Historical genre books (333)


161.

Pachinko : The New York Times Bestseller by Min Jin Lee EN

Rating: 4 (39 votes)
Country: Asia / South Korea flag South Korea
Description:
* The million-copy bestseller* * National Book Award finalist * * An instant New York Times Bestseller and one of their 10 Best Books of 2017 * * Selected for Emma Watson's Our Shared Shelf book club * 'This is a captivating book... Min Jin Lee's novel takes us through four generations and each character's search for identity and success. It's a powerful story about resilience and compassion' BARACK OBAMA. Yeongdo, Korea, 1911. Teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a fisherman, falls for a wealthy yakuza. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant – and that her lover i... continue

162.

Pearling in the Arabian Gulf : A Kuwaiti Memoir by Sayf Marzūq Shamlān EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / Kuwait flag Kuwait
Description:
Born in Kuwait in 1926, into a distinguished Kuwaiti family of pearl merchants and seafarers, Saif Marzooq al- Shamlan describes the final generation of the pearling industry from 1900 to the slump of the 1930s, when the development of the Japanese cultured pearl led to economic disaster for the people of the Gulf.

163.

Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo EN

Rating: 4 (9 votes)
Description:
Deserted villages of rural Mexico, where images and memories of the past linger like unquiet ghosts, haunted the imaginations of the author. In one such village of the mind, Comala, he set his classic novel Pedro Páramo, a dream-like tale that intertwines a man's quest to find his lost father and reclaim his patrimony with the father's obsessive love for a woman who will not be possessed, Susana San Juan.

164.

Perfume : The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind EN

Rating: 4 (11 votes)
Country: Europe / Germany flag Germany
Description:
'Born in sweaty, fetid eighteenth-century Paris, Genouille is distinctive even in infancy. He has "the finest nose in Paris and no personal odour". With wit, a Gothic imagination and considerable originality, Suskind has developed this simple idea into a fantastic tale of murder and twisted eroticism controlled by a disgusted loathing of humanity . . . Clever, stylish, absorbing and well worth reading' Literary Review

165.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi EN

Rating: 5 (46 votes)
Country: Asia / Iran flag Iran
Description:
BEST SELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • Wise, funny, and heartbreaking, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s acclaimed graphic memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. “A wholly original achievement.... Satrapi evokes herself and her schoolmates coming of age in a world of protests and disappearances.... A stark, shocking impact.” —The New York Times: "The 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years" In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the coming-of-age story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah’s regim... continue

166.

Pinjar: The Skeleton and Other Stories by Amrita Pitam EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / India flag India
Description:
"The skeleton ... [is] set against the background of religious and clan feuds on the eve of Partition ... That man is a compelling account of a young man born under strange circumstances and abandoned at the altar of God"--Page 4 of cover

167.

Purge by Sofi Oksanen EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Finland flag Finland
Description:
A blowfly. Unusually large, loud, and eager to lay its eggs. It was lying in wait to get into the kitchen, rubbing its wings and feet against the curtain as if preparing to feast. It was after meat, nothing else but meat. Deep in an overgrown Estonian forest, two women, one young, one old, are hiding. Zara, a murderer and a victim of sex-trafficking, is on the run from brutal captors. Aliide, a communist sympathizer and a blood traitor, has endured a life of abuse and the country's brutal Soviet years. Their survival now depends on exposing the one thing that kept them hidden... the truth.

168.

Rabbit-Proof Fence : The True Story of One of the Greatest Escapes of All Time by Doris Pilkington EN

0 Ratings
Country: Oceania / Australia flag Australia
Description:
Following an Australian government edict in 1931, black aboriginal children and children of mixed marriages were gathered up and taken to settlements to be institutionally assimilated. In Rabbit-Proof Fence, award-wining author Doris Pilkington traces the story of her mother, Molly, one of three young girls uprooted from their community in Southwestern Australia and taken to the Moore River Native Settlement. There, Molly and her relatives Gracie and Daisy were forbidden to speak their native language, forced to abandon their heritage, and taught to be culturally white. After regular stays in ... continue

169.

Reclaiming the Salient : Resurrecting the Great War Battlegrounds of Flanders Fields by Roger Steward EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Description:
The end of the First World War saw the fields of Flanders contaminated by incalculable amounts of unexploded munitions and thousands of rotting corpses still exposed on the old battlefields. This is the story of how the battlefields of Belgium were, and still are, being cleared of the legacy of the Great War.

170.

Red Scarf Girl : A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-li Jiang EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
In 1966 Ji-li Jiang turned twelve. An outstanding student and leader, she had everything: brains, the admiration of her peers, and a bright future in China′s Communist Party. But that year China′s leader, Mao Ze-dong, launched the Cultural Revolution, and everything changed. Over the next few years Ji-li and her family were humiliated and scorned by former friends, neighbors, and co-workers. They lived in constant terror of arrest. Finally, with the detention of her father, Ji-li faced the most difficult choice of her life. Told with simplicity and grace, this is the true story of one family′s... continue