Louisa May Alcott....Little Women

Poirot

Poirot

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Yes, this is a real oldie, but goodie, a book I probably have read 50 times, always finding something new. Several movies have been made about the March sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth & Amy, and many folks do not realize there were followups. Little Men, Jo's Boys, ...also Eight Cousins. I owned them all, but when I moved to Wisconsin, we had a flood in basement, shortly after we arrived, and the box of books was absolutely ruined. I was very upset, had so many from childhood. Cannot begin to tell you how long it took me to find an UNABRIDGED copy of Little Women, even if in paperback. Seems they watered it down for small children, one librarian even told me she had no idea there was an unabridged version. LOL

Am sure everyone has their own favs....tell us!
 
I also love Little Women. When I was young I had the Donna Parker books and a few of the Bobbsey Twins. I have been reading a lot of Janette Oke In the last few years.

My dad got a real nice copy of "The Red Badge of Courage". I really treasure that book, since dad has been in Heaven since 1993.
 
I love reading, one of my favorites was The Swiss Family Robinson (the unabridged version), I read it in the 4th grade with a dictionary next to me, so I could look up any words I didn't understand. A book I read over and over was Summer of My German Soldier, I can't remember the author, and while I own a copy, it's somewhere in the basement of my former home, along with so many other books that I may never get back.

I've never read Little Women, I've tried, but just couldn't get into it, maybe I could now.
 
My mom was quite the reader, so had a lot of books, and I read them all which may have been why they were unabridged. I was lucky, because abridged versions of many books considered "children's books" now, are so watered down....at least to me. (I belonged to a couple of those once a month book clubs, so had quite the variety)......became a fan of so-called gothic novels, Victoria Holt, Philippa Carr, & more. LOL, you know, the young gal comes to work at the remote mansion as governess to the widowed father's children. Eventually, they fall in love, etc.

One of my fav Christie stories is called What Mrs. Mcgillicuddy Saw.....but also called the 4:50 from Paddington. A friend of Miss Marple's is on a train, sees a murder thru window occurring on a passing train. When it got made into a movie, it got changed that it was Miss Marple who saw this. Some Christie stories that became movies were mostly made in England, a lot were on PBS at one time.
 
mandamiee said:
Thanks JS, I think I should try to find a new copy for Gena, I bet she'd really like it. She loves historical fiction.
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I'm sure you can find an inexpensive copy on Ebay, Amazon Marketplace or Thriftbooks.com

You once mentioned Thriftbooks.com so I checked it out. I've since bought several books from there. Great bargains on used books.
 
manda, that sounds like an interesting book. I added it to my book list at the
library. Who knows when I'll get to it since I have over 100 books on the list.

I'm reading historical mysteries lately. I've read mysteries most of my life.
Rex Stout, Agatha Christie, Erle Stanley Gardner (Perry Mason).
 
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Me, too, Kat. Read them all, loved them. Cannot forget Conan Doyle, and good old Sherlock Holmes! I gave almost all my huge Christie collection to my niece who happened to be up in this area a couple months before I moved. I knew I would not have room for them, she was a Christie lover as well.
Perry Mason was a fav....always got a kick that he managed to out the bad guy on the witness stand.
 
I've read books from most of the main mystery writers: Patterson, Grisham, Scottoline, Higgins Clark, Hoag, etc.

I do love romances and period pieces though. I'd like read the full Anne of Green Gables series. I've adored the TV movies and new Netflix show but now I want to read the books. I also want to read Janette Oke but am annoyed with how When Calls The Heart tv show supposedly veered away from them. I used to love Little House and Babysitters Club books growing up. Also Sweet Valley books. Hard to replicate as an adult.

I also like to read biographies and autobiographies.
 
Heather4CU said:
(Mary) Higgins Clark
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I just read that she died recently. I loved her books, but then got burned out on them.

Janette Oke's original When Calls the Heart series is excellent. It's about Elizabeth, a well-to-do young woman from the city who becomes a school teacher in the Canadian wilderness. She has a wealthy brother and sister-in-law with a handful of kids. The youngest is baby Elizabeth, named after her aunt. Baby Elizabeth grows up to become main character in the TV series on Hallmark (Beth).

But the first 4 books are about Elizabeth and her Canadian Mountie husband, Wynn:

When Calls the Heart
When Comes the Spring
When Breaks the Dawn
When Hope Springs New

Then years later, 2 more books were written about Elizabeth and Wynn's adult son and daughter:

Beyond the Gathering Storm
When Tomorrow Comes

And the last set of Canadian books are about Elizabeth's niece, Beth, who is now grown and also a teacher (the character featured in the Hallmark show, When Calls the Heart):

Where Courage Calls
Where Trust Lies
Where Hope Prevails
 
Love Agatha Christie & Mary Higgins Clark, I was also a huge fan of Nancy Drew as a kid (okay, I'd still love them today)

JS - I hadn't thought about checking Thriftbooks, I'll have to do that, I order from them every so often, they have a good variety of Karen Kingsbury books, I discovered her books at the library a few years ago and really enjoy them. They aren't really thrillers though, more of a Christian romance novel.
 
I read Little Women years ago as well as Little Men and Jo's Boys. I enjoyed them at the time but have not reread them in years.

I have also read Janette Oke, but I am more familiar with the Love Comes Softly series. I loved and reread those books many times. I did read the first four books of the Canadian series and liked them, but I was not aware that there were sequels to the series, so I may have to check them out.

Heather, the Anne of Green Gables series are very good. Another one of my favorites that I read in high school. I also introduced them to some of my friends who also enjoyed the books. L.M. Montgomery also writes other series including the Emily of New Moon, which are also good if you enjoy the Anne series, and there are a lot of anthologies with a lot of short stories she wrote which are also good.

I like a lot of historical fiction. Recently, I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Tomorrow will be better, Maggie-Now, and Joy in the Morning by Betty Smith. I just wish she had written more books as these four were very good. All four were set in early 20th century about young women struggling in everyday life in Brooklyn. A Tree was the most comprehensive and showed the heroine all the way from childhood to working for a few years after school and yearning for a college education.
 
Jen67 said:
I did read the first four books of the Canadian series and liked them, but I was not aware that there were sequels to the series, so I may have to check them out.
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I stumbled upon them a few years ago. They're well-written. Elizabeth and Wynn are secondary characters in these two books as their adult son and daughter deal with issues in their lives (the son is a mountie like his dad and the daughter gets a job in an office) But I haven't read the last three about Beth (Elizabeth's now grown niece).
 
I loved When Calls the Heart on TV.........but was so upset when they killed off Elizabeth's husband. Yes the actor wanted out, I know............is that what happens in the book? (did not even know it was a book series, so thank you all for that info)
 
Poirot, I once saw an old movie about a lady seeing a murder on a train, something like you described. I never could remember the name of it but I think it might have been the one you mentioned.

I didn't read much when I was young. I tried to make up for it throughout the 1980s and '90s. I read so many books of different kinds but I especially liked biographies and historical novels. I read several of James Michener's historical novels. No surprise that Texas was probably my favorite. I also liked Hawaii a lot. They followed fictional families through several generations.
 
Poirot said:
I loved When Calls the Heart on TV.........but was so upset when they killed off Elizabeth's husband. Yes the actor wanted out, I know............is that what happens in the book? (did not even know it was a book series, so thank you all for that info)
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I haven't read the last 3 books about the grown up baby Elizabeth, but I think people have said the series varies from the books somewhat. Plus, I think they only killed Elizabeth's husband on the show because the actor wanted to quit.
 
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