|
Historical Fiction August 2020
|
|
|
|
A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth: Stories by Daniel Mason What it is: a reflective and lyrical collection of short stories that span a range of historical settings, from Ancient Egypt to London during the Great Smog of 1952.
Story titles include: For the Union Dead; The Ecstasy of Alfred Russel Wallace; and The Miraculous Discovery of Psammetichus.
About the author: physician and writer Daniel Mason is best known for his novels, including The Piano Tuner and The Winter Soldier. | |
Naamah : a novel
by
Sarah Blake
Imagines the life of Noah's wife, Naamah, a woman torn between faith and fury, lending her strength to her sons and their wives, caring for an unruly menagerie of restless creatures and silently mourning the lover she left behind. Simultaneous eBook.
|
|
The Dutch house : a novel
by
Ann Patchett
A tale set over the course of five decades traces a young man’s rise from poverty to wealth and back again as his prospects center around his family’s lavish Philadelphia estate. By the award-winning author of Commonwealth. (general fiction). (This book was listed in a previous issue of Forecast.) 250,000 first printing. Tour.
|
|
A Bend in the Stars by Rachel Barenbaum Russia, 1914: When her physicist brother, Vanya, goes missing en route to observe a solar eclipse, Jewish surgeon Miri Abramov embarks on a desperate rescue mission, accompanied by a charming army deserter.
What's at stake: Vanya believes that photographing the eclipse will verify or disprove Einstein's general theory of relativity, while Miri fears that if the coming war doesn't kill them both, the Czar's pogroms will.
Reviewers say: "exhilarating" (Publishers Weekly). | | Enchantress of Numbers: a Novel of Ada Lovelace by Jennifer Chiaverini What it's about: the unusual childhood and later life of mathematician and aristocrat Ada Lovelace, the only legitimate child of legendary English poet Lord Byron and creator of the first computer program.
Don't miss: the development of Ada's complex relationship with her mother, who was desperate to keep Ada from turning out like her dissolute father.
Reviewers say: "a wonderful blend of history and fiction, poetry and math" (Publishers Weekly). | | Trinity by Louisa Hall What it is: a mosaic novel about physicist and Manhattan Project director J. Robert Oppenheimer, told from the perspectives of seven different characters.
About the author: Louisa Hall's previous novel, Speak, also employed interconnected narratives to explore humanity's conflicted relationship with world-altering technologies.
Reviewers say: "Its genius is not to explain but to embody the science and politics that shaped Oppenheimer’s life" (The New York Times). | | The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry What it's about: Victorian era widow and aspiring naturalist Cora Seaborne relocates to coastal Essex to look for evidence of a local cryptid, a huge sea serpent that allegedly has the wings of a dragon.
You might also like: Other novels that deal with the intersection of natural (and unnatural) phenomena and the social expectations placed on young women, such as The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff, Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures, or The Great Unknown by Peg Kingman. | |
Contact your librarian for more great books!
|
|
|
|
|
|