1970s Archives - The Gilmore Guide to Books

The English Masterpiece

Catherine — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 08:54:20 +0000

I don’t listen to a lot of audiobooks so it’s a delight when I take the time and it works out. The English Masterpiece is set in 1970s London and Lily is the assistant to Diana Gilden, the director of the modern art collection at the Tate Museum. This job is Lily’s chance to prove […]

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Bright Young Women

Catherine — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 07:53:12 +0000

Pamela Schumacher is the president of her sorority at Florida State University, a job she takes so seriously she doesn’t go out with her friends one Saturday night because she has too much work to do. In the early hours of the following morning this same sense of responsibility will uproot her life from its […]

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All That is Mine I Carry With Me

Catherine — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 07:45:31 +0000

The scene is cleanly set when in the simpler times of 1975 10-year-old Miranda arrives home from school to find the house locked and, after she uses the hidden key to get in, empty. Her mother should be there. Her mother is always there to greet her after school. Her car, keys, handbag all in […]

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Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane

Catherine — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 07:30:52 +0000

He has no idea where it all comes from—the loyalty and the rage, the brotherhood and the suspicion, the benevolence and the hate. If you’re looking for refined forays into the more delicate human emotions in your reading than Dennis Lehane is probably not an author you read often or at all. He’s a bareknuckle […]

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Shadows of Pecan Hollow

Catherine — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 05:52:21 +0000

Kit is 13 when she decides to abandon being abandoned. She’s been in foster care since she was a baby, in more homes than she can remember, but none of them has been good. Or even decent. She’s starving in every way and so takes off for a town called Pecan Hollow where an overworked […]

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The Mysteries by Marisa Silver

Catherine — Fri, 07 May 2021 04:26:39 +0000

Set in the early 1970s The Mysteries by Marisa Silver is about Margaret Ann (Miggy), the only child of Julian and Jean Brenneman. They married in their early 20s so he could avoid the Vietnam War draft and Miggy was born when Jean ran out of birth control pills. Not necessarily an auspicious beginning for […]

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A Girl is a Body of Water

Catherine — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 04:38:13 +0000

I came upon Jennifer Makumbi’s novel, A Girl is a Body of Water, in my efforts to further diversify my reading. It’s a multi-generational saga centered around a young Ugandan woman named Kirabo. The novel begins in the 1970s when she’s 12. She lives in a sprawling rural compound with her grandparents and many relatives. […]

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Daisy Jones & The Six

Catherine — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 07:28:33 +0000

I came to hate that I’d put my heart and my pain into my music because it meant that I couldn’t ever leave it behind. Daisy Jones is the quintessential ‘70s rock ‘n roll dream girl—preternaturally beautiful, no inhibitions, and ready to party. Except that she’s got dreams of her own and an astonishing whiskey-soaked […]

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It’s Not You, It’s Me: Mini-Reviews

Catherine — Fri, 25 Aug 2017 07:12:16 +0000

Plausibility is a subjective concept, especially in reading. There are premises, plots, and characters in novels I love that make other readers put the book down. Today’s mini-reviews exemplify the term because both novels contain characters and situations that I could not believe in and so impacted my ability to enjoy the book as much […]

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The Trouble with Goats and Sheep

Catherine — Mon, 11 Jul 2016 07:40:53 +0000

The summer of 1976 is one of upheaval for the families who live along the Avenue, a seemingly quiet British neighborhood. Mrs. Margaret Creasy has gone missing. Ten-year-old Grace takes the words of the local vicar that “If God exists in a community, no one will be lost” as her cue to find God within […]

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