Nancy Pearl in her natural habitat. Photo: Hayley Young for Seattle Magazine
You just knew that the mega-librarian and “full-time reader” who hosts the “Book Lust” show and includes in her acknowledgements, “thank you to all the writers whose books have given me immense pleasure over the years” was going to include lots of book references in her first novel.
Nancy Pearl’s novel George & Lizzie tells the story of a couple’s courtship and marriage, along with the sometimes complicated back stories that make their relationship what it is. Google Books calls it, “an homage to true love, painful childhood experiences, and emotional scars that last a lifetime. It’s a story of forgiveness, especially for one’s self.”
If reading George & Lizzie has you wanting to check out (or revisit) some of the books mentioned in the story, here’s a list of books in the order they appear, with links to where to find these books in Oakland Public Libraries. (Did we miss any? Let us know in the comments.)
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (FIC SMITH)
Paper Lion by George Plimpton (796.332 PLIMPTON)
End Zone by Don DeLillo (FIC DeLILLO)
Mr. Quarterback and Mr. Halfback by William Campbell Gault (not in OPL)
Double Date by R.L. Stine (YA FIC STINE)
Going Steady by Anne Emery (not in OPL)
Fifteen by Beverly Cleary (J FIC CLEARY)
Marathon Man by William Goldman (FIC GOLDMAN)
Beautiful Joe by Marshall Saunders (not in OPL)
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! (YA 031.02)
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (FIC WALPOLE)
Collected Chaucer
Similar to The Complete Poetry & Prose of Geoffrey Chaucer
From Egg to Chick
Probably this one: Egg to Chick by Millicent E. Selsam (J 591 SELSAM)
Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (FIC CRANE)
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang (951.05 CHANG)
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon (not in OPL)
The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge (FIC BAINBRIDG)
Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol (371.967 KOZOL)
Den of Thieves by James Stewart (364.168 STEWART)
The Art of Eating by MFK Fisher (641.013 FISHER)
Unnamed Elizabeth David cookbook
Possibly An Omelette and a Glass of Wine (641 David)
Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (FIC ECO)
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver (FIC KINGSOLVER)
Easy Halloween Costumes You Don’t Have to Sew (not in OPL)
There’s not much info about this title – it may not be a real book.
Roget’s Thesaurus (REF 423.1 ROGET’S 2010)
Do the Windows Open? by Julie Hecht (FIC HECHT)
The Silver Palate Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins (OVERSIZE 641.5 ROSSO)
The New Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen (not in OPL)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (FIC SMITH)
From Chocolate to Morphine by Andrew Weil (615.788 WEIL)
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (J FIC L’ENGLE)
Indirectly, when Lizzie is trying to convince George to change their last name, she mentions Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen (FIC AUSTEN), Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie (J FIC BARRIE), Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (J FIC WILDER), Stuart Little by E.B. White (J FIC WHITE), The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (J FIC BAUM) and Dr. Seuss.
Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum (J FIC BAUM)
That Was Then, This is Now by S.E. Hinton (YA FIC HINTON)
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (821.1 CHAUCER)
Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery (J FIC MONTGOMER)
Frog and Toad Are Friends</em> (J READER LOBEL)
The Joy of Cooking (641.5973 ROMBAUER)
I Hate to Cook Book (641.5 BRACKEN)
Phaedo by Plato (888 PLATO)
Alice in Wonderland (J FIC CARROLL)
Through the Looking Glass (J FIC CARROLL)
Atonement (FIC McEWAN)
Throughout the book, the characters discuss poets like A.E. Housman, Randall Jarrell, W.H. Auden, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Philip Larkin and Dorothy Parker. No specific books are mentioned, but you’ll find samples from all these poets in The Norton Anthology of Poetry (821.008 NORTON 1997). Characters also discuss John Betjeman, Ted Hughes, Theodore Roethke, Richard Hugo, John Ashbery, W.S. Merwin, Ezra Pound and Marianne Moore – you can learn more about many of these poets and sample their work in The Great Modern Poets, edited by Michael Schmidt (821.9109 GREAT).
Happy reading!
Friends of Montclair Library 