Historical genre books (473)


11.

A Monk Swimming : A Memoir by Malachy McCourt EN

0 Ratings
Country: Europe / Ireland flag Ireland
Description:
The memoirs of Malachy McCourt who left a childhood of poverty in Ireland to live in New York where he carved out a colourful career as a writer and actor - The story of his early life was told in Angela's ashes, by his brother Frank McCourt.

12.

A Mouth Full of Salt by Reem Gafar EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Africa / Sudan flag Sudan
Description:
The Nile brings them life. But the Nile also takes away. 1970s. A village in North Sudan is shaken by the news that a little boy has drowned. Then the village camels die of a mysterious illness; the date tree fields catch fire and burn to the ground. The women whisper rumours of a mysterious sorceress from the Nuba mountains. It is the dry season. The men have no work, the women have their own troubles, the children continue to play where the river runs over its own banks. For 14-year-old Fatima escape lies in the big city of Khartoum. 1950s. In Khartoum, Nyamakeem is 33, a single mother makin... continue

13.

A Short History of England by Simon Jenkins EN

0 Ratings
Description:
Which battle was fought 'For England, Harry and St George'? Who demanded to be painted 'warts and all'? What - and when - was the Battle of the Bulge?In A Short History of England, bestselling author Simon Jenkins answers all these questions - and many more - as he tells the tumultuous story of a fascinating nation. From the invaders of the dark ages to today's coalition, via the Tudors, the Stuarts and two world wars, Jenkins weaves together a gripping narrative with all the most important and interesting dates in his own inimitable style. Until now there has been no short history of England ... continue

14.

A Silent Fury : The El Bordo Mine Fire by Yuri Herrera EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Description:
Mine fire industrial disaster nonfiction: from the author of Signs Preceding The End of The World

15.

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

16.

A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid EN

Rating: 4 (13 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."

17.

A Social History of the Third Reich by Richard Grunberger EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Austria flag Austria
Description:
One of the most devastating portraits ever drawn of a human society - life in Hitler's Germany during the Third Reich The Nazis developed a social system unprecedented in history. It was rigidly hierarchical, with the seemingly beneficent and ascetic figure of Hitler at the top - focus for the homage and aspirations of every man, woman and child. How did the 'ordinary citizen' live under such a system? The author discusses such subjects as beauty in the Third Reich (no cosmetics, no slimming) as well as charting how you progressed to the elite Nazi cadres - administrators, propagandists or coe... continue

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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