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Historical Fiction June 2020
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Welcome to the Historical Fiction June Newsletter! This month we are back to books (!) since you can check out library material through the “Holds” system. If you have not used the “Hold” (request) feature before, here is a link to a short video explaining the process. |
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| The Immortals of Tehran by Ali AraghiWhat it is: a sweeping saga that follows a cursed Iranian family and its patriarch, a mute poet whose writing takes on mythological significance during the country's 1979 revolution.
Why you might like it: in the vein of classics like The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, The Immortals of Tehran uses magical realism to enrich the story of one family's journey through important historical moments. And there are cats. Lots and lots of cats. |
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| A Thousand Moons by Sebastian BarryWhat it's about: a makeshift family's story of growth and survival in Reconstruction-era Tennessee, a dangerous place to be for anyone who lives outside the lines.
Starring: Winona Cole, a 16-year-old Lakota girl first introduced in the novel Days Without End; Civil War veterans John Cole and Thomas McNulty, Winona's adoptive fathers; Tennyson and Rosalee, siblings and former slaves who later join the Cole family.
Read it for: the complex characters, lyrical language, and meditations on what it takes to build a family. |
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The shadow king : a novel by Maaza Mengiste Tending the wounded when her nation is invaded by Mussolini, an orphaned servant in 1935 Ethiopia helps disguise a gentle peasant as their exiled emperor to rally her fellow women in the fight against fascism.
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The secrets we kept by Lara Prescott A thrilling tale of secretaries turned spies, of love and duty, and of sacrifice--inspired by the true story of the CIA plot to infiltrate the hearts and minds of Soviet Russia, not with propaganda, but with the greatest love story of the twentieth century: Doctor Zhivago.
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.The women of the copper country : a novel by Mary Doria Russell "In July 1913, twenty-five-year-old Annie Clements had seen enough of the world to know that it was unfair. She's spent her whole life in the coal-mining town of Calumet, Michigan where men risk their lives for meager salaries--and had barely enough to put food on the table and clothes on their backs. The women labor in the houses of the elite, and send their husbands and sons deep underground each day, dreading the fateful call of the company man telling them their loved ones aren't coming home. When Annie decides to stand up for herself, and the entire town of Calumet, nearly everyone believes she may have taken on more than she is prepared to handle."
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Deep river : a novel by Karl Marlantes Forced from their home by Russian imperialism, three Finnish siblings find their new lives in the Pacific Northwest challenged by the rapid development and labor movements of the early 20th-century logging industry. By the best-selling author of Matterhorn.
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The Dutch house : a novel by Ann Patchett A tale set over the course of five decades traces the consequences of Cyril Conroy's purchase of a lavish Philadelphia estate for him, his wife, and his children, Danny and Maeve, who struggle to escape from poverty following his death.
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The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates What it is: the haunting, lyrical story of Hiram Walker, who uses the remarkable abilities inherited from his mother (the titular water dancer) to assist with the Underground Railroad after escaping the plantation owned by his white father.
Author alert: MacArthur fellow Ta-Nehisi Coates has written for numerous publications including The Atlantic, where he also served as an editor. The Water Dancer is his first novel, but his other books include Between the World and Me and We Were Eight Years in Power.
Reviewers say: "bold, dazzling, and not to be missed" (Publishers Weekly).
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The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell What it is: a sweeping family saga that interweaves the history of colonial Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) with the complex web of connections between generations of three different families -- one English, one Italian, and one African.
For fans of: Isabel Allende's classic debut novel The House of the Spirits, which similarly blends post-colonial history with magical realism as it follows the generations of interconnected families.
Reviewers say: The Old Drift is a novel with a "generous spirit, sensory richness, and visionary heft" that set it apart from other family epics (Publishers Weekly).
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The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman What it's about: The journeys (both literal and figurative) of Jewish girls Ettie, Lea, and Ava who flee 1940s Berlin for occupied France, where their paths diverge and reconnect in dramatic, heartwrenching ways.
Odd girl out: Posing as Lea's cousin, Ava is actually a golem Ettie built back in Berlin to protect Lea from harm -- a duty she performs with equal parts warmth and ruthlessness.
What sets it apart: author Alice Hoffman's ability to thread moments of compelling sweetness into the lives of her characters as they try to survive the horrors of Nazism.
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Summer of '69 by Elin Hilderbrand A pregnant eldest sibling, a middle-sister civil rights activist, an infantry soldier brother deployed to Vietnam and a lonely 13-year-old youngest child find their lives upended by troubling family secrets.
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The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo "From New York Times bestselling author Yangsze Choo, a novel set in 1930s colonial Malaysia that pulls the reader into a world of servants and masters, age-old superstition and modern idealism, sibling rivalry and forbidden love, and a child and a youngwoman searching for their place in a society that would rather they stay invisible"
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