Far be it from me to tell anyone what to read. It is usually enough to put me off, completely irrationally, if someone tells me I “must read” something. I should say though that I don’t recognise your synopsis of Rebecca above at all from the book I just listened to. Maybe the film, which I have never seen , is different, as is so often the case, and almost always worse! I’m going to give Louise Penny a try though from the library as I love murder fiction so long as it’s not too gory or real – Agatha Christie or Dorothy L Sayers rather than Patricia Cornwell for me!

Also, Penny was ok, but not for a whole series (since we seem to have similar tastes). I dropped her around book 4.

The War of Art, The Writer’s Journey, Telling Lies for Fun and Profit

And I can’t get into either Rebecca or Jane Austen, either, no matter how much other may love them.

@JH – I have not read it, though it seems from the title like that would be a problematic argument. What does it mean to “prioritize” motherhood for the first three years? For each individual kid? Many of my children are fewer than 3 years apart, which means that the 2 year old definitely got a lot less attention once the baby arrived. Possibly the equivalent less attention to my working a lot more hours!

Have you read Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell? You seem to enjoy history and Sarah is very funny. I highly recommend the audiobooks–she reads them herself.

@KatherineB- I am completely willing to accept that my tepid feelings toward Jane Austen are a character flaw. Pure and simple. As for Rebecca, for some reason I have an aversion to stories of the mistreated woman, especially those where the plot advances by going deeper into the depths of cruelty from whence she will then rise. It is apparently a common theme in women’s narrative daydreaming, hence its popularity in fiction (hello Cinderella) but…not for me. The good thing about reading as an adult is you can choose. False accusations aren’t really my thing either, which is why I am probably not usually keen on mysteries. It has to be handled really quickly, and be obviously wrong, which everyone knows, in order for me not to get put off by it (hence why I was OK with the Penny one!)