Amy Sisson's 2024 list of books read (the North Carolina edition)
CharlasClub Read 2024
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1amysisson
List of books read in 2024
1. Someone to Count On by Rosamond du Jardin. YA (vintage), read 02-07-2024.
2. .... {Oscar book} ...
Categories:
Children's (contemporary) -
Children's (vintage) -
Fantasy/Alternate History -
General fiction (vintage) -
Literary fiction -
Mystery -
Picture books (contemporary) -
Picture books (vintage) -
Science fiction -
YA (contemporary) -
YA (vintage) - 1
New - 1
Repeat -
1. Someone to Count On by Rosamond du Jardin. YA (vintage), read 02-07-2024.
2. .... {Oscar book} ...
Categories:
Children's (contemporary) -
Children's (vintage) -
Fantasy/Alternate History -
General fiction (vintage) -
Literary fiction -
Mystery -
Picture books (contemporary) -
Picture books (vintage) -
Science fiction -
YA (contemporary) -
YA (vintage) - 1
New - 1
Repeat -
2amysisson
Read Someone to Count On by Rosamond du Jardin. I picked this up in an antique mall last week -- I assumed I owned all of du Jardin's maltshop books, but my trusty LibraryThing app told me I was wrong, so I snagged it. This was slightly more serious than a lot of maltshops -- actually reminded me a bit of Anne Emery's "Dinny Gordon" series because Twink, the main character in this book, isn't just about the boys.
3labfs39
Welcome back to Club Read, Amy. Happy to follow along again. Can I ask what maltshop books are? I have never heard the phrase before.
5amysisson
>3 labfs39:
Hi labfs39! Maltshop books are vintage young adult books for girls that focus on high school, dating, dates at the local maltshop, etc. Some of them throw in social issues (such as a minority family moves to town, some of the local people are prejudiced, and the main character helps bring people around to rethink their views) but many of them have lots of descriptions of clothes and food at parties!
I was born in 1968 and most of the ones I collect are older than me. I read a while in high school that I found at my local public library, and was charmed by the "quaintness" of them, but I didn't start collecting them until my 30s or so. Being able to buy used books online certainly fed my habit of collecting these!
My bigger interest, though, are the young adult career romance novels of the same time period. Instead of focusing on high school and dating, they start out with a newly graduated protagonist, sometimes just leaving high school, sometimes leaving junior college or regular university. The main character gets a job, sometimes enthusiastically and sometimes reluctantly, and learns by making both personal and professional mistakes. These aren't like the Cherry Ames books that had one character pursue a different branch of nursing in every book, but instead these are almost all standalone -- each book has a different character in a different profession and is written by a different author. Sometimes the authors were women who had worked in the field they're now fictionalizing. There were two main "publisher series" in the United States: the Messner "Career Romance for Young Moderns" series and the "Dodd, Mead Career Books for Girls". There were also a number of British series in a similar vein.
A fellow collector and I once submitted a nonfiction book proposal about these to a popular culture press, but they declined (and tried to steer us to a vanity press). I might try again one of these days, though.
Hi labfs39! Maltshop books are vintage young adult books for girls that focus on high school, dating, dates at the local maltshop, etc. Some of them throw in social issues (such as a minority family moves to town, some of the local people are prejudiced, and the main character helps bring people around to rethink their views) but many of them have lots of descriptions of clothes and food at parties!
I was born in 1968 and most of the ones I collect are older than me. I read a while in high school that I found at my local public library, and was charmed by the "quaintness" of them, but I didn't start collecting them until my 30s or so. Being able to buy used books online certainly fed my habit of collecting these!
My bigger interest, though, are the young adult career romance novels of the same time period. Instead of focusing on high school and dating, they start out with a newly graduated protagonist, sometimes just leaving high school, sometimes leaving junior college or regular university. The main character gets a job, sometimes enthusiastically and sometimes reluctantly, and learns by making both personal and professional mistakes. These aren't like the Cherry Ames books that had one character pursue a different branch of nursing in every book, but instead these are almost all standalone -- each book has a different character in a different profession and is written by a different author. Sometimes the authors were women who had worked in the field they're now fictionalizing. There were two main "publisher series" in the United States: the Messner "Career Romance for Young Moderns" series and the "Dodd, Mead Career Books for Girls". There were also a number of British series in a similar vein.
A fellow collector and I once submitted a nonfiction book proposal about these to a popular culture press, but they declined (and tried to steer us to a vanity press). I might try again one of these days, though.
6amysisson
>3 labfs39:
If you click this and display in cover view, you can see 288 books I consider to be career romance. I still need to scan a lot of the covers, but there are a lot of gorgeous covers here to look at:
https://www.librarything.com/catalog/amysisson?tag=career%20romance
And here are the maltshop books (although I'm behind on tagging, so there's only 36 in this group):
https://www.librarything.com/catalog/amysisson?tag=maltshop
If you click this and display in cover view, you can see 288 books I consider to be career romance. I still need to scan a lot of the covers, but there are a lot of gorgeous covers here to look at:
https://www.librarything.com/catalog/amysisson?tag=career%20romance
And here are the maltshop books (although I'm behind on tagging, so there's only 36 in this group):
https://www.librarything.com/catalog/amysisson?tag=maltshop
7labfs39
>6 amysisson: Thanks for the links, I thought Doris Day might pop off one of those covers! The only books in this vein that I've read tended to be series my mother had: the aforementioned Cherry Ames, Sue Barton, Annette. I enjoyed rereading some of the Cherry Ames books last year. I don't think I've ever run across standalone career romances or maltshop books. Interesting!
