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Historical Fiction March 2018
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| The Atomic City Girls by Janet BeardWhat it's about: Although the young women employed in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, are told that their work will help the U.S. win World War II, they have no idea that they're involved in building an atomic bomb.
You might also like: Denise Kiernan's The Girls of Atomic City, a nonfiction account of the military installation at Oak Ridge and it's predominantly female workforce; TaraShea Nesbit's The Wives of Los Alamos, a novel about the spouses of Manhattan Project scientists and the close-knit community they form. |
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| The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph CassaraStarring: members of the House of Xtravaganza, outcasts who form a family as they navigate New York City's underground ballroom scene.
Read it for: a heart-wrenching, character-driven story and a lyrical look at Latinx LGBTQ life in the 1980s and '90s.
For fans of: Jennie Livingston's 1990 documentary Paris is Burning. |
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| Song of a Captive Bird by Jasmin DarznikIntroducing: Forugh Farrokzhad, 20th-century Iranian feminist poet and filmmaker.
Why you might like it: This lyrical and thought-provoking biographical novel follows Farrokzhad's brief but eventful life from rebellious schoolgirl to teenage bride to iconoclastic artist-turned-activist.
Try this next: Bahiyyih Nakhjavani's The Woman Who Read Too Much, about a 19th-century Iranian woman poet and scholar. |
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| Only Killers and Thieves by Paul HowarthWhat it's about: The pursuit of vengeance makes for strange bedfellows, as teenage siblings Billy and Tommy McBride discover when they seek assistance in tracking down their parents' killers.
Is it for you? Set in 1885 Queensland, this gritty, blood-drenched Western tells a dramatic coming-of-age story while grappling with Australia's complex legacy of colonialism and genocide.
You might also like: Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang or Courtney Collins' The Untold, both suspenseful historical novels about the hardscrabble lives of impoverished young people in rural Australia. |
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| Winter Sisters by Robin OliveiraWhat it's about: When two young girls disappear during a blizzard, physician Mary Stipp continues to search for them long after everyone else gives up.
Read it for: an intriguing mystery, stirring courtroom drama, and a well-researched and richly detailed depiction of 1870s Albany, New York.
Crossover alert: Though not, strictly speaking, a sequel to My Name is Mary Sutter, this novel reunites readers with some familiar characters. |
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| Half-Blood Blues by Esi EdugyanWhat it's about: In 1940, biracial trumpet player Hieronymus Falk is taken by the Gestapo, leaving the remaining members of the Hot-Time Swingers jazz ensemble to wonder about his fate. Decades later, they discover the truth.
Try this next: Nicole Mones' Night in Shanghai, a dramatic novel about an African-American jazz musician who flees racial discrimination at home only to confront the looming threat of WWII. |
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1929
by Frederick W. Turner
Celebrated jazz artist Bix Beiderbecke recounts his early jams at the Caponed-controlled Blue Lantern Casino, grueling cross-country tours with Paul Whiteman's "Symphonic Jazz" orchestra, disastrous efforts to make a first all-color talkie musical, experiences during the stock market crash, and dying attempt to audit his life's work. A first novel. 50,000 first printing.
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Swing time
by Zadie Smith
Two dark-skinned dancers with very different talents share a complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in early adulthood in a story that transitions from northwest London to West Africa. By the award-winning author of On Beauty.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Harrison Memorial Library Ocean and Lincoln Carmel, California 93921 831-624-4629www.hm-lib.org/ |
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