Historical genre books (425)


11.

A Small Corner of Hell by Anna Politkovskaya EN

0 Ratings
Description:
Chechnya, a 6,000-square-mile corner of the northern Caucasus, has struggled under Russian domination for centuries. The region declared its independence in 1991, leading to a brutal war, Russian withdrawal, and subsequent "governance" by bandits and warlords. A series of apartment building attacks in Moscow in 1999, allegedly orchestrated by a rebel faction, reignited the war, which continues to rage today. Russia has gone to great lengths to keep journalists from reporting on the conflict; consequently, few people outside the region understand its scale and the atrocities—described by eyewit... continue

12.

A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid EN

Rating: 4 (9 votes)
Description:
Lyrical, sardonic, and forthright by turns, this memoir is a brilliant look at colonialism and its effects in Antigua, by the author of "Annie John."

13.

A Spare Life by Lidija Dimkovska EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Description:
Zlata and Srebra are 12-year-old twins conjoined at the head. It is 1984 and they live in Skopje, which will one day be the capital of Macedonia but is currently a part of Yugoslavia.A Spare Life tells the story of their childhood, from their only friend Roze to their neighbor Bogdan, so poor that he one day must eat his pet rabbit. Treated as freaks and outcasts--even by their own family--the twins just want to be normal girls. But after an incident that almost destroys their bond as sisters, they fly to London, determined to be surgically separated. Will this be their liberation, or only mor... continue

14.

A Stranger in My Own Country : The 1944 Prison Diary by Hans Fallada EN

0 Ratings
Country: Europe / Germany flag Germany
Description:
“I lived the same life as everyone else, the life of ordinary people, the masses.” Sitting in a prison cell in the autumn of 1944, the German author Hans Fallada sums up his life under the National Socialist dictatorship, the time of “inward emigration”. Under conditions of close confinement, in constant fear of discovery, he writes himself free from the nightmare of the Nazi years. He records his thoughts about spying and denunciation, about the threat to his livelihood and his literary work and about the fate of many friends and contemporaries. The confessional mode did not come naturally to... continue

15.

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth EN

Rating: 5 (3 votes)
Country: Asia / India flag India
Description:
Vikram Seth's novel is, at its core, a love story: Lata and her mother, Mrs. Rupa Mehra, are both trying to find -- through love or through exacting maternal appraisal -- a suitable boy for Lata to marry. Set in the early 1950s, in an India newly independent and struggling through a time of crisis, A Suitable Boy takes us into the richly imagined world of four large extended families and spins a compulsively readable tale of their lives and loves. A sweeping panoramic portrait of a complex, multiethnic society in flux, A Suitable Boy remains the story of ordinary people caught up in a web of l... continue

16.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini EN

Rating: 4 (105 votes)
Country: Asia / Afghanistan flag Afghanistan
Description:
Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, the #1 New York Times bestseller A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love. “Just as good, if not better, than Khaled Hosseini’s best-selling first book, The Kite Runner.”—Newsweek Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel that confirms his place as one of the most important literary writers today. Born a generation apart a... continue

17.

A Woman in Berlin : Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary by Marta Hillers EN

Rating: 4 (2 votes)
Country: Europe / Germany flag Germany
Description:
For eight weeks in 1945, as Berlin fell to the Russian army, a young woman kept a daily record of life in her apartment building and among its residents. She tells of the shameful indignities to which women in a conquered city are always subject.

18.

Abril despedaçado by Ismail Kadare PT

0 Ratings
Country: Europe / Albania flag Albania
Description:
O jovem montanhês Gjorg Berisha dá um tiro de fuzil e "toma o sangue" de Zef Kryeqyq. É A quadragésima quinta morte de uma vendeta iniciada setenta anos antes, quando um desconhecido foi vítima de um Kryeqyq depois de ser acolhido pelo clã dos Berisha. A Matança entre as duas famílias é uma imposição do Kanun, código moral que há séculos é transmitido de boca em boca nas montanhas albanesas (assim como na região de Kossovo).COm rigor de antropólogo, Ismail Kadaré vai ao fundo dessa fantástica codificação do assassinato como direito e dever e extrai de lá toda a fúria das tragédias. TÃo minucio... continue

19.

Abyssinian Chronicles : A Novel by Moses Isegawa EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Africa / Uganda flag Uganda
Description:
Every once in a while there emerges a literary voice with the power and urgency to immerse readers deep within a previously "invisible" culture. From a young African writer who has already earned comparisons to Salman Rushdie and Gabriel Garcia Marquez comes this masterful saga of life in 20th-century Uganda. The teller of this panoramic tale is Mugezi, a quick-witted, sharp-eyed man whose life encompasses the traditional and the modern, the peaceful and the insanely violent, the despotic and the democratic. Born in a rural community in the early 1960s, he is raised by his grandfather, a depos... continue

20.

Adjusting Sights by Haim Sabato EN

0 Ratings
Country: Africa / Egypt flag Egypt
Description:
This book brings us inside the deepest thoughts, fears and feelings of a yeshiva student turned soldier.