# Recommend books for my mother **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 26, 2003, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-for-my-mother/215282 "2003-11-26T00:36:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![burundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3ec8ea/32.png) [@burundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burundi)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-for-my-mother/215282/1 "2003-11-26T00:36:33Z")
For Christmas this year, my mom has asked me to make her a list of books that she would enjoy. I can think of several offhand, but our tastes aren’t terrifically similar and she want a list of 25-30. I’m turning to my fellow Dopers for help. What should Ma read in 2004? She likes family sagas and regional, especially Southern, fiction. Some of her favorite authors are Lee Smith, Fannie Flagg, and Robert Inman. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-for-my-mother/215282/2 "2003-11-26T00:49:58Z")
Southern fiction? Does she know Flannery O’Connor? I’m rather fond of her work… ---
**Author:** ![Krisfer\_the\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Krisfer\_the\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Krisfer_the_Cat)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-for-my-mother/215282/3 "2003-11-26T00:55:07Z")
She probly wont like anything I have read recently… unless Mom has developed a desire to know about the ancient Middle East.😃 \*\*Paradise Hotel \*\* and **Cold Flat Junction** by Martha Grimes might trip her trigger. I really liked the latter one a lot. There’s a southern mystery writer, I am blocking on her name, whose main character continously whines about the South being a conquered nation 😃 😃 But I thought her writing sucked ditch water and the mystery was terribly transparent. Check out **Sharyn McCrumb**. Her books take place in the South and are mysteries but without the whodunnit feel. I VERY much recommend **If I had killed him when I met him** where she blended a 100 yr old murder with a modern one and solved them both. ---
**Author:** ![Melandry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Melandry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melandry)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-for-my-mother/215282/4 "2003-11-26T01:30:49Z")
She might like [Ellen Gilchrist](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-author=Gilchrist%2C%20Ellen/002-3680725-5280863). She does Southern and family sagas, but in her own way. It’s been so long I can’t recommend specific titles, I’m afraid. She doe slots of short stories, but some of her books are novels. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-for-my-mother/215282/5 "2003-11-26T01:36:46Z")
She might like [James Wilcox](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index%3Dstripbooks%26field-keywords%3DJames%252520Wilcox%26store-name%3Dbooks/102-5247831-2868146), too. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-for-my-mother/215282/6 "2003-11-26T02:50:16Z")
**… And Ladies of the Club** by Helen Hooven Santmyer Follows a group of friends who start a literary club when they are teenagers (right after the Civil War) until they are elderly, and well, dead. Lots of small town (Ohio) and family drama. It’s long. **Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All** by Allan Gurganus Southern (I guess that was obvious, huh?) girl marries a much-older Civil War veteran. It’s dramatic and centered around a family, but a caution that some of it is a little harsh, it’s not a romantic view of the South. It’s not bad, either, just realistic. Since she likes Fannie Flagg, this should be okay. **The Williamsburg Saga** by Elswyth Thane FINALLY back in print after many years. It follows generations of a Southern family through most of America’s major wars. The first book, **Dawn’s Early Light** takes place in colonial Williamsburg, it’s good, but there’s a lot of hard core historical fiction tied up with the romance, like which general is taking which troops where and when. By the second book, **Yankee Stranger** , the war takes a backseat to the family drama. **Mama Makes Up Her Mind: And Other Dangers Of Southern Living** by Bailey White This is based on a series the author did on NPR about her life in the South (if memory serves). Light and humorous. ---
**Author:** ![burundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3ec8ea/32.png) [@burundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burundi)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-for-my-mother/215282/7 "2003-11-26T02:56:07Z")
Great stuff, keep it coming. I know she’s already read all of Bailey White and Sharyn McCrumb’s books, but I’ll check out some of the others mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Sanscour](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f475e1/32.png) [@Sanscour](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sanscour)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-for-my-mother/215282/8 "2003-11-26T02:59:43Z")
