It is time for another Backlist Book Picks list. Backlist Book Picks is our weekly feature where we share two backlist books that we loved.

New releases are great, but there are so many older books that often get forgotten about. We have over four hundred reviews on our site and we want to share some love to all those older books that we have read and love. 

It is September and September means fall and fall means that it is football season! We live in Oklahoma and in Oklahoma football is big. If you live anywhere in the southern part of the U.S you know what I mean. College football is crazy in this part of the country. 

Is it okay to admit that Grace and I aren’t huge football fans… I know. I know. The rest of the family loves football, especially college football, but Grace and I would rather enjoy a good book than a good football game. 

What we do like though is a good book about football and we are sharing a couple of our favorites for this week’s backlist book picks. 

The Blind Side

Did you know that there is a book that the movie The Blind Side is based on?  If you loved the movie the book The Blind Side is a must read. This books was published back in 2007, so it is an older book that a lot of people haven’t read.

I like to read personal and fascinating stories and this books fits this group. I not only found it interesting to learn about football, but I also liked reading about Michael Oher’s amazing story and the family that helped him. I could hardly put this book down when I was reading it, and I was a little sad when I finished it.

When the Men Were Gone

I am not a huge football fan, yet I loved When the Men Were Gone, by Marjorie Herrera Lewis. You don’t have to know anything about football to enjoy this book. But if you love football, I think you will love it! When All the Men Were Gone is based on a true story of a small town football team in Texas during WWII. This story reads like nonfiction because it is based on a true story. This is one of the best fiction books that I read last year. I loved it and have recommended it to quite a few people that love WWII books or that are football fans. 

It is time for another Backlist Book Picks list. Backlist Book Picks is our weekly feature where we share two backlist books that we loved.

New releases are great, but there are so many older books that often get forgotten about. We have over four hundred reviews on our site and we want to share some love to all those older books that we have read and love. 

Today we are featuring a fiction and a nonfiction book. If you love history, especially U.S. history, I think you will enjoy both of these!

America’s First Daughter

America’s First Daughter was an interesting historical fiction read that had me wanting to learn more about Thomas Jefferson’s daughter. I often wondered what was fact and what was fiction when I was reading it, but the story overall was well written. It was one of those books that I had trouble putting down to go to sleep because it was so interesting. I am not usually a big fan of historical fiction, but I enjoyed this one. 

Sister’s First

Grace and I both read Sister’s First right after it was released in 2017 and we both loved it. We both love memoirs and this was one that we knew would fascinate us. It only took Grace less than forty-eight hours to finish it and she enjoyed every part of it. It was very interesting to learn about the personal side of a presidency and how it effects the family. We liked all the stories that the Bush twins told mostly because they were funny and personal. No matter what your politics are this is a great look at what political families have to deal with and how they live. 

This week for our backlist book picks we picked two books about the Gilded age and two of the wealthiest families during that time period. 

The first book is a historical fiction book about Andrew Carnegie and the second is a nonfiction book about the largest privately owned home in America. 

If you like historical fiction I think you will enjoy the first one. If you love learning new and interesting facts about places in the U.S, I think you will love the second one. 

Carnegie’s Maid

If you like historical fiction I think  you will enjoy Carnegie’s Maid. This book was published in January of 2018, so it is a newer backlist book. It got a lot of attention on social media when it was released, but not very many people are talking about it now. 

The writing in this book is well done and creative. Once I started the book I had trouble putting it down. A lot of modern fiction contains PG-13 to R rated content. I don’t like those kinds of books, so I really enjoyed the fact that this was a clean historical romance book. 

I do think this book took some liberties with history. There were quite a few times that I thought the book was not accurate or very likely to happen. However, I still really enjoyed the book. If you love historical fiction I think you will enjoy this one. 

The Last Castle

Have you visited the Biltmore Estate or are you like me and hope to visit there someday?

The Last Castle takes you through the process of what it took to build Biltmore and gives you a look into the family that has owned it for years.

This book is a well written fascinating non-ficiton read. I knew very little about Biltmore and the Vanderbilt family, so I loved that aspect of the book. But I also loved that this book contained so much history in general. From basic facts about presidents, Europe, the depression, to lesser known facts about forestry and architecture in American. 

If you love books about American history, The Gilded Age, or learning about architecture and estates, I think you will enjoy The Last Castle. 

Do you have a favorite book about the Gilded Age? We would love to hear what Gilded Age book you love! 

We are so excited about sharing our favorite backlist book picks each week. This is where we share two backlist books that we love.

These are books that might not be the newest releases and current popular books that everyone seems to be reading, but they are great books that shouldn’t be forgotten about.

Last week we shared two books, a fiction and a nonfiction. Today we are sharing two great nonfiction books for sports fans. And really you don’t have to be a sports fan to enjoy these two books.

I am not a huge sports fan, but I loved both of these books. One is about a basketball team in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl, and the other is the story of how a famous sports company was built.

Both are stories of hard work, overcoming difficulty, and not giving up when times are tough. And both books are also books that I could not put down once I started.

