Books I Wish Someone Would Write

When I want to learn more about something, the first thing I do is to turn to Wikipedia! But that is not always in depth knowledge, and what I read doesn’t always stick. I really enjoy learning from well-written historical fiction! If I read a good book I am often inspired to google to learn more, or to pick up another book with more detail!  I got to thinking last week about a few books that I would like to read — but they haven’t yet been written! So, here are some of the books that

I WISH SOMEONE WOULD WRITE...

The first book that I wish someone would write is a historical fiction novel based on the life of Rudolph Valentino. Rudolph Valentino was an Italian-American film star in the 1920s and the ‘heart-throb’ of his day — at least that is what I’d been told growing up. My mother’s family was Italian-American and family legend says that my grandfather’s sister had an affair with ‘the great Valentino’. Of course, family legend also says that she died young when her husband poisoned her, so I have to take both legends with a grain of salt. All the same, it COULD make for an interesting novel: “a young Italian-American housewife mysteriously dies during an affair with the great Valentino”. Even without that aspect of the story, I’d like to know more about Valentino, and historical fiction is the method I would choose to learn by.

The second book, or series of books, that I would like to read is historical fiction based on the lives of scientists. I recently finished reading Headstrong by Rachel Swaby, a quick overview of female scientists and their accomplishments. While interesting, the book has one major shortcoming — it covers too much material much too quickly and I’ve come away feeling that I haven’t learned much at all. Instead, I’d like to read historical fiction about one of these scientists, or several if they can be tied together. One possibility that comes to mind is a novel about four scientist that worked in the field of genetics and development. Hilde Mangold, Salome Glueksohn Waelsch, and Rita Levi-Montalcini were scientists who all worked at some point in their career alongside a man named Viktor Hamburger. A novel about the three women told from Viktor’s point of view could be very interesting.

What about you; are there books you wish you wish someone would write? Tell me about them. And if you are an author who has written one of these books I want to read, tell me about that, too!