Recommended Reads: Alice I Have Been

Recommended Reads: Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin (FIC BEN)

Curious about the real Alice in Wonderland? This entrancing novel brings to life the girl (and woman) behind the story. Narrated in the first person by Alice Liddell Hargreaves, the book recounts her life from her childhood in Oxford (where she forms a friendship with Charles Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll) through a romance with Queen Victoria's youngest son, and later marriage and motherhood. Her struggle to forge her own identity beyond that of Carroll's Alice is a gripping one. A wonderful blend of literary mystery, romance, and coming of age story, Alice I Have Been is an enthralling tale.

Recommends Reads: Half Broke Horses

Recommended Reads

Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls (Fic Wal)

Born in a dirt dugout in West Texas in 1901, Lily Casey Smith, the heroine of this "true-life novel" lives a truly adventurous life. Growing up on a ranch in the southwest, Lily begins to help her father break half wild horses at the age of six. She becomes a schoolteacher at 15, spends time working menial jobs in Chicago (and marries her "crumb-bum" first husband) and after returning to Arizona races horses, sells bootleg liquor, runs a vast ranch with her second husband, and learns to fly a plane. Recalling the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Half Broke Horses is a fast moving tale about a strong, indomitable woman.

(Read more about the real-life Lily Casey Smith here)