Welcome to Triple Choice Tuesday, an ad-hoc series I kicked off in 2010 which has been on hiatus for several years — but has now returned for 2024. This is where I ask some of my favourite bloggers, writers and readers to share the names of three books that mean a lot to them. The idea is that it might raise the profile of certain books and introduce you to new titles, new authors and new bloggers. If you’d like to take part simply visit this post and fill in the form!
Today’s guest is Laura Tisdall, a writer and historian who blogs at Laura Tisdall.
Laura is a history postdoc at Newcastle University in the UK. She grew up between Wiltshire and Washington DC and now lives in rural Northumberland.
She is currently writing a book for Yale University Press London that will tell the history of Cold War Britain (c.1956-89) through the eyes of children and young people. She also writes fiction and is working on an Antarctic-set horror novel.
Laura will read anything except romance, romantasy, cosy crime and uplit, because — as she says — she “clearly hates love and happiness”.
Without further ado, here are Laura’s choices:
A favourite book: ‘Adam Bede’ by George Eliot (1859)
We all know that Middlemarch is George Eliot’s greatest work, and that the Gwendolyn sections of Daniel Deronda probably showcase her most brilliant writing, but I always connected intensely with the enormously unfashionable Adam Bede.
Adam Bede, set in the English countryside in the very late eighteenth century, is likely to be read by modern readers as didactic and conservative. It focuses on a young carpenter, Adam; dairy-maid Hetty, who is seduced by a local squire; and Hetty’s cousin, the female Methodist preacher Dinah. The plot is conventional. But Eliot so perfectly inhabits the moral worlds of her characters. Her understanding of why we act against our own best interests, and what we know to be right, is revelatory. Her ability to write characters who are deeply, honestly good – far harder than writing evil – is unmatched.
I don’t really have a favourite book, but I believe Eliot at her best represents the absolute peak of the novel form.
A book that changed my world: ‘The Hero and the Crown’ by Robin McKinley
Aerin grows up at court as female heir to the king, but is ostracised because of her dead mother. She learns how to kill dragons, but this does not win her acclaim: present-day dragons are seen as no more than annoying vermin, as the great dragons are all dead. Or so it is believed…
The Hero and the Crown is a classic: it won the Newbury Medal in 1985. But it changed my world not because of its compelling content but because of its nested sequence of stories. It tells and retells one story that Aerin has always known: that her mother died of despair when she gave birth to a daughter rather than a son.
Bigger legends also haunt the text: those of the great dragons, and the mystical Lake of Dreams. When I first read this book, I was too young to comprehend its structure. But it drew me back again and again as I figured out that you don’t have to tell stories in order, and that the stories we are told shape us.
There’s more I could talk about (the way McKinley handles Aerin’s trauma after killing the Black Dragon! the sheer beauty of the Le Guin-esque prose!) but I’ll just say that this book hit me with the force of a folktale.
A book that deserves a wider audience: ‘Always’ by Nicola Griffith
Good luck getting anybody to read this one: it’s the third of a trilogy, out of print, and saddled with a truly awful cover. But it’s also a brilliant and necessary novel that can absolutely be read as a stand-alone.
The unforgettable protagonist of Always, Aud Torvingen, is a former police lieutenant, lesbian, martial arts practitioner, Norwegian-British-American, carpenter and social manipulator. In the most important thread of this novel, Aud is teaching a self-defence class to a group of women in Atlanta. Aud does not deny the reality or the rationality of female fear, but she has a very clear philosophy, important in the face of the modern flood of psychological thrillers: she believes that women can learn to defend themselves and that seeing off a threat is much more likely than the media makes it seem.
Griffith also uses this narrative to delve even deeper into Aud’s psyche. She’s a closed narrator, who does not often tell us what she’s thinking or feeling; but her attention to the minutiae of others’ physical responses helps us understand how her body inhabits the world. Truly beautiful.
What do you think of Laura’s choices? Have you read any of these books?
This is a nice reminder that I really ought to read something by George Eliot (I had a failed attempt at a group read-along of Middlemarch more than 15 years ago), and while I’m not one for reading books about dragons, I’m intrigued by The Hero and The Crown! I also looked up Always but the £421.58 price tag for the sole secondhand copy on Amazon.co.uk is a little out of my range!
