TTT: Books my mother and I have in common

Top Ten Tuesday: Books My Mother and I Have in Common

In honor of my mother on Mother's Day/Week 2025

1. The Poldark series by Winston Graham -- The Poldark series was on PBS back in the 1970s sometime and my mother and I were dedicated to watching it every Sunday night. Soon we started to read the books that were the inspiration for the series (both then and now). It seemed like neither of us could get enough of Ross and Demelza Poldark. It was the first time I remember reading the same book as my mother for the same reason.

2. A Woman of Independent Means by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey -- Back in 1978 I think this book was fairly popular and when I read it I knew my mother would love it. I remember giving it to her after highlighting some of my favorite passages. This is one of our favorite quotes from the book and we talked about it often over the years:

"My darling... I was enthralled by your description of the lovers bicycling side by side along the canals of Amsterdam, the man touching the woman's handlebar. That is an image to remember as you choose the man to accompany you on your journey through life -- two figures advancing through their own efforts, neither propelling or impeding the other, simply reaching across the space that separates them for reassuring proof of the other's presence."

3.And the Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer -- I don't even remember anything about this book except it is over 1000 pages long and my mother gave it to me to read. Maybe I was staying with my parents for a few days that summer  in the mid-1980s. I also recall sitting outside in their yard as I read it. It was the longest book I ever read until I read Les Miserables many years later.

4. Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres -- I became pretty passionate about this book when I read it in 1995. I remember talking to my mother about the book and the symbolism in it around the topic of love. One again, a quote struck me as truthful and my mother and I agreed that the symbolism of the tree roots was accurate: 

“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being in love, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and, when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.”

5. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver -- By the mid-1990s my mother and I were both in separate book clubs but we would frequently talk about the books we were each reading for our clubs. One day as I sat at home reading I got a call from my mother telling me she was reading a book I should read, The Poisonwood Bible. It was exactly the same book I was reading at the moment. The story is about a missionary family in the Congo. We were also a missionary family in Africa when I was growing up. As we separately read the same book we were thinking of each other.

6. The #1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith -- I am not sure who read it first but this series was the first book either of us read by Alexander McCall Smith and we both fell in love with him and have read many, many books by him both his books in series and his stand-alones. Just this weekend I was visiting Mom and she asked me to go through a pile of books to see if I wanted any or if I would haul them to the library for their sale for her, and I noticed a McCall Smith I hadn't read on her shelf. I snatched it up!

7. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman -- If I remember correctly, both my mom and my sister urged me to read this book in the early 2000s about Hmong immigrants who got tangled up in the US medical system to tragic results. Some of the immigrants in the story lived in the same community as my parents and sister. We all had lots of talk about related to the events highlighted in the book. I love it when books help facilitate conversations which turn out to be very meaningful.

8. American Nightingale: The Story of Frances Slanger, Forgotten Heroine of Normandy by Bob Welch -- Bob is a writer and journalist friend of my sister, Kathy. When he published this book in 2004 she made sure everyone in our family got a copy of it. My mother, a nurse by profession, was especially taken by the story of this Army nurse who was killed after the Normandy Invasion during WWII. We were all touched by the story, made personal by the writing of a friend.

9. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain -- I read this book about Ernest Hemingway's first wife, Hadley, in 2013. As my mother has aged she seems to appreciate receiving books from family, even ones she has read before, more than going to the library herself. Every time she knows I am coming down for a visit she reminds me that she is out of books and asks if I can bring her some. (She's 96.) I scour the library book sale shelves for inexpensive used books I've read. Recently I found the second book in the series about Hemingway's second wife, Love and Ruin. I haven't read it yet, but Mom devoured it and called me to tell me how much she liked it. Just a month ago I found a used copy of the Paris Wife to give to Mom. I know she will like it, since I loved it so much.

10. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman -- I've noticed now that Mom is in her 90th decade she likes to read books about folks who are older, too. One of her grandkids gave her the first book in the Thursday Murder Club series, where all the characters are octogenarians, and she managed to get all the rest of the books in the series from the library. I have only read the first book so far. I'm behind. Must catch up.

I am so lucky to still have a living mother who, though she is 96, can still read and take joy in discussing books. I love you, Mom!

Mom reading with her great-grandsons, fostering a family-wide love of reading.

Do you have any similar experiences with your mother, or another relative, where you have some books in common? 

-Anne