Historical genre books (335)


151.

Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick EN

Rating: 5 (2 votes)
Description:
WINNER OF THE BBC SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2010 A spectacularly revealing and harrowing portrait of ordinary lives in the world's least ordinary country, North Korea North Korea is Orwell's 1984 made reality: it is the only country in the world not connected to the internet; Gone with the Wind is a dangerous, banned book; during political rallies, spies study your expression to check your sincerity. After the death of the country's great leader Kim Il Sung in 1994, famine descended, and Nothing to Envy - winner of the 2010 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction - weaves together ... continue

152.

Oblivion : A Memoir by Héctor Abad EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Description:
Now the basis for the acclaimed film Memories of My Father, directed by Fernando Trueba. "An irreplaceable testimony of the struggle for democracy and tolerance in Latin America." —El País Héctor Abad's Oblivion is a heartbreaking, exquisitely written memorial to the author's father, Héctor Abad Gómez, whose criticism of the Colombian regime led to his murder by paramilitaries in 1987. Twenty years in the writing, it paints an unforgettable picture of a man who followed his conscience and paid for it with his life during one of the darkest periods in Latin America's recent history.

153.

Of Water and the Spirit—Ritual, Magic, and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman by Malidoma Patrice Somé EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Description:
Maliodoma Patrice Some was born in a Dagara Village, however he was soon to be abducted to a Jesuit school, where he remained for the next fifteen years, being harshly indoctrinated into european ways of thought and worship. The story tells of his return to his people, his hard initiation back into those people, which lead to his desire to convey their knowledge to the world. Of Water and the Spirit is the result of that desire; it is a sharing of living African traditions, offered in compassion for those struggling with our contemporary crisis of the spirit.

154.

Of Women and Salt : A Novel by Gabriela Garcia EN

Rating: 3 (3 votes)
Country: North America / Cuba flag Cuba
Description:
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER THE WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK OF 2021 A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK WINNER of the Isabel Allende Most Inspirational Fiction Award, She Reads Best of 2021 Awards • FINALIST for the 2022 Southern Book Prize • LONGLISTED for Crook’s Corner Book Prize • NOMINEE for 2021 Goodreads Choice Award in Debut Novel and Historical Fiction A sweeping, masterful debut about a daughter's fateful choice, a mother motivated by her own past, and a family legacy that begins in Cuba before either of them were born In present-day Miami, Jeanette is battling addiction.... continue

155.

On The Plain of Snakes by Paul Theroux EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Description:
WINNER OF THE EDWARD STANFORD AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION TO TRAVEL WRITING 2020 The master of contemporary travel writing, Paul Theroux, immerses himself in the beautiful and troubled heart of modern Mexico Nogales is a border town caught between Mexico and the United States of America. A forty-foot steel fence runs through its centre, separating the prosperous US side from the impoverished Mexican side. It is a fascinating site of tension, now more than ever, as the town fills with hopeful border crossers and the deportees who have been caught and brought back. And it is here that Pau... continue

156.

One Day I Will Write about This Place by Binyavanga Wainaina EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Africa / Kenya flag Kenya
Description:
A groundbreaking memoir by the acclaimed Kenyan Caine Prize winner.

157.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez EN

Rating: 4 (17 votes)
Description:
One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women -- brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul -- this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.

158.
Open Veins of Latin America

Open Veins of Latin America : Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano EN

Rating: 4 (4 votes)
Description:
Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx. Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation. Thus he is concerned with gold and silver, cacao and cotton, rubber and coffee, fruit, hi... continue

159.

Operation Massacre by Rodolfo Walsh EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Description:
1956. Argentina has just lost its charismatic president Juán Perón in a military coup, and terror reigns across the land. June 1956: eighteen people are reported dead in a failed Peronist uprising. December 1956: sometime journalist, crime fiction writer, studiedly unpoliticized chess aficionado Rodolfo Walsh learns by chance that one of the executed civilians from a separate, secret execution in June, is alive. He hears that there may be more than one survivor and believes this unbelievable story on the spot. And right there, the monumental classic Operation Massacre is born. Walsh made it hi... continue