71 books like The Small House at Allington

Jane Austen would have made such a great therapist! Her razor-sharp observations, combined with profound insights into people and relationships, make this book an all-time favorite of mine. I love her descriptions of falling in (and out of) love and how fallible each of her characters is, reminding us of our humanity–especially when it comes to matters of the heart.

What also strikes me is how true it is that pride, image, and status can still play out in our more modern relationships today. This book feels very old-fashioned in places, but it warns us how easily we can hurt other people and damage relationships, sometimes irrevocably. There’s a lot to learn from Emma, and I enjoy seeing relationships depicted in fiction, where so much can be explored through a fascinating and absorbing story, too.

I recommend Mapp and Lucia, first, because E.F. Benson is a hugely underrated humourist, and secondly, because there is a fundamental connection between his Lucia books and Austen’s. The societies are not dissimilar… the styles are both effortless. I recommend any lover of Austen to check out the Lucia books!

I could have picked most of the Jeeves novels - though the Mulliner stories are almost as funny - of the immortal P.G. Wodehouse, but this one is especially full of panache. Bertie Wooster is forced to pretend to be Gussie Fink-Nottle in Deverill Hall - a stately pile infested with any number of critical aunts - and the machinations Jeeves is involved in while sorting out the love lives of the rest - not Bertie, on this occasion - are brilliantly done. A great introduction to Wodehouse, for the uninitiated - for the aficionados, a treat.

Hornblower is a fantastic character, and the entire series is worth a read, but C.S. Forester got more accomplished throughout the series. Meticulously researched - and recently wildly popular, thanks to a TV series - the books are still much deeper, more resonant, and better!! Hornblower is in constant turmoil, too sensitive for his own good or for the crises every Admiral probably had to face, he is also so self-conscious that even in love - and he is very passionate - he can't quite let go. Combine that with a number of vivid females and still more interesting fellow officers - all with their own crosses to bear - and the Napoleonic war on the seas and... could not have been written better.

For a long time, I assumed that I would find these three novellas about churchmen and parishioners in the English countryside of the late 18th and early 19th centuries sleepy and dull. They’re anything but. Eliot depicts the presence of alcoholism, spousal abuse, loneliness, and life-damaging gossip in her fictional communities. But her signature empathy and wit, already on display in this early work, make it invigorating, not a downer.

In 1927, Sinclair Lewis struck with Elmer Gantry, a richly researched and powerful satirical indictment of religious hypocrisy whose eponymous central character is an amoral preacher enthralled by his power in the pulpit and by the allure of a beautiful female evangelist, Sharon Falconer.

A short book even by our standards, The Warden was Trollope’s first novel. He went on to write forty-seven more, as many short stories and nonfiction books as well, all while working as an important official with the Royal Mail. I love Trollope’s books because he was a master at creating life-like characters who may be filled with flaws, but are always portrayed with loving humour. While The Warden is about a controversy over how the Church of England manages a poor house, the story is carried by the complex people and relationships at the centre of the squabble. This is the first book in the Chronicle of Barsetshire series which spins out the lives of these characters across decades.

Garrow’s Pulitzer-prize winning biography is the first complete, almost minute-by-minute, account of King’s life based on extensive research in the King documents, interviews with dozens of his associates, and a deep understanding of American history in that period. Garrow picks up the story just as King comes to Montgomery, and there are other books to read about the young King before 1954, but from there forward, Garrow’s is the indispensable account, and was the first book to really delve into the FBI’s surveillance of King.

I got soooo hooked on Julie’s contemporary suspense books. In Heartbreaker, as the story opens, we learn our hero agent Nick Buchanan has just saved a young boy’s life by taking out a serial killer who held him captive. Nick then gets to take some time off for a vacation, and as he’s on the plane waiting to depart, he stops an armed man from trying to free a prisoner another lawman has on the plane. He is definitely the white knight showing up at just the right time. When he meets up with his best friend, he learns a serial killer is after his friend’s sister. I couldn’t wait to see how he was going to protect the heroine, Laurant, from the psychopath and bring him in. This is my kind of hero—courageous, up for anything, never afraid to put his life in danger to right a wrong.

There are many books on Martin Luther King but this is the definitive one, certainly the place to start. 

Eig is a master of narrative pacing and the use of anecdotes to bring his subject to life. The book totally engaged me, even thrilled me, especially his treatment of King’s 1963 “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,” the largest gathering for civil rights of its time. 

His masterful pacing and incorporation of life-giving details are truly brilliant. Eig provides a balanced portrayal of King, his talents and flaws, the motivating role of his calling as a pastor, and reveals just how hard the civil rights struggle was on King and his family. Even King’s many enemies are portrayed in an understanding way (although they were largely driven by evil and hate). 

This book will thoroughly absorb you and deepen your appreciation for one of America’s greatest citizens.