Reading Matters 
Yes, I think I’d hesitate over £421.58 as well…
I’ve only read Laura’s choice of Adam Bede … and loved it as I’ve loved all of GE’s novels. I do think Middlemarch is her masterpiece, but if you want something shorter, try The Mill on the Floss, I think it’s the one most often on school reading lists but don’t hold that against it!
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I’d also suggest that Mill on the Floss is a great place to start!
Re. Always… I can find a lot of used copies on Amazon and AbeBooks for £10-£20, so I think this will depend on where it’s shipping to. US and UK readers should be OK finding a sensibly priced copy if they so desire! I know Griffith is also trying to get the trilogy republished, but I’m not sure what’s happening with that.
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I had a hardback edition of Mill on the Floss when I was a teenager that I carted around for years but never read… goodness knows what happened to it. I hadn’t realised that was a George Eliot novel. Off to see if I can borrow one from the library!
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Lovely to see Laura over her – hello! I love Adam Bede; I would only read Middlemarch for years but I’ve gradually worked my way through most of her others now, reading them as I find them. I’d also say The Mill on the Floss is a good one to start with, too.
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Hello Liz! Yes, I’ve read all of George Eliot’s novels except Romola which I’ve been warned by Elle is a bit of a slog! I also enjoyed her short story/novella collection Scenes of Clerical Life.
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I think Romola is the one I haven’t read, either! And yes, I loved Scenes.
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Laura’s is a timely reminder to get myself re-acquainted with more novels from the past. I liked George Eliot’s work too, but haven’t read any for – ooh, maybe 50 years. I’m not big on dragons outside myths and legends, but Laura saying that The Hero and the Crown this book ‘hit me with the force of a folktale’ has drawn me in. I looked to see if my library could by any chance have a copy of Always. It hasn’t, but another by Griffith – Hild – looks interesting so I may start there. Good to see that you’re choosing a decent share of bloggers from the north of England, Kim!
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Yes, Hild is in print in the UK and US so is easier to get hold of, and I would recommend it, alongside basically everything Griffith has written…
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Noted. Thanks!
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I think the north of England thing is more by accident than design! But my dad was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, so maybe it’s subconcious 😉
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You definitely qualify!
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Adam Bede is my favourite by Eliot (so far; I’ve still not read several of hers) — a pleasant surprise to see Laura choosing a Victorian novel!
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Hey, I love C19th fiction! 🙂 It’s inter-war and post-war novels I avoid.
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Fair enough! Your other two choices are much more what I associate with your taste. Maybe I was just thinking of your Dickens antipathy. I did a whole MA in Victorian literature yet have barely managed to read a single Victorian novel since my 20s…
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Mill on the floss is where I started my Eliot journey, maybe at school but I think it was my mother who recommended it. Then Daniel Deronda. Then Middlemarch. haven’t read Adam Bede but this description captured my attention. I’m not so sure about the other two books but I enjoyed reading about them.
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I made the bad decision to read Daniel Deronda as my first Eliot as a 16-year-old, I think because there was a TV adaptation on at the time. I loved it but it really isn’t the best place to start.
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Ah yes, Adam Bede rules. I love Dinah, I wrote a whole essay on her in high school because that capacity of Eliot’s to portray goodness is so striking. I read a different McKinley as a child—Spindle’s End, and maybe The Blue Sword?—but am pretty sure I’d enjoy The Hero and the Crown enormously.
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Oh, you must read more McKinley! Hero is a prequel to The Blue Sword but I think it’s by far the stronger of the two. My other favourites are Rose Daughter, Deerskin and Sunshine. I thought Spindle’s End was fun but a bit second tier.
And glad to find another Adam Bede fan!
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I seem to recall it took me three goes to actually finish Spindle’s End, for no readily identifiable reason. Rose Daughter and Deerskin have also caught my eye, so I’ll be looking out for McKinley now!
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The ‘books that deserve a wider audience’ in this series are fascinating. We all seem to have read at least one excellent book that no one else has ever heard of.
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I know – there should be a reading group!
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Yes 🙌 Agreed. I might put together a list and publish it here.
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