69 books like Maria Malibran

First published in 1864, Queens of Song is one of the earliest group biographies of famous divas of the operatic stage. Beginning with chapters on prima donnas who lived during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Creathorne Clayton moves quickly to the nineteenth century, focusing on powerful divas like Giuditta Pasta, Henrietta Sontag, and Giulia Grisi. Renowned for their talents and beloved by audiences worldwide, these divas often wielded outsized influence on the composers who wrote music for them and the impresarios who hired them. The individual chapters are short, but they are each surprisingly comprehensive, providing a full and vivid picture of the lives and accomplishments of these memorable, and often very demanding, artists. 

Pauline Viardot (1821-1910) was one of the most celebrated prima donnas of the nineteenth century, but she was much more than a typical diva. She was also one of the most versatile artists of the era, a talented composer, arranger, teacher, autograph collector, entrepreneur, salonnière, and promoter of early music. While fictionalized, this novel sticks closely to historical events of her life, focusing on her marriage to Louis Viardot, her long-lasting affair with Russian author Ivan Turgenev, and the unconventional and loving bonds that formed between these three extraordinary artists. If you’re looking for historical fiction about one of the most fascinating divas of the nineteenth century, An Unofficial Marriage is a great choice.

Through a dazzling collection of sources that include letters, contracts, memoirs, biographies, newspaper reviews, and fictional stories about the figure of the cantatrice, Kimberly White’s French Singers on the French Stage is a brilliant account of the various stages of singers’ lives in nineteenth-century France, beginning with their births and following them up to and past their retirements. In between, she describes their training at the Paris Conservatoire, debuts, marriages, benefits, and scores of other important issues that they grappled with throughout their careers. I do not know of any other work in the field of prima donna or opera studies that is at once as thorough and as lucidly written—it is a page-turner from beginning to end.

To portray the title character in Bizet’s Carmen is only one of the many transformations American orphan Lilliet Berne’s life requires, both on and offstage, as she ascends to opera stardom in late 19th century Paris. In this immersive novel, the clothes are as richly described as the music, and the music is described with not only sincere emotion but attention to realities and absurdities: Bizet’s early death leads to greatly improved ticket sales, for example. In Chee’s haunting first novel Edinburgh, he made choral music shimmer with both beauty and horror. The Queen of the Night is very different in setting, time, and sweeping sense of adventure, but shares Chee’s ability to movingly explore acts of survival and reinvention.

Sometimes you need a good read to curl up with on a rainy day, one that’s a bit melancholic yet romantic at the same time. I know I do, and The Lost Melody checked both those boxes. My heart ached for heroine Vivienne Mourdant, for have we not all struggled with reality now and then? And who wouldn’t if trapped within an insane asylum? This one kept me guessing until the very end as to how poor Vivienne would ever escape in one piece. 

Definitely more Jane Eyre than Jane Austen.

I absolutely loved King’s novel Writers & Lovers, and her story collection did not disappoint! Here, too, are the struggles of writers—to find the right words and something meaningful from loss.

There’s nothing typical in King’s diverse array of characters, and her intimate portrayal of their desires—their strengths and failings, their glimmers of hope as they brave new starts—drew me in and kept me turning the pages.

This was the first Calvino book I read, and I fell fully in love with his complex, humorous, and frankly bizarre style of storytelling. I loved the way he created character and atmosphere and how books served at the heart of the plot. That I had a hard time keeping up with some of the intricacies of the overlapping storylines only added to its appeal.

This book is a fictionalized story of one of the most sought-after artists' models in New York City in the early decades of the twentieth century and of her relationship with the Frick family, whose paintings and sculptures make up one of America’s most famous art collections.

I love Fiona Davis’ writing, which immediately pulls the reader in, and I can’t get enough of this tale of female strength and grit and its peek inside the wondrous world of fine art.

When I walk through the streets of Manhattan, I’m constantly awed by the variety and density of its buildings. I wonder how such a city could have ever been built. New cities today lack the soul and character. But when you look at why these buildings exist, you see that they are there for a more mundane purpose: as shelter. The Garment District, for example, was created to house massive sweatshops to clothe America. Gotham’s apartment towers enclose the beds on which residents sleep. 

Many of these structures were built by a group of family-run development companies. The founders of these enterprises invariably began as immigrants trying to hustle their way up the economic ladder. They started as teenagers working in the sweatshops or hawking newspapers and, bit by bit, erected their own real estate empires. Tom Schactman’s book tells how entrepreneurial spirit, along with New York’s rapid economic growth,… show more.

If you like small town settings with big old houses and hints of a ghost, intrigue, and simmering romance, you’ll love Storms of the Heart.

The story’s female main character, Emerson Lane, finds herself right in the middle of a raging thunderstorm at night on her way to her Uncle Wayne’s house in Twin Creeks, where she lived when her parents died in a car crash. She’s on a mission to reconnect with her uncle after leaving abruptly years ago to live in New York City. Trouble is waiting for her in the name of Sheriff Max Lomax, who she left behind.

Max has his own problems, but he is secretly but begrudgingly thrilled to see her, but questions whether this time she’ll stay. I liked the interesting characters in this story and the pleasant descriptions of Emerson’s hometown. The writing was so nice it felt like I could just… show more.