What my mother read!

My mum's great love was literature, she talked about it a lot and encouraged us all to read as much as we could.

But. I don't ever remember her actually reading. I'm guessing after a day wranling us five children it must have happened after we were in bed.

When I was older she had lost her sight and had a lot of audio books via the RNIB but I'd left home by then so I don't know what they were. My older siblings might know, I'll ask them.

My mum passed away last year and was a big reader.

SHe did read a lot of Catherine Cookson and nurses in the war type books, which I didn't like, but she also enjoyed Harry Potter, Game of Thrones (but got fed up of it as the series progressed endlessly) PD Robb, Phillipa Gregory, Norah Lofts.
For comfort reading she loved the Just William books

The last books she read was the Cormoran Strike series.

I've no clue what my grandmother read, I never recall her reading anything except Bella magazine.

I read way more than both my mother and grandmother but there are a few books we've shared; my gramma gave me the first few books from Jan Karon's Mitford series after she read them, I wasn't crazy about them but they bring back fond memories of her whenever I see them. My mother introduced me to James Herriot, whose books I do love and count as some of my favorite books ever; she, incidentally, was introduced to his books by her grandmother.

DD(13) isn't nearly as much of a reader as I was and am. She has sobbed her way pleasurably through The Fault in our Stars at least three times though.

That’s understandable!

Just had a bath in an effort to try and warm up and was thinking what a nice thread this is and whether in turn I as a prolifically reading mother had inspired my own daughters reading?

In short, I don’t think so! My 26 year old reads a lot and well but virtually exclusively science fiction which I don’t at all. As for my 12 year old, if she does read at all it’s books about confused teenagers snogging. Or Wuthering Heights which her English teacher introduced her too. Which is its own way is another book about confused teenagers snogging!

Anyone else feel like they’ve more positively inspired their daughters?!

SJane, it was the extract from Last Exit to Brooklyn, with a very graphic rape scene, that most disturbed me.

@bibliomania, I remember my Mother giving me a copy of The Female Eunuch when I was about 12. Was completely teenagerly grossed out by the idea of tasting my own period so it got flung aside!

My grandmother was a regional and national newspaper reader, the Farmers Journal and Ireland's Own.
Farmers need to be politically aware, as the party in power, new agricultural minister etc directly affect their livelihoods. She didn't have time for pleasure reading, but could remember huge chunks of literature and poetry from her schooldays right up to her 90s.
My DM has much more highbrow taste than me Joyce, Dostoevsky etc
We have the middle ground of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer and shared scorn for the self sabotaging over emoting Bronte characters

My grandmothers....not sure although I know Lorna Doone was always in the bedside table when i went to visit one grandmother.

My mother is obsessed with really brutal and violent crime thrillers- usually where a woman has been raped and murdered. I can't cope with that.

My mum is similar to me - reads widely and indiscriminately. We have fairly similar tastes but there are some authors she likes who I have never really got into (but keep thinking I should give them another try) - Dorothy L. Sayers, for example. She once said 'Gone with the wind' (Margaret Mitchell) was one of her favourite books but I could never get beyond the first chapter. So I would try again with Dorothy L Sayers for my mum-inspired choice.

My maternal grandmother wasn't much of a reader - she was very musical and spent all her free time playing, singing or listening to music.

My paternal grandmother liked long sagas such as 'The Thorn Birds'. She also subscribed to a magazine called 'My Weekly' (I think it still exists) that was mainly romantic short stories and serials. I'm not much of a magazine reader and I tend to find magazine stories a bit samey, though you get the occasional clever one, so I would stick to the sagas for my gran-choice and give 'The Thorn Birds' a try because I've never read it.

My mum loves George Eliot too (actually always made a point to call her Mary Ann Evans) I think because she came from Nuneaton which is Eliot-land isn’t it?

She also loves Daphne du Maurier.

My Gran had so many Catherine Cooksons and also so many Danielle Steeles! And about a million copies of Reader’s Digest, People’s Friend and Woman’s Weekly.

My mum was an English teacher so I grew up surrounded by books. She adored George Eliot and Henry James. She was a terrible book snob but we had the full set of the Whiteoaks books about Jalna. I read them all and loved them in my teens, partly because any attempt to smuggle in aa Mills and Boon was greeted by a lecture on the importance of Good Reading.

Some lovely posts here. I've no idea if either grandmother read for pleasure, as they died long before I was born, but might ask my parents. I read a few eye-opening books from my mother's shelf as a young teenager - The Women's Room and The Female Eunuch. We don't have much overlap in our current tastes, as she likes new age spirituality and I'll read anything but that.

Er, I really like Middlemarch!

Oh, my mum’s favourite book ever is Middlemarch by George Elliot. Go figure.
She also loved Forsythe Saga.

@Hemlock2013 t’s so long ago (I’m 50), I just can’t remember! Historical fiction definitely - I don’t think as slushy as the Georgette Heyers. My Mum was pretty intellectually snooty about my Granny’s taste - no way would we be reading Georgette Heyer’s together now .. which is a shame as I’d enjoy it!

@Pluas, completely the opposite here, my mother was/is pretty judgy about people who didn’t read as well as what they read. I remember her hiding a Jilly Cooper of mine before a friend of hers came round in case horror of horrors, her friend thought the Cooper was hers!

I envy those of you with reading grandmothers and mothers! Neither of mine would dream of reading for pleasure and I grew up with the idea that reading was ‘lazy’.

My mum and I both read georgette heyer. We recently got into it and now buy and swap books. Mum reads trashy stuff and I like to think my tastes are more refined but on georgette heyer we’ve reached a happy meeting point. She also read anya seton @SJaneS49, a historical romance called Katherine. Is that what you remember?

Anya Seaton! Just came to me.

My Mum is really well read, far more critical than me as I love a bit of absolute crap in the mix which she is snooty and purist about!

She does read quite a lot of female authors and going back that would include the likes of Marina Warner, Joanna Trollope, Barbara Pym, Molly Keane etc. She also loves travel books which we both love so she definitely inspired me there with the likes of passed on Paul Therouxs and Colin Thubrons. So if I was inspired by her, that’s what I’d be reading now. We do read quite a few of the same books - we’ve both just finished Hamnet and loved it.

My Grandmother read Georgette Heyers as well and other really similar stuff (Anya someone?) - inspirational probably isn’t the word but if I had a spare afternoon and a big slice of cake and they were lying around then yeah. I’d read them!

Catherine Cookson and Nora Lofts for my mum, and the Whiteoak saga. But she also loved books of short horror stories, the more gruesome the better!