A "haunting . . . searing and honest" (People) family saga inspired by Maria Hummel's own extended family and their status as Mitläufer, Germans who “went along” with Nazism, reaping its benefits and later paying the consequences. Inspired by the stories told by her father about his German childhood and letters between her grandparents that were hidden in an attic wall for fifty years, Motherland is a novel that attempts to reckon with the paradox of the author's father—a product of her grand...
Early Light offers three very different aspects of Osamu Dazai's genius: the title story relates his misadventures as a drinker and a family man in the terrible fire bombings of Tokyo at the end of WWII. Having lost their own home, he and his wife flee with a new baby boy and their little girl to relatives in Kofu, only to be bombed out anew. "Everything's gone," the father explains to his daughter: "Mr. Rabbit, our shoes, the Ogigari house, the Chino house, they all burned up," "Yeah, they all...
A contemporary retelling of Hamlet of stark and striking brilliance set on a farm in remote northern Wisconsin. On a farm in remote northern Wisconsin the mute and brilliant Edgar Sawtelle leads an idyllic life with his parents Gar and Trudy. For generations, the Sawtelles have raised and trained a breed of dog whose thoughtful companionship is epitomised by Almodine, Edgar's lifelong companion. But when his beloved father mysteriously dies, Edgar blames himself, if only because his muteness le...
From the bestselling author of The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir comes a thrilling new WWII story about a village busybody—the mighty Mrs. Braithwaite—who resolves to find, and then rescue, her missing daughter Mrs. Braithwaite, self-appointed queen of her English village, finds herself dethroned, despised, and dismissed following her husband’s selfish divorce petition. Never deterred, the threat of a family secret being revealed sets her hot-foot to London to find the only person she has left—her...
Christmas With Nurse Millie (Nurse Millie and Connie)
by Jean Fullerton
A wonderfully moving Christmas midwife story from the author of Call Nurse Millie.Christmas is approaching - but for Nurse Millie and Nurse Annie babies are still being born, and in the East End of London, new mothers still need all the care and support they can give.Vividly summing up all the friendship of a close-knit community - both for the midwives and for the families - CHRISTMAS WITH NURSE MILLIE powerfully brings to life post-war London - with a heartwarming festive twist.
Meike is seventeen and she uses a wheelchair. Already in life she’s accepted that she’ll always somehow be ‘different’. But overnight, different becomes dangerous after the government announces disabled youngsters under the age of eighteen must spend the war in specially designated institutions. Suddenly Meike is on the run in the rural lanes she calls home, bordering Berlin. It is 1939 and the whole of Germany, it seems, wants to fight the world. Quietly, members of Meike’s family distance them...
The story of three different members of the same African American family, one a missionary to Liberia in the 1830s, one a freed slave settling in the "wild West", and one an American GI stationed in England during WWII.
Katherine (Katya) Vogt is now an old woman living in Winnipeg, but the story of how she and her family came to Canada begins in Russia in 1910, on a wealthy Mennonite estate. Here they lived in a world bounded by the prosperity of their landlords and by the poverty and disgruntlement of the Russian workers who toil on the estate. But in the wake of the First World War, the tensions engulfing the country begin to intrude on the community, leading to an unspeakable act of violence. In the aftermat...
Caesar's Column (Extra Series / Viking Society) (Dystopian Classics)
by Ignatius Donnelly
The book is a plea, and a striking one. Its plot is bold, its language is forceful, and the great uprising is given with terrible vividness.