Little Women need a big library! In between visiting their neighbours, putting on plays, writing thrilling stories in the attic and making mischief among themselves there is plenty of time for a good story.
Jo March
Jo is a voracious reader. While she loves the classics—who is more thrilling than Shakespeare? Is there a better cross-dressing twin swap than Twelfth Night? —Jo March also loves a dastardly swashbuckling tale. The more outlandish the plot the better. She needs to keep her finger on the pulse of what sells and so is up on the twists and turns of the latest bestsellers. She’s been reaching for Gillian McAllister’s Famous Last Words: hostages, missing people, cryptic messages... it’s all spine-tingling!
Then there’s Anthony Horowitz’s Marble Hall Murders . An editor of crime fiction has had a few brushes with real life murder mysteries already, and now she suspects the author she’s working with of crime. Poison even! These authors know how to put together a ripping good tale!
That said, was a tale ever more thrilling than The Three Musketeers?
Meg March
Even though Meg is sure her future holds more family than fame, she still holds onto her love of the stage. She likes to pick up plays to read in her spare time, taking particular care to linger over the lead female roles. Whether it’s Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire, she knows Tennessee Williams gave his leading ladies some complex roles. She’s glad to see she can access so many classic plays on Libby without even leaving the house: for a young mother, this is very convenient. Whether it’s Henrik Ibsen or Anton Chekhov, she knows there’ll be a great playwright waiting for her.
Even though she no longer thinks she’ll spend her life on the stage (and is in fact very happy with her lovely life), she’s fascinated by the lives of women who have been in the spotlight. She sees there’s a new book by Shirley MacLaine, The Wall of Life: Pictures and Stories from this Marvelous Lifetime and is prepared to engage in reverie about the other life she may have lived.
Beth March
Beth is happiest when she is surrounded by her sisters, but she is next happiest when she gets to spend time in solitude. Whether she’s practicing her music or just thinking about it, she likes to be in reverie—and always close to home. So when she’s curling up with a story, she likes it best when it involves these things. Like James Runcie’s The Great Passion. Beth imagines the life of this young Stefan Silbermann as he gets to watch Johann Sebastien Bach write the St Matthews Passion. How astonishing!
Or what about Nell Stevens’s Briefly, a delicious life, which imagines the meeting of the great pianist and composer Frederic Chopin with the writer George Sand. The imagination provides all the travel Beth needs!
Amy March
Amy has always been clever at drawing, and she sometimes she even thinks she has what it takes to be a great artist. She loves to practice by sketching and painting her sisters and the landscapes of home, as well as painting from her travels. She both keeps up with the monographs of artists as they are published, and also browses technical art books regularly to see if there are any new media she should try.
When it comes to browsing art, Amy loves both the old masters and the up and coming newer artists. She’s been revisiting Rembrandt with Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age and she considers da Vinci to be incomparable, so Leonardo da Vinci: a Life in Drawing is essential. She’s fascinated by Frida Kahlo’s life and art as depicted in Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up and can't quite fathom the success of Yayoi Kusama in recent years.
Amy knows that it’s good to go back to basics sometimes, and so she is glad to pick up Artist’s Watercolour Techniques - watercolours are so convenient when she’s travelling.
Marmee
Everyone admires Marmee for her warmth and practicality. She knows how to make ends meet and never shows that she needs for anything. Just as she is wise and thrifty in life, she is wise and thrifty in her reading, looking for works that enable her to make her home and community better for everyone. She is always looking for ways to make use of what she has. Recently she’s picked up Upcycle: A modern maker’s guide to sewing and mending a preloved wardrobe as well as Better than New: Tips for upcycling and refinishing furniture. She also likes to consult Thrifty Gardening: Money-saving tips and know-how for a flourishing garden because surrounding herself with beauty while also adding fresh food to the pantry is doubly rewarding.
Mr March
What he has seen of the American civil war while a chaplain for the Union will always haunt Mr March, and he seeks wisdom to place his experience in context. Works like Robert Graves’s Goodbye to All That and George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia offer perspective that help him process what he has seen.
Mr March also understands that his own story has been the source of inspiration for a novel: Geraldine Brooks’s March follows him to the war and back again as he joins the Union cause. He admits that he doesn’t find this attention unflattering.
Laurie
Laurie always has his eye on the good things in life—whether the good things are the members of his beloved March family and the way they make him feel at home, or the trappings of life as a rich playboy. And even if he will settle down from being a rich playboy to become a rich husband, Laurie intends to keep his eye on the finer things. As much as he loves to break homemade bread with Marmee and her daughters, he also likes to think about extravagances like fancy cars. GQ Drives: a stylish guide to the greatest cars ever made is exactly the sort of book he likes to idly flip through on an idle afternoon. Being a man of leisure can be very hard work.
Aunt March
Aunt March is always planning her next Grand Tour (she believes she should not stop at one: Europe holds such treasures for the woman who can travel in style) and even thinks about adventuring beyond the bounds of Europe into other fascinating parts of the world. She doesn’t like the speed of this new-fangled world and so has picked up Slow Travel in Europe to help her plan leisurely routes around her old haunts. It occurs to her that she has heard much about the pyramids and might like to see them for herself, and so she has also picked up the travel guide Egypt . Aunt March has also put aside Agatha Christie’s The Grand Tour: Letters and Photographs from the British Empire Expedition 1922 in audiobook. Is there anything better than listening to a great travel narrative while embarking on your own travels?
Has it been a while since you spent time with the March family? Read Little Women , enjoy Greta Gerwig’s recent film adaptation of the book or revisit Gillian Armstrong’s classic film.