Historical genre books (445)


341.

The Murmur of Bees by Sofía Segovia EN

Rating: 4 (3 votes)
Description:
From a beguiling voice in Mexican fiction comes an astonishing novel--her first to be translated into English--about a mysterious child with the power to change a family's history in a country on the verge of revolution. From the day that old Nana Reja found a baby abandoned under a bridge, the life of a small Mexican town forever changed. Disfigured and covered in a blanket of bees, little Simonopio is for some locals the stuff of superstition, a child kissed by the devil. But he is welcomed by landowners Francisco and Beatriz Morales, who adopt him and care for him as if he were their own. A... continue

342.

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco EN

Rating: 5 (13 votes)
Country: Europe / Italy flag Italy
Description:
In 1327, Brother William of Baskerville is sent to investigate charges of heresy against Franciscan monks at a wealthy Italian abbey but finds his mission overshadowed by seven bizarre murders.

343.

The Nazis Knew My Name : A Remarkable Story of Survival and Courage in Auschwitz by Magda Hellinger, Maya Lee EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Slovakia flag Slovakia
Description:
The extraordinarily moving memoir by Australian Slovakian Holocaust survivor Magda Hellinger, who saved an untold number of lives at Auschwitz through everyday acts of courage, kindness and ingenuity. In March 1942, twenty-five-year-old kindergarten teacher Magda Hellinger and nearly a thousand other young Slovakian women were deported to Poland on the second transportation of Jewish people sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The women were told they'd be working at a shoe factory. At Auschwitz the SS soon discovered that by putting Jewish prisoners in charge of the day-to-day running of... continue

344.

The Night Travelers : A Novel by Armando Lucas Correa EN

0 Ratings
Country: North America / Cuba flag Cuba
Description:
Four generations of women experience love, loss, war, and hope from the rise of Nazism to the Cuban Revolution and finally, the fall of the Berlin Wall in this sweeping novel from the bestselling author of the “timely must-read” (People) The German Girl. Berlin, 1931: Ally Keller, a talented young poet, is alone and scared when she gives birth to a mixed-race daughter she names Lilith. As the Nazis rise to power, Ally knows she must keep her baby in the shadows to protect her against Hitler’s deadly ideology of Aryan purity. But as she grows, it becomes more and more difficult to keep Lilith h... continue

345.

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich EN

Rating: 5 (2 votes)
Description:
A novel based on the life of "Erdrich's grandfather, who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, D.C."--Dust jacket flap.

346.

The Night Will Have Its Say by Ibrahim al-Koni EN

0 Ratings
Country: Africa / Libya flag Libya
Description:
International Booker Prize finalist and "one of the Arab world's most innovative novelists" (Roger Allen) delivers a brilliant retelling of the Muslim wars of conquest in North Africa The year is 693 and a tense exchange, mediated by an interpreter, takes place between Berber warrior queen al-Kahina and an emissary from the Umayyad General Hassan ibn Nu'man. Her predecessor had been captured and killed by the Umayyad forces some years earlier, but she will go on to defeat them. The Night Will Have Its Say is a retelling of the Muslim wars of conquest in North Africa during the seventh century ... continue

347.

The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell EN

Rating: 4 (4 votes)
Country: Africa / Zambia flag Zambia
Description:
Electrifying, playful, ambitious, brilliant - a Zambian debut novel that follows three generations of three families, telling the story of a nation, and the grand sweep of time 'In turns charming, heartbreaking, and breathtaking, The Old Drift is a staggeringly ambitious, genre-busting multigenerational saga with moxie for days... I wanted it to go on forever. A worthy heir to Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude." Carmen Maria Machado On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there was once a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. He... continue

348.

The Old Gringo : A Novel by Carlos Fuentes EN

0 Ratings
Description:
In The Old Gringo, Carlos Fuentes brings the Mexico of 1916 uncannily to life. This novel is wise book, full of toughness and humanity and is without question one of the finest works of modern Latin American fiction. One of Fuentes's greatest works, the novel tells the story of Ambrose Bierce, the American writer, soldier, and journalist, and of his last mysterious days in Mexico living among Pancho Villa's soldiers, particularly his encounter with General Tomas Arroyo. In the end, the incompatibility of the two countries (or, paradoxically, their intimacy) claims both men, in a novel that is,... continue

349.

The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa Mohamed EN

0 Ratings
Country: Africa / Somalia flag Somalia
Description:
From the author of The Fortune Men, longlisted for The Booker Prize 2021... 'From Somaliland's bitter past blooms a moving and mature novel of conflict and survival' Independent It is 1988 and Hargeisa waits. Whispers of revolution travel on the dry winds but still the dictatorship remains secure. Soon, and through the eyes of three women, we will see Somalia fall. Nine-year-old Deqohas left the vast refugee camp she was born in, lured to the city by the promise of her first pair of shoes. Kawsar, a solitary widow, is trapped in her little house with its garden clawed from the desert, confined... continue

350.

The Orphan Sky by Ella Leya EN

Rating: 4 (3 votes)
Country: Asia / Azerbaijan flag Azerbaijan
Description:
Leila, a young classical pianist, dreams of winning international competitions and bringing awards to her beloved country Azerbaijan. When she receives an assignment from her communist mentor to spy on a music shop suspected of traitorous Western influences, she is determined to prove her worth to the Party. When Leila meets Tahir, the painter who owns the music shop, his jazz recordings, abstract art, and subversive political opinions crack open the veneer of the world she's been living in. Now her comrades force her to make an impossible choice.