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Historical Fiction February 2019
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Book Banter & Beyond
Thursday, March 14th, 7pm
Rangiora Library
To coincide with the finale of the Adult Summer Reading Challenge we will be hosting a fun and interactive event to discuss books. Join library staff to hear about their favourite summer reads, and share yours as well.
Return your Adult Summer Reading Challenge card by 28 February to be in for the prize draw on the night. Haven’t participated in the challenge? Don’t worry, you are still welcome to attend the Book Banter evening.
Book at any Waimakariri Library, phone 311 8901 or email library@wmk.govt.nz.
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Eagle & crane
by Suzanne Rindell
Two daredevil pilots from rival families confront unsettling family secrets in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attacks, the internment of Japanese citizens and a mysterious plane crash. By the author of The Other Typist
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Five days of fog
by Anna Freeman
London, December, 1952. At the beginning of what will come to be known as the Great Smog, Ruby Palmer waits to be released from prison. At home her daughter, Florrie, also waits, knowing that the moment her mother returns she herself will face a choice: stay where she is, in the heart of her matriarchial and criminal family, or leave it all to make a safer, duller life with a decent young man. But what will she do if she's too crooked to go straight, and too good to go bad? Over the next four days, as London grinds to a halt in impenetrable and poisonous fog, Florrie will have to find her own path and the courage to stumble along it.
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Blackberry and Wild Rose
by Sonia Velton
A rich historical debut set among the Huguenot silk weavers of Spitalfields in the late 18th century When Esther, the God-fearing wife of a master silk weaver, rescues Sara from a bawdy house she thinks she is doing God's will. But the secret which binds the two women together could prove to be their destruction.
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Mataram : A Novel of Love, Faith and Power in Early Java
by Tony Reid
Seventeenth-century Java is in turmoil between its Hindu-Buddhist past and its Muslim future, while pepper draws Europe's quarrelling spice-hungry traders to its shores. Thomas Hodges of the East India Company seizes a chance at glory by being the first to venture ashore at the pepper port of Banten in 1608. Will he unlock the mysterious riches of Java for the English, or die forgotten with a Javanese kris or Portuguese poignard between his ribs?
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A day like any other : the great Hamptons hurricane of 1938
by Genie Chipps
The once-scenic Dutch elm-lined main streets of the Hamptons serve as both a reminder of a more genteel time and an omen of things to come in Henderson's keenly observed and skillfully structured historical novel. The dark cloud on the horizon is the Great New England Hurricane, which will devastate the islands on September 21, 1938. The story opens on that ominous morning, then jumps back to June, when wealthy Manhattanites decamp to their summer homes and the locals grudgingly welcome their primary source of income. As Henderson subtly and cleverly ratchets up the suspense, she presents a richly textured exploration of class and society filtered through the lenses of several characters whose lives are thrown off course. (from Booklist)
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| The House at the Edge of Night by Catherine BannerWhat it's about: the Esposito family and their experiences on the Mediterranean island of Castellamare from World War I to the Great Recession.
Read it for: an atmospheric and leisurely paced tale of island life, full of colorful characters and spiced with magical realism.
For fans of: Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières. |
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Homegoing: A Novel
by Yaa Gyasi
Introducing: half-sisters Effia and Esi, born in the 18th-century Asante Empire (now Ghana).
Why you might like it: This debut chronicles, in haunting vignettes, seven generations as Effia becomes the mistress of a British slave-trader and Esi survives the Middle Passage only to live out her days in bondage on an American plantation.
For Fans of: African-American family sagas such as Alex Haley's Roots.
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| Barkskins by Annie ProulxWhat it's about: In the deep, dark forests of 17th-century New France (now Canada), indentured censitaires work as "barkskins," or woodcutters bound to their seigneur as they toil in the "evil wilderness."
Meet: René Sel and Charles Duquet, censitaires whose paths diverge dramatically: one marries a Mi’kmaw woman and becomes the patriarch of a large, mixed-race family, while the other escapes servitude to become a wealthy trader.
You might also like: Joseph Boyden's The Orenda, which shares Barkskins' setting but focuses on the region's indigenous inhabitants. |
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Pachinko
by Min Jin Lee
What it is: a sweeping family saga spanning four generations and eight decades, which opens with Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910.
What happens: Pregnant 16-year-old Sunja, spurned by her married lover, reluctantly accepts a marriage proposal from the minister lodging at her family's boarding house. The newlyweds travel to Japan to begin their life together.
For fans of: Alan Brennert's Honolulu, about a Korean American family in Hawaii; Eugenia Kim's The Calligrapher's Daughter, whose protagonist, like Sunja, proves resourceful during troubled times.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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