Can any mother help me? More like it...

[Summerhillsquare]

Just devoured this book. It's an account of an early correspondence club for women that ran for 50 odd years. The title is from a letter that started the club, from a lonely and frustrated woman in the 1930s. They wrote long letters and articles, and sent them on to the next member, who could add comments or questions - like a protoMumsnet!

It made me think how little I've read of women's experience outside of novels. I'd love recommendations of something similar.

It's a fabulous book. When it first came out the author came o here to talk to about it but in unofficial capacity. She sent some of us free copies and I was lucky enough to get one.

I loved that they stayed friends for years and years. Also...the lovely covers!
What did you like about it?

Can't recommend anything similar but just wanted to say I have this book and am very fond of it.

As far as other books go, I read a really interesting one about the women in the special operations executive in ww2. They were just normal women who could often speak fluent French and they were recruited to go into France and support the resistance movement. Incredibly interesting!
I'll try and remember the title..

Is the book called 'Can any mother help me?' I thought that was the thread title!

Yes! The book is called that!https://www.amazon.co.uk/Can-Any-Mother-Help-Me/dp/0571282172

I read that book several years ago. Love it.

Fab book. What about Square Haunting? Less about motherhood though.

You might enjoy the book Tiny Beautiful Things which is a selection of agony aunt letters to a woman called Sugar and her replies. Also made into a tv series.

Maybe one of the books that collect diaries from the Mass Observation Project? Our Hidden Lives - Simon Garfield is good but there are others

I loved Our Hidden Lives by Simon Garfield - sounds similar. Also 'a life discarded' by Alexander masters

@RedOrangePink
I've recently read Nella Last's war which is one of the MOP diaries - subtitled
Housewife, 49 which was her occupation and age.

I also have on my kindle but not yet started a book called Secret Voices which I think is excerpts from women's diaries from Victorian times onwards . Was recommended on another thread on here I think.

Say I’m sorry to mother - Carol Dix

A memoir of growing up in the 60s/70s. Very much about changing times, changing attitudes to sex, and female freedom.

Hidden Lives by Margaret Forster is similar - the story of her grandmother’s and mother’s lives, and how different her life was compared to theirs.

Just ordered a copy off the back of this thread, thank you!

While fiction and comedic (it is one of my cheer up reads) the Diary of a Provincial Lady by E M Delafield has a lot of social detail, pre and during WW2

Doesn't need to be for me, I'm childless myself, just hearing about the worlds the women lived in from their perspective is what I loved.

Yes I think that's where the author came up with the material for this book. I'll check out where you can find more material.

@Summerhillsquare you might enjoy Simon Garfield’s We Are At War, which is another of his Mass Observation books. Blitz Spirit: Voices of Britain Living Through Crisis is another, edited by Becky Brown.

I absolutely loved Can any mother help me, and a second recommendation for Nella Last's War - I found it totally intriguing.

Anne Frank's diary is an obvious one if you haven't already read it.

What about Jung Chang's Wild Swans? Biographical account of three generations during the cultural revolution in China.

Read Anne Frank years ago. In truth I've read very little in recent years, and I'm keen to capitalise on my sudden invigoration.

Girls, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo is fiction but tells several women's stories in a very engaging way.

Michelle Obama's biography Becoming

Someone out there must have my copy of Can Any Mother.. I've been looking for it for years. I love that book.

And all Nella Last's books live in my head.

I also love this book - it’s fascinating.

You might enjoy Surplus Women which is about the generation of women who would have married the men who were killed in WWI and what they went on to do with their lives in an era where there weren't many options for single women. It is both uplifting and depressing. It always makes me hugely grateful to live in the era that I do when societal expectations are so different.