Historical fiction genre books (598)



12.

A Long Petal of the Sea : A Novel by Isabel Allende EN

Rating: 5 (2 votes)
Country: South America / Peru flag Peru
Description:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of The House of the Spirits, this epic novel spanning decades and crossing continents follows two young people as they flee the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in search of a place to call home. “One of the most richly imagined portrayals of the Spanish Civil War to date, and one of the strongest and most affecting works in [Isabel Allende’s] long career.”—The New York Times Book Review NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Esquire • Good Housekeeping • Parade In the late 1930s, civil war grips Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succ... continue

13.

A Passage North by Anuk Audpragasam EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / Sri Lanka flag Sri Lanka
Description:
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021 It begins with a message: a telephone call informing Krishan that his grandmother''s former care-giver, Rani, has died in unexpected circumstances, at the bottom of a well in her village in the north, her neck broken by the fall. The news arrives on the heels of an email from Anjum, an activist he fell in love with four years earlier while living in Delhi, bringing with it the stirring of distant memories and desires. As Krishan makes the long journey by train from Colombo into the war-torn Northern Province for the funeral, so begins a passage into the so... continue

14.

A Perfect Waiter by Alain Claude Sulzer EN

0 Ratings
Country: Europe / Switzerland flag Switzerland
Description:
It is 1966. Erneste works in a grand hotel in Switzerland. He is the 'perfect waiter', a model of order in every way. But inwardly this polite, withdrawn man has been caught in the grip of an overwhelming passion that began in the summer of 1935. Going down to the lakeside back then to meet new staff members off the boat, Erneste sees a tall young man, Jakob, and falls hopelessly in love. For Jakob the affair is just a fling, but for Erneste it is true love. When the great German writer Julius Klinger arrives at the hotel, seeking sanctuary from Hitler's Germany, his gaze, too, lights on Jakob... continue

15.
A Strangeness in My Mind

A strangeness in my mind by Orhan Pamuk EN

Rating: 5 (2 votes)
Country: Asia / Turkey flag Turkey
Description:
At a family wedding Mevlut catches sight of a girl with whom he falls in love. After a secret courtship of letters passed via his cousin, she agrees to elope with him, and on a dark night the two come together for the first time. As they rush to catch a train to Istanbul, Mevlut realises he has been misled. But the die is cast, and the situation will determine the rest of his days. Over the next four decades in Istanbul, Mevlut works various jobs to support his loving wife and family; work that gives him a special perspective on his rapidly changing city and the people who live there. And ever... continue

16.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini EN

Rating: 4 (74 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 Thousand Years of Good Prayers : Stories by Yiyun Li EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / China flag China
Description:
Brilliant and original, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers introduces a remarkable new writer whose breathtaking stories are set in China and among Chinese Americans in the United States. In this rich, astonishing collection, Yiyun Li illuminates how mythology, politics, history, and culture intersect with personality to create fate. From the bustling heart of Beijing, to a fast-food restaurant in Chicago, to the barren expanse of Inner Mongolia, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers reveals worlds both foreign and familiar, with heartbreaking honesty and in beautiful prose. “Immortality,” winner of ... continue

18.

A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler EN

0 Ratings
Country: Europe / Austria flag Austria
Description:
Shortlisted for the Booker International Prize. Like John Williams' Stoner or Denis Johnson's Train Dreams, A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler is a tender book about finding dignity and beauty in solitude. An exquisite novel about a simple life, it has already demonstrated its power to move thousands of readers with a message of solace and truth. It looks at the moments, big and small, that make us what we are. Andreas lives his whole life in the Austrian Alps, where he arrives as a young boy taken in by a farming family. He is a man of very few words and so, when he falls in love with Marie, he... continue

19.

Abigail by Magda Szabó EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Hungary flag Hungary
Description:
A teenage girl's difficult journey towards adulthood in a time of war. "Szabo is skilful at creating moments of heart-rending tension, often through exquisite, evocative prose . . . the novel has a devastating power" Spectator Of all her novels, Magda Szabó's Abigail is the most widely read in her native Hungary. Now, fifty years after it was written, it appears for the first time in English, joining Katalin Street and The Door in a loose trilogy about the impact of war on those who have to live with the consequences. It is late 1943 and Hitler, exasperated by the slowness of his Hungarian all... continue

20.
Absolution

Absolution : A Novel by Alice McDermott EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Description:
A riveting account of women’s lives on the margins of the Vietnam War, from the renowned winner of the National Book Award. You have no idea what it was like. For us. The women, I mean. The wives. American women—American wives—have been mostly minor characters in the literature of the Vietnam War, but in Absolution they take center stage. Tricia is a shy newlywed, married to a rising attorney on loan to navy intelligence. Charlene is a practiced corporate spouse and mother of three, a beauty and a bully. In Saigon in 1963, the two women form a wary alliance as they balance the era’s mandate to... continue