Fictional Kindle book recommendations please

July 5, 2020 11:48 PM

I've been stuck inside nearly everyday since Xmas (except for Dr's visits). I've bought up all my favourite authors on Kindle. I want some fictional book recommendations with certain characteristics...

Female main character, either YA or post-30
Accurate historical details. I have and love - despite political or social justice issues: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Georgette Heyer and Diana Gabaldon.

Heyer & Wilder does the historical for me, but Wilder & Gabaldon give me plants and I guess survivalist(minus guns) skills. I want a garden. I used to garden. I can't right now. I also like historical skills: cooking, sewing, building. I'm not opposed to dystopian novel, but I don't want the focus on killing invaders, or only allowing conservatives to join your enclave. Z for Zachariah minus the rapist bits (maybe also the sad stuff). I don't mind religion, so happy Amish stories fine.

I want happy homesteading. Romance or successful partnerships would be good. I want books like Swiss Family Robinson (the 70s TV show), Courting Miss Hattie, A Civil Contract, later books of Clan of the Cave Bear (after the neanderthals stop being rapey).

I want people surviving, doing things we urbanites don't need to do, but useful skills, working together. No Fabios on the cover. No turgid manhoods (sex scenes are fine but let them not be purple). I don't want completely true stories (Anne Franks not good example, but book had fascinating characters working together in history) because I don't want to be sad about real people dying.

TL:DR: fiction, strong female main character, survival/household skills feature, history & romance a bonus.

Thanks.

posted by b33j to Grab Bag (19 answers total)

Have you read My Side of the Mountain?. It's a children's book, and a male main character, but I read it over and over again for the same reasons you mention.
posted by frumiousb at 12:29 AM on July 6, 2020 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Emily St John Mandel's Station Eleven has a female main character (although there are a few parallel strands with other leads), survival and rebuilding themes, and what felt to me like a positive, hopeful tone about a dark time. Fair warning: it's about the aftermath of a major pandemic.
posted by crocomancer at 12:51 AM on July 6, 2020 [8 favorites]

Best answer: The last two of the "Katy" books might work for you - Clover and In the High Valley. Female protagonists, home-building in Colorado. Not gardening, I'm afraid, more along the lines of putting up pictures, rugs, making homes "nice", and they don't have the wit of Heyer or A Civil Contract. Both are on Gutenberg so you can download for kindle. Clover. In the High Valley. I also think you might like - and this is outside your guidelines, sorry - The Garden Cottage Diaries: My Year in the Eighteenth Century, by Fiona Houston, which is pretty much what the title says, and available on kindle. Not sad. I also think this would be a good question for the recommend section on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, if you felt like asking there. Great question - smart, cheery women rebuilding things is what a lot of us want at the moment.
posted by paduasoy at 1:16 AM on July 6, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I can't access My side of the mountain in Australian Kindle, but very excited to discover more Katy books, and very okay with idea of positive post-pandemic (hopefully) story. I did download an Australian set pandemic story and mum had the whole farm set up, but I got cranky when the guardians of an orphan decided to travel back to the city with the sole goal of collecting the orphan's parents' corpses, risking their lives in a city with bad people and couldn't finish the book, let alone the series (if there is one)

More please!
posted by b33j at 1:33 AM on July 6, 2020

If you haven't read them before, the Anne of Green Gables books are available on Kindle via Project Gutenberg. They sit in the same headspace as the Katy books for me. There's a list here showing chronological vs publication order.
posted by terretu at 2:05 AM on July 6, 2020 [3 favorites]

Willa Cather's "O! Pioneers" might fit the bill.
posted by saladin at 4:40 AM on July 6, 2020 [5 favorites]

Hild has detailed descriptions of dairy and textile production, although it's not all happy.
posted by abeja bicicleta at 4:43 AM on July 6, 2020 [3 favorites]

Island of the Blue Dolphins, about a young girl stranded alone on an island for 18 years, might fit the bill. It’s been a while since I read it, but I remember it having a lot of the elements you’re looking for.
posted by music for skeletons at 5:05 AM on July 6, 2020 [5 favorites]

Sometimes when people say "YA" they mean "Novels for teenagers" and sometimes they mean "Any novels for young people, including 8-to-12-year-olds." If you mean "YA" in the second sense, then read on...

