Hello everyone,
I’m writing a book that takes place around the time of the salem witch trials and was hoping for a recommendation on a book that will help give me a sense of how people lived during that time period in new england.
Looking for an enjoyable read with maybe real stories of the time and not too textbook-y. I’m trying to get a feel for what life was like back then, what their daily routines were, how many people were able to read and at what age, etc
Thanks for your help
Bruce C. Daniels' Puritans at Play: Leisure and Recreation in Colonial New England is exactly what you're looking for- it covers a lot of the daily activities people did outside of religious activities which are drastically more represented in scholarship. David Hall's Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgement: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England covers the public religious experience. I'd also recommend Six Women of Salem: The Untold Story of the Accused and Their Accusers in the Salem Witch Trials by Marilynne K. Roach for its narrative elements about people's lives.