Archive for the ‘Historical’ Category
Thursday, May 15th, 2008
Hardcover, 439 pages, 2008
Rating: 10/10
Reason for Reading: Always happy to try out a new thriller author - especially one who had a big-name director (Ridley Scott, American Gangster) attached to the movie adaptation a year before his debut novel was even in stores.
Synopsis: It’s hard for atrocities to stand out in Stalin’s brutal Russian regime during the 1950s - everyone is a potential enemy of the state, and men, women, and children are routinely rounded up and killed with no more than the fear-induced pointing of a finger. But staunch supporter of the regime, Leo Demidov, has found something that may stand out as horrific even amongst his own brutalities: the possibility of a serial killer who focuses only on children. The problem? According to the ideologies of Stalin, there is no crime, and all efforts to investigate the killings make Leo a rebel and betrayer of state policies. In order to pursue a criminal, he must become one, endangering his life and those of his family…
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Posted in Fiction, Historical, Thriller, Politics, Action | No Comments »
Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
Trade, 441 pages, 2004
Rating: 9/10
Reason for Reading: I picked this up at the used bookstore because I figured anything about the 1960s tends to be interesting, and if a man could write entire (and popular) books on things like salt and cod fish, it was a good bet.
Synopsis: In 1968, everything changed - everywhere. Kurlansky examines how revolutions, both personal and political, occurred all over the world, in an odd mix of isolation and an explosion of media that made rebelling students in Germany feel a connection to protesting students in the U.S. or Czechoslovakia. While the 1960s may be better remembered for sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, all of this was born of the politics and the revolutions that Kurlansky expertly explores in this book.
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Posted in Historical, Non-Fiction, Culture, Politics | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
Hardcover, 278 pages, 2007
Rating: 9/10
Reason for Reading: I like books that are set in unusual locations, and Indonesia qualified.
Synopsis: Mata Hari sits in her Paris jail cell, accused of spying for Germany during World War I. While waiting for her trial, her life story pours out like an offering: her childhood, her marriage to an impossible man, tragedies, and a re-invention of herself into something more sensual and free - the self that will lead to her imprisonment and possible punishment…
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Posted in Fiction, Historical | No Comments »
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
Hardcover, 377 pages, 2007
Rating: 9/10
Reason for Reading: A fondness for both women in historical novels and books set in the Middle East.
Synopsis: In seventeenth century Persia, a young woman experiences a devastating loss that destroys her future prospects and finds her transplanted from a small village to a big city, learning to create stunning rugs and also attempting to weave a life of her own out of nothing.
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Posted in Fiction, Historical | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007
Hardcover, 210 pages, 2007
Rating: 10/10
Reason for Reading: The title drew me in.
Synopsis: Louis Proby is a 90-year-old man when he hears that Hurricane Katrina is on the way, but his mind isn’t on the upcoming events - it’s on the great floods of 1927 that happened in Louisiana when he was in his late teens. Looking back on the weeks before the floods, he tries to piece together the events and interactions that pushed him into becoming a man as the river threatened to destroy everything he loved - and not necessarily the type of man he thought he would be.
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Posted in Fiction, Historical, Environment | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006
Hardcover, 328 pages, 2006
Rating: 9/10
Reason for Reading: I read the first few pages, and had to find out what fate lay in store for a young girl forced to hang from a curtain rod by a mother who believed it would make her taller.
Synopsis: Tessa’s life doesn’t hold much promise - she’s tiny (barely four feet), which makes her useless on her family’s farm and a freak in the eyes of the community - until one day a librarian with a ethereal beauty comes to town and strikes up a conversation, changing the course of Tessa’s life forever. The librarian, Mary, is full of the knowledge and intrigue that Tessa believes can only come from her former lifestyle, that of a trapeze artist in the circus. When circumstances force Tessa to flee from her hometown, she may find that her plans to follow in her mentor’s footsteps are swept up in a life all of her own…and yet, that it’s almost impossible to leave the past behind.
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Posted in Fiction, Historical, Magical Realism | No Comments »
Friday, October 6th, 2006
Hardcover (available in trade), 470 pages, 2006
Rating: 10/10
Reason for Reading: I loved Fingersmith; The Night Watch is currently on the shortlist for the 2006 Booker Prize.
Synopsis: Four restless Londoners, three women and a young man, deal with war-torn life in the 1940s, struggling to find happiness and love in a time when their normal problems are compounded by bombings and deaths.
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Posted in Fiction, Award Winner / Nominee, Historical, War/Military | No Comments »
Friday, September 22nd, 2006
Hardcover (available in trade June 2007), 322 pages, 2006
Rating: 8/10
Reason for Reading: I really enjoyed Pardonable Lies.
Synopsis: In 1931 England, a young woman named Georgina comes to private investigator Maisie Dobbs with a dubious but heart-felt case: that her brother’s death wasn’t an accidental fall, but a murder. Her sibling, Nick, had been hanging some of his art for a spectacular gallery show that would unveil his top-secret masterpiece, but his body was discovered the next morning, the location of his final piece a mystery. It’s up to Maisie to discover the truth, but the controversial nature of the artist means that there are a lot more people blocking it than she would ever have expected…
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Posted in Fiction, Historical, Mystery | No Comments »
Saturday, October 29th, 2005
Hardcover (available in trade), 317 pages, 2005
Rating: 10/10
Reason for Reading: It was on the Booker Prize Shortlist for 2005.
Synopsis: 18-year-old Willie Dunne has settled nicely into his young life - he’s got family he’s close to, he has a wonderful sweetheart, Gretta, who he’s hoping to start a life with together shortly, and while things in 1914 Ireland may not be that great, they’re certainly tolerable. In fact, Willie decides to enlist in the army for several months of training and fighting in order to prove himself a man, especially to his father, a policeman - a career path Willie is frustratingly too short to pursue. But the war doesn’t end, and Willie is destined to fight a long, cruel battle as he struggles to return home again.
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Posted in Fiction, Award Winner / Nominee, Historical, War/Military | Comments Off
Wednesday, September 21st, 2005
Hardcover (available in trade), 340 pages, 2005
Rating: 8/10
Reason for Reading: Continuing on the big mystery kick I seem to be on lately.
Synopsis: It’s 1930, and Maisie Dobbs is working as a private investigator when a strange case falls into her lap. Sir Cecil Lawton vowed to his dying wife that he would attempt to find their son, a man that all reason indicates died over a decade earlier in the Great War; however, some shady psychics were willing to give Mrs. Lawton hope that he was still alive. Normally, Maisie wouldn’t agree to such a dubious case, but she requires Sir Lawton’s help as a lawyer in defending a poor thirteen-year-old girl accused of murder. Maisie must face her own demons with a visit to France, the place she served as a nurse during the war, but for cases that are supposed to involve nothing more than ghosts, there seems to be a solid enough presence out there that’s trying to kill her…
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Posted in Fiction, Historical, War/Military, Mystery | Comments Off