Because so many books based on toys are sloppily written cash grabs, I was initially very skeptical about the American Girl series of historical fiction. Amazingly, they turned out to be extremely well written, with believable and sympathetic characters, and lots of fascinating historical details. I was especially fond of the Josefina series and based on what you say, I think you'll like it, too. But honestly, I liked every historical American Girl book that I read. (Note that there is also a series of contemporary-set American girl books that I don't think really fits what you're looking for -- stick with the historical ones.)

The Many Reflections of Miss Jane Deming is one of my favorite reads of the past few years, and I recommend it to everybody. I would especially recommend it to somebody looking for historical fiction with a strong female heroine and some elements of homesteading and romantic relationships.
posted by yankeefog at 6:21 AM on July 6, 2020 [2 favorites]

You might possibly also like Louisa May Alcott's lesser-known works, Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom. These are actual historical works, so, obviously, will reflect some values we no longer embrace (I don't remember anything truly awful, but it's been years). They are about a girl growing up in a large family and a community at a time when that still entailed a lot of involvement in a broader community life.
posted by praemunire at 9:03 AM on July 6, 2020

For YA the Homecoming series by Cynthia Voigt, literally about kids building a new home and surviving.

For adult novels, The Egg and I is a more humorous take on farming.
posted by emjaybee at 10:06 AM on July 6, 2020

These Is My Words by Nancy Turner might be a good fit... but it's been two decades since I read it, and I have a feeling there might have been something painful or heartbreaking in there, which you might not thank me for. Perhaps someone else has read it more recently and can confirm one way or the other...?
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 10:26 AM on July 6, 2020

Station Eleven is amazing but is NOT a feel-good cottagecore kind of thing. It is haunting and was deeply painful to read (for me, ymmv) during the pandemic.

Consider Under the Tuscan Sun and A Year in Provence (male narrator), for gorgeous scenery, homesteading, and a light touch of romance. There are many in this vein - once you hit one you'll get lots of recs.
posted by nkknkk at 10:42 AM on July 6, 2020 [2 favorites]

Willa Cather's "O! Pioneers" might fit the bill.

I was coming here to suggest Willa Cather. You might also like My Antonia and The Song of the Lark, which are part of her prairie trilogy. Oh wow I loved these books.

Being Australian probably you would already have read this but The Thorn Birds?

Otherwise, Canadian fiction (CanLit) is chock-a-block full of this type of thing. You may enjoy Margaret Laurence's works, particularly The Stone Angel and The Diviners and Aritha van Herk's The Tent Peg, or Ami MacKay's The Birth House off the top of my head.

Another of this style I've enjoyed recently is Amanda Coplin's The Orchardist.
posted by urbanlenny at 10:48 AM on July 6, 2020

For regency romance, I recommend most of Mary Balogh. She has a few stinkers, mostly earlier works, but on the whole they work for me better than any other historical romance author I have tried. I recommend the Survivors Club series, or the Westcotts, to start. It’s romance, so it’s not 100% historically accurate, but it’s acceptable, at least to me.
posted by sumiami at 10:49 AM on July 6, 2020

Oh, it just occurred to me that Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset might also fit the bill.
posted by frumiousb at 8:19 PM on July 6, 2020

Lila, a sequel to Gilead?
posted by some little punk in a rocket at 8:38 PM on July 6, 2020 [1 favorite]

Male Protagonist, but The Martian is fabulous, all about gardening and survivalist chemistry/physics. I finished it, and immediately started reading it again.
posted by kjs4 at 11:05 PM on July 6, 2020

Look into the Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace. It is semi-autobiographical, following a group of friends from late 19th c (characters begin school) to right before WWI (characters are young adults). The books start at an easier reading level but progress as the characters age. Checks your boxes for female leads, historical, cozy, and domestic details.
posted by Pleased_As_Punch at 6:18 PM on July 7, 2020