who liked escapist fare that had some kick to it for her leisure reading.