Dust Bowl Girls

Dust Bowl Girls was released in December 2017, so it is a newer backlist title. I don’t think this book got the attention it deserved. It is a great book and was one of my favorite books for 2018. I read it as part of my nonfiction books for every state challenge. It is the perfect nonfiction book for Oklahoma, but this is a story I think everyone will enjoy. 

It is a story about teamwork, sacrifice, hard work, endurance, and the rewards that come when you don’t give up. Dust Bowl Girls also covers a lot of the history of girls basketball and the Dust Bowl. 

This book would make a great gift for the sports fan or for someone that enjoys playing basketball. But it is also a good book for learning about a lesser known story from the Dust Bowl years. 

Shoe Dog

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight is a book for not only sports fans, but for anyone that loves business books or memoirs. Grace and I have both read this book and both really enjoyed it. Neither of us are huge sports fans, so you don’t have to be into sports to enjoy this one. 

Shoe Dog was released in April of 2016, so it is also a more recent backlist book. One of the reasons I decided to feature this one is because it got a lot of press when it was first released, but it hasn’t gotten a lot of attention since then. 

A lot of books by celebrity type people are not that great. Sorry, but they aren’t. So I wasn’t sure what to expect when I read this book. It turned out being way better than I expected it to be. The writing was very well done and once I started reading about the story of NIKE and how Phil Knight started the company and built it, I couldn’t put it down. 

Shoe Dog not only made sports interesting it made shoes interesting. I had no ides that it took so much work to design a shoe, especially how much work it took to design an athletic shoe. 

Successful business and companies are not made over night and Shoe Dog is a fascinating look at what it took NIKE to become the NIKE it is today. 

Have you read either of these books? 

Social media and book websites are full of popular new releases. The books that are popular right now. The ones that everyone seems to be reading.

This is especially true when it comes to fiction. You see the latest most popular fiction books everywhere on social media and books websites. 

We understand why that is the case. Publishers and authors want to get the word out about their books.

The reality is that many great books are released each week, but there are so many older books that are also worth reading. Books that were released last year, five years ago, or even ten or more years ago. 

Great books are often called great books because they have stood the test of time. They are the books we recommend now and will still be recommending five years from now. They are books that get attention because they are well written books, not just because they are the hot new books that everyone is reading. 

Grace and I decided that it is time for some of our favorite older books to get some attention.

We have over four hundred book reviews here on From Our Bookshelf. They are all books we have read and shared our thoughts on. We want to start highlighting those books. 

We decided it would be fun to start sharing a couple of our favorite backlist books each week.

The books we share might be books you knew about, but that got buried in your TBR pile. They might be books that you have never heard of because you missed them when they were new and popular. Or they might be books that are great books, but never got the attention that they deserved.

The books we share each week will all be backlist books that we have read and recommend. 

This week we are starting with a very popular fiction book and a not so popular but very good nonfiction book. If you love Jane Austen type of books or are a fan of Downton Abbey, I think you will love the first two books that we are featuring for backlist books. 

Dear Mr. Knightly

I read Dear Mr. Knightly a few years ago and loved it. This is one of those books that I almost didn’t read because everyone was raving about it, and I wasn’t sure if I would like it. It wasn’t a book I would normally pick up, so I put off reading it. A few years after it had been out people were still taking about it, so I decided to give it a try. I am so glad that I finally picked this one up.

I read it in two days. It was a fun and easy book to read. It is a modern day version of Jane Austen. Without giving away too much, I will say that the book is about a modern day girl who has had a rough life. She receives a grant to go to college. As part of the grant, she has to write letters to the donor detailing how life and school are going. You learn about her life, her hardships, and how she overcomes them through the letters that she writes. By the end of the second chapter I was hooked and could not put it down.

If you love Jane Austen type of books and haven’t read this one, I think you will like Dear Mr. Knightly 

From the Publisher: Sam is, to say the least, bookish. An English major of the highest order, her diet has always been Austen, Dickens, and Shakespeare. The problem is, both her prose and conversation tend to be more Elizabeth Bennet than Samantha Moore. But life for the twenty-three-year-old orphan is about to get stranger than fiction. An anonymous, Dickensian benefactor (calling himself Mr. Knightley) offers to put Sam through Northwestern University’s prestigious Medill School of Journalism. There is only one catch: Sam must write frequent letters to the mysterious donor, detailing her progress. Read more about Dear Mr. Knightly

Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey

The book, Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey, shares the inspiration and setting for the show Downton Abbey. It tells the story behind Highclere Castle, and the life of one of people that have owned it. 

I found this book fascinating. I love reading Jane Austen books, Elizabeth Gaskell’s book, North and South, and other books set in Britain, but I almost always love nonfiction books the best. Lady Almina is the best of both worlds.

This book shares the real life story of a famous castle during the same basic time period that Downton Abbey takes place. A real life story of a family that lives in a Castle in Britain makes for a great book for Downtown Abbey fans. If you are like me and love books set in Britain, but you also enjoy nonfiction, Lady Almina is a fun read. 

From the Publisher: The real-life inspiration and setting for the Emmy Award-winning Downton Abbey, Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey tells the story behind Highclere Castle and the life of one of its most famous inhabitants, Lady Almina, the 5th Countess of Carnarvon. Read more about Lady Almina

Have you read either of these books? If you have please share your thoughts. I would love to hear what you thought of them.