Juliet Stevenson
Author
Language
English
Description
"Spanning much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker--a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800, Henry's brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father's money and his mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable...
Author
Language
English
Description
"Natalie Jenner, the internationally bestselling author of The Jane Austen Society, returns with a compelling and heartwarming story of post-war London, a century-old bookstore, and three women determined to find their way in a fast-changing world in Bloomsbury Girls. Bloomsbury Books is an old-fashioned new and rare book store that has persisted and resisted change for a hundred years, run by men and guided by the general manager's unbreakable fifty-one...
Author
Language
English
Description
Ten years on from her last novel, Edna O'Brien reminds us why she is thought to be one of the great Irish writers of this and any generation. When a wanted war criminal from the Balkans, masquerading as a faith healer, settles in a small west coast Irish village, the community are in thrall. One woman, Fidelma McBride, falls under his spell and in this astonishing novel, Edna O'Brien charts the consequences of that fatal attraction. The Little Red...
Author
Language
English
Description
Recruited into MI5 against a backdrop of the Cold War in 1972, Cambridge student Serena Frome, a compulsive reader, is assigned to infiltrate the literary circle of a promising young writer whose politics align with those of the government, a situation that is compromised when she falls in love with him.
Author
Language
English
Description
It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned, the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa, a large silent house now bereft of brothers, husband and even servants, life is about to be transformed, as impoverished widow Mrs Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.
Author
Language
English
Description
Henry James' story of a pair of adulterous lovers who are married, respectively, to a rich American collector of European art and to his inexperienced daughter provides-beyond its expensive, burnished, beautifully appointed exteriors-an understanding of the rises and betrayals inherent in society that is unparalleled in literature.
8) Jacob's room
Author
Language
English
Description
P>'Listless is the air in an empty room, just swelling the curtain; the flowers in the jar shift. One fibre in the wicker armchair creaks, though no one sits there . . .' Set in the halcyon days of pre-war innocence, Virginia Woolf's third novel, Jacob's Room, follows the progress of a young man as he passes from adolescence to adulthood in a hazy rite of passage. Wandering through the windswept shores of Cornwall to the sunscorched landscape of
...9) Belgravia
Author
Language
English
Description
On the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, two families meet at the Duchess of Richmond's ball. From this moment on, their stories will be linked by a secret.
Author
Language
English
Description
"On a dark midwinter's night in an ancient inn on the river Thames, the regulars are telling stories when a wounded stranger enters carrying the lifeless body of a small child. Hours later, the girl stirs, takes a breath and returns to life. Many secrets must be revealed before the girl's identity can be known"--
12) Man and Superman
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
As suggested by the reference to Nietzsche's "Übermensch" in the title of the play, George Bernard Shaw intended Man and Superman to be not only a light romantic comedy but also a deeply philosophical work. In this highly entertaining play, he lays out his perspective on life and the cosmos with unsurpassable wit and verve.
Upon the death of her father, Ann Whitefield is left in the care of two guardians, Roebuck Ramsden and John Tanner. Tanner,...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
From the thrilling imagination of bestselling, award-winning Colm T?ib?n comes a retelling of the story of Clytemnestra?spectacularly audacious, violent, vengeful, lustful, and instantly compelling?and her children ... In House of Names, Colm T?ib?n brings a modern sensibility and language to an ancient classic, and gives this extraordinary character new life, so that we not only believe Clytemnestra?s thirst for revenge, but applaud it. He brilliantly...
Author
Language
English
Description
Shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction • A Refinery 29 Favorite Book of the Year • A Booklist Top 10 First Novels of the Year • A People Best Book of the Fall
“Wonderful… completely transporting.” —Madeline Miller, New York Times bestselling author of Circe and The Song of Achilles
In 1780s London,
...Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
"The Nine follows the true story of the author's great aunt Hélène Podliasky, who led a band of nine female resistance fighters as they escaped a German forced labor camp and made a ten-day journey across the front lines of WWII from Germany back to Paris. The nine women were all under thirty when they joined the resistance. They smuggled arms through Europe, harbored parachuting agents, coordinated communications between regional sectors, trekked...
16) Persuasion
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
Anne Elliot seems to have given up on present happiness and has resigned herself to living off her memories. More than seven years earlier she complied with duty: persuaded to view the match as imprudent and improper, she broke off her engagement to a naval captain with no fortune, ancestry, or prospects. However, when peacetime arrives and brings the Navy home, and Anne encounters Captain Wentworth once more, she starts to believe in second chances....
18) The March
Publisher
BBC Studios
Pub. Date
1990.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (93 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
A charismatic, Gandhi-like leader emerges from the refugee camps to lead a million starving Africans on an epic march from Sudan into Europe, under the banner "Watch Us Die". When they reach their destination, the authorities' reaction is both predictable and violent.
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
This charming classic love story, first published in 1970, brings together twenty years of correspondence between Helene Hanff, at the time, a freelance writer living in New York City, and a used-book dealer in London at 84, Charing Cross Road. Through the years, though never meeting and separated both geographically and culturally, they share a winsome, sentimental friendship based on their common love for books. Their relationship, captured so acutely...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
"One of the most innovative authors and distinguished literary critics of the twentieth century, Virginia Woolf examines family dynamics and the tensions between men and women in her 1927 novel To the Lighthouse. A pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device, Woolf explores multiple perspectives of the members of the Ramsay family as they navigate experiences of disappointment and loss. Divided into three sections, the story...
