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Call the Midwife
Inspired by the memoirs of Jennifer Worth, Call the Midwife follows the nurses, midwives, and nuns from Nonnatus House, who visit the expectant mothers of Poplar (London's East End), providing the poorest women with the best possible care.
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The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times
Jennifer Worth - Penguin Books; Reprint edition
Format: Paperback
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An unforgettable true story, The Midwife is the basis for the hit PBS drama Call the Midwife. At the age of twenty-two, Jennifer Worth leaves her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in post war London's East End slums. Beautifully written... |
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Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse
Jennifer Worth - Ecco/HarperCollins
Format: Paperback
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The sequel to Jennifer Worth's New York Times bestselling memoir and the basis for the PBS series Call the Midwife.
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Call the Midwife: Farewell to the East End
Jennifer Worth - Ecco/HarperCollins
Format: Paperback
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The last book in the trilogy begun by Jennifer Worth's New York Times bestseller and the basis for the PBS series Call the Midwife.
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Downton Abbey
Ambition. Heartbreak. Hope. Love. Scandal. Downton Abbey, the award-winning series from Julian Fellowes, spans 12 years of gripping drama centered on a great English estate. The Granthams and their family of servants is currently filming the Downton Abbey movie which is scheduled to be released in theaters fall 2019.
The suggestions below include titles similar in feel to the show as well as the real-life stories that inspired the series.
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The Buccaneers
Edith Wharton - Penguin Books
Format: Paperback
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Set in the 1870s, The Buccaneers is about five wealthy American girls denied entry into New York Society because their parents' money is too new. At the suggestion of their clever governess, the girls sail to London, where they marry lords, earls, and dukes who find their... |
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Cavendon Hall: A Novel
Barbara Taylor Bradford - St. Martin's Press
Format: Book
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A sweeping trilogy of secrets, love, and honor set in Edwardian England.
The Cavendon Chronicles covers 36 years in the lives of the Inghams and the Swanns, the two families who live at Cavendon, a stately home in the North of England. The first book begins in 1913... |
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Longbourn
Jo Baker - Alfred A. Knopf
Format: Book
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In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, the servants take center stage. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there... |
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Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle
Countess of Fiona Carnarvon - Broadway Paperbacks
Format: Paperback
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Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey tells the story behind Highclere Castle, the real-life inspiration and setting for Julian Fellowes's Emmy Award-winning PBS show Downton Abbey, and the life of one of its most famous inhabitants, Lady Almina, the 5th Countess... |
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Victoria
The fascinating story of Queen Victoria. The suggestions below are similiar in feel and include titles focusing on Queen Victoria and other members of royalty.
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Victoria: A Novel
Daisy Goodwin - St. Martin's Press
Format: Hardcover
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NATIONAL BESTSELLER"Victoria is an absolutely captivating novel of youth, love, and the often painful transition from immaturity to adulthood. Daisy Goodwin breathes new life into Victoria's story, and does so with sensitivity, verve, and wit." - AMANDA FOREMANDrawing... |
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Queen Victoria's Matchmaking: The Royal Marriages that Shaped Europe
DEBORAH CADBURY - PublicAffairs
Format: Hardcover
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A captivating exploration of the role in which Queen Victoria exerted most international power and influence: as a matchmaking grandmother.By the 1890s, Queen Victoria had over thirty grandchildren, and to maintain and increase British royal power she was determined to maneuver them into... |
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Victoria & Abdul
Shrabani Basu - Vintage
Format: Book
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A major Motion Picture starring Dame Judi Dench. The true story of Queen Victoria and her dearest companion, Munshi Abdul Karim and the most scandalous decade in Queen Victoria's long reign.
