Book Pairings?

This is likely not a new notion, but one that I am becoming more and more aware of, and I'm wondering if any of you have come across any good book pairings. What is a book pairing? To me, it is two books that compliment each other, and are best read together. For me, the first pairing I came across was The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant and Orphan Train by Christina Baker Cline. In the summer of 2015, I was reading Orphan Train for book club at the same time I was listening to Boston Girl on Overdrive.

Orphan Train tells the story of a young girl who is shipped off on the orphan train (duh?). It is a very well written tale of her life before becoming an orphan, as well as each family that "adopts" her. The idea for the train was adoption, but the reality of their lives was much more like the beginnings of child slave labor.

The Boston Girl is told through a narrative where 85-year-old Addie tells her life story to her granddaughter. Along the way, she talks about her husband (or maybe it was her boyfriend?, it's been a while...) who is working hard to abolish the orphan trains because they are so harmful to the children.

The Boston Girl wasn't about trying to get rid of the orphan trains by any stretch, but it was present just enough to tie the two books together. It would be very hard to read Orphan Train and not wonder why adults were allowing this to happen to children, so it was a great mental relief to hear that there were adults fighting for the children from a different perspective.

My second pairing just happened this week. I am reading The Dollhouse by Fiona Davis. They keep talking about Sylvia Plath having stayed at the hotel for women. Sylvia Plath wrote The Bell Jar about her time at the hotel.

So, I am now listening to The Bell Jar when I am not reading The Dollhouse to see how well the stories work together. I'll let you know when I finish!

Do you have any good book pairings? If so, please share them in the comments below, I'd love to hear about them.