Hi friends!
I’m in the middle of my annual rewatch of Call the Midwife, but I’ll run out of episodes long before the new series starts so I’m trying to think of ways to keep the vibes going.
Looking for books, preferably by English authors too, set in London around the same time period as the show, so mid-50s to late 60s ish. I’m mostly interested in fiction, though if you know of any fun non-fiction books I’m all ears 🙂
Would love stories that kinda involve normal people and everyday life, but I’m not that picky. I prioritise characters over plot, I love romance B-plots (or C-plots) but I’m not huge on romance being the main thing, and I’d be thrilled to read anything related to medicine. Bonus points for stand-alone books, and short-ish ones! Doesn’t matter to me if they’re written this year or in 1956 or what 😉
(also I have read/am reading Jennifer Worth’s books too before anyone suggests those)
Thank you ❤️
by skauing
4 Comments
heart of London by Monica Dickens. she may have set other novels there too.
Margaret Drabble: Jerusalem the golden, the needle’s eye, the middle ground, parts of the ice age.
Barbara pym (or was this one Muriel Spark?) : quartet in autumn
Anthony Burgess: pretty sure the doctor is sick happens in London.
fay Weldon: down among the women, female friends.
Doris Lessing: the golden notebook. GL getting through it 😋
Iris Murdoch: a fairly honourable defeat, probably the sacred and profane love machine, definitely a word child. maybe the black prince, an accidental man, and some others.
Third Girl by Agatha Christie
The Hours before the Dawn – Celia Fremlin
Dominick Donald, *Breathe* – long factually dense crime novel set in the London smog of the early 50s. (My grandma died of lung disease from that, I vaguely remember her).
Ethel Mannin, *Lover Under Another Name* – artists/bohemians in the immediately postwar period of bomb damage and austerity. Mannin was a fantastic writer who is now mostly forgotten, look her up.
Samuel Beckett, *Murphy* – the Irish immigrant community, published in 1938 but not a lot changed for them until long after the war.