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Katherine of Aragon, The True Queen: A Novel
Alison Weir - Ballantine Books
Format: Hardcover
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Bestselling author and acclaimed historian Alison Weir takes on what no fiction writer has done before: creating a dramatic six-book series in which each novel covers one of King Henry VIII's wives. In this captivating opening volume, Weir brings to life the tumultuous tale of Katherine... |
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Three sister, three queens
Philippa Gregory - Thorndike Press Large Print
Format: Book
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United in sisterhood by birth and marriage, Katherine of Aragon, Queen of England; Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots; and Mary Tudor, Queen of France immediately recognize each other as both allies and rivals in the treacherous world of court and national politics. Their bonds extend beyond... |
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Poldark
Poldark, set on the Cornish Coast during the 18th century, draws from the historical Poldark saga written by Winston Graham, published from 1945 to 1953 and from 1973 to 2002.
The suggestions below are similar in feel; sweeping family dramas entangled in issues related to love, community, rivalry, and war.
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Ross Poldark: A Novel of Cornwall, 1783-1787
Winston Graham
Format: Book
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First book in the Poldark series. Tired from a grim war in America, Ross Poldark returns to his land and family, only to find his father has died, his estate is derelict, and the girl he loved is engaged to another.
Readers may divide the series in two cycles. The first seven books... |
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Fall of Giants
Ken Follett - Viking
Format: Hardcover
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Ken Follett's magnificent new historical epic begins as five interrelated families move through the momentous dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage. A thirteen-year-old Welsh boy enters a man's world in the mining pits. . . . An American... |
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The House of the Spirits
Isabel Allende
Format: Book
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A best seller and critical success all over the world, The House of the Spirits is the magnificent epic of the Trueba family -- their loves, their ambitions, their spiritual quests, their relations with one another, and their participation in the history of their times.
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Half of a Yellow Sun
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Anchor; Reprint edition
Format: Paperback
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Half of a Yellow Sun is a tremendously evocative novel of the promise, hope, and disappointment of the Biafran war. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor... |
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The Thorn Birds
Colleen McCullough - Paw Prints
Format: Book
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The epic story of a priest torn between God and human passion and a beautiful girl desiring only what she cannot have, spanning five decades of ambition, fear, longing and revenge, and set against the vast horizons of Australia's Outback.
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White Teeth: A Novel
Zadie Smith - Vintage Books
Format: Paperback
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Set in post-war London, this novel of the racial, political, and social upheaval of the last half-century follows two families--the Joneses and the Iqbals, both outsiders from within the former British empire--as they make their way in modern England.
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Sherlock
Sherlock is a British crime drama television series based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes detective stories, published between 1887 - 1928.
Sherlock Holmes teams up with his long-suffering, faithful friend, Dr. John Watson to solve a dizzying array of crimes. The suggestions below are mystery series featuring quirky detectives solving an assortment of crimes.
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A Study in Scarlet
Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930. - Peerage Books
Format: Book
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If you want to acquaint yourself with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, you should really start at the beginning. Doyle’s characters are still taking shape in this first tale, but it’s truly essential to set up the rest of the stories. In it, we learn how the pair came to meet... |
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Aunt Dimity's Death
Nancy Atherton
Format: Book
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The series follows the adventures of American Lori Shepherd and her growing family as she solves mysteries with the help of her deceased benefactor, Aunt Dimity, who communicates with her from the spirit world.
Each book contains a recipe for a bread or pastry which is integral to the story.
Book... |
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Maisie Dobbs
Jacqueline Winspear - Soho
Format: Book
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In 1929 London, former servant Maisie Dobbs starts her own business as a psychologist and investigator in this unique and gripping historical mystery series.
Book One in the Maisie Dobbs series.
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The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Alexander McCall Smith - Anchor
Format: Paperback
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Missing Husbands. Con Men. Wayward Daughters.The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series tells the story of the delightfully cunning Precious Ramotswe, who is drawn to her profession to "help people with problems in their lives".
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Murder on Bank Street
Victoria Thompson - Center Point Pub; Lrg edition
Format: Book
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The Gaslight Series features Sarah Brandt, a midwife in the turn-of-the-century tenements of Manhattan who refuses to turn a blind eye to the injustices of the crime-ridden city.
Also try Victoria Thompson's Counterfeit Lady series.
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