For the hell and giggles, I mention Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove, as it deals with alternate history on the Civil War from the side of the South. And I also mention To Kill a Mockingbird. A little spice for your mother’s reading appetite 😃 Sanscour ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-for-my-mother/215282/9 "2003-11-26T03:03:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Krisfer the Cat \* > \*\*Check out **Sharyn McCrumb**. Her books take place in the South and are mysteries but without the whodunnit feel. I VERY much recommend **If I had killed him when I met him** where she blended a 100 yr old murder with a modern one and solved them both. \*\* Read _MacPherson’s Lament_ first. There’s a whole series related to those two books, but you can read just those two and enjoy them. Oh, and DO NOT eat while reading…McCrumb is breathtakingly funny. ---
**Author:** ![rackensack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rackensack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rackensack)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-for-my-mother/215282/10 "2003-11-26T06:23:42Z")
Well, if she likes Southern regional stuff and mysteries, find out if she’s read any of Joan Hess’s Claire Molloy (bookseller _cum_ sleuth in an Arkansas college town) or Arly Hanks (female police chief of an even smaller Arkansas town) mysteries. Most of the early entries in both series are out of print, but they’re usually around in libraries, and those who like that sort of thing do seem to like them. Continuing the Arkansas theme, Donald Harington has published a number of wonderful novels about the near-mythical hamlet of Stay More, Arkansas, along with a few other unrelated novels and an amazing more-or-less-non-fiction work, _Let Us Build Us a City: Eleven Lost Towns_. The Stay More saga starts with _The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks_ (the history of Stay More from its founding in the early 19th century through the late twentieth, as exemplified by the buildings of the town), continues through _Lightning Bug_, _The Cockroaches of Stay More_ (a pastiche of Hardy’s _Tess of the D’Urbevilles_ concerning, as the title implies, the insect population of Stay More, with the humans relegated to secondary roles), and _The Choiring of the Trees_, the last of the series to maintain the standard Harington established in the earlier works. Harington has published several more books about (at least tangentially) Stay More since _Choiring_ (_Ekaterina_, _Butterfly Weed_, _When Angels Rest_, and _Thirteen Albatrosses (or Falling Off the Mountain)_) but except for _Thirteen Albatrosses_, which I haven’t read, I can’t really recommend them. ---
**Author:** ![Slainte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a698b9/32.png) [@Slainte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slainte)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-for-my-mother/215282/11 "2003-11-27T00:20:44Z")
If she has a good sense of humor and isn’t easily offended: [The Sweet Potato Queens’ Book of Love](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0609804138/qid=1069891922/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_2/103-4644195-6911853?v=glance&n=507846) and [God Save the Sweet Potato Queens](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/060980619X/ref=pd_bxgy_text_1/103-4644195-6911853?v=glance&s=books&st=*) both by Jill Conner Browne I loved them (I’m 27) and I sent them to my Mom (she’s 47) and she loved them as well. They’re not fiction but they’re great nonetheless - very Southern, but also irreverent, bawdy and just plain fun. They also have some very sentimental parts. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-for-my-mother/215282/12 "2003-11-27T00:57:32Z")
I’ll recommend: **Tom Bodett, _The End of the Road_ and _The Big Garage on Clear Shot_** Wacky but warm short stories about a fictional small town in Alaska (yeah, about as far from the South as you can get, but fun, easy reading). **Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr., and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, _Cheaper by the Dozen_** Now under discussion in Cafe Society. If she might enjoy Southern humor I would recommend anything by the late great **Lewis Grizzard.** I still miss him. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2003, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-books-for-my-mother/215282/13 "2003-11-27T05:11:11Z")
I gave my own mother a copy of Lewis Grizzard’s book about _his_ mother. She stayed up half the night reading and giggling. One of my favorite Southern books is **Cold Sassy Tree**. If your mother likes long engrossing fiction, I’m going to recommend one that is not set in the South, nor is it multi-generational. But it is one damn good read: **Forever Amber**. It was written probably fifty or sixty years ago at least, but it is utterly absorbing. It is set in England at the time of Charles II, if I recall correctly.