The Pillars of the Earth Ken Follett
2016 992 pp
#1 New York Times Bestseller Oprah's Book Club Selection The “extraordinary . . . monumental masterpiece” ( Booklist ) that changed the course of Ken Follett’s already phenomenal career—and begins where its prequel, The Evening and the Morning , ended. “Follett risks all and comes out a clear winner,” extolled Publishers Weekly on the release of The Pillars of the Earth . A departure for the bestselling thriller writer, the historical epic stunned readers and critics alike with its ambitious scope and gripping humanity. Today, it stands as a testament to Follett’s unassailable command of the written word and to his universal appeal. The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, a devout and resourceful monk driven to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has known . . . of Tom, the mason who becomes his architect—a man divided in his soul . . . of the beautiful, elusive Lady Aliena, haunted by a secret shame . . . and of a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state and brother against brother. A spellbinding epic tale of ambition, anarchy, and absolute power set against the sprawling medieval canvas of twelfth-century England, this is Ken Follett’s historical masterpiece.
Occupied England Class Struggle Church vs State Slow Burn
The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafón
2014 530 pp
"Anyone who enjoys novels that are scary, erotic, touching, tragic and thrilling should rush right out to the nearest bookstore and pick up The Shadow of the Wind. Really, you should." —Michael Dirda, The Washington Post “Wondrous...masterful...The Shadow of the Wind is ultimately a love letter to literature, intended for readers as passionate about storytelling as its young hero.” —Entertainment Weekly, Editor's Choice “This is one gorgeous read.” —Stephen King "I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetary of Forgotten Books for the first time..." Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer’s son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author’s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Soon Daniel’s seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets—an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.
Cultural Erasure Memory and Resistance Surveillance State Forbidden Books
Silence Shusaku Endo
2016 212 pp
Shusaku Endo's New York Times bestselling classic novel of enduring faith in dangerous times , now a major motion picture directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Andrew Garfield, Liam Neeson, and Adam Driver. " Silence I regard as a masterpiece, a lucid and elegant drama."- The New York Review of Books Seventeenth-century Japan: Two Portuguese Jesuit priests travel to a country hostile to their religion, where feudal lords force the faithful to publicly renounce their beliefs. Eventually captured and forced to watch their Japanese Christian brothers lay down their lives for their faith, the priests bear witness to unimaginable cruelties that test their own beliefs. Shusaku Endo is one of the most celebrated and well-known Japanese fiction writers of the twentieth century, and Silence is widely considered to be his great masterpiece.
Religious Persecution Apostasy and Survival Colonial Mission Moral Ambiguity
The Burial at Thebes Seamus Heaney
2005 79 pp
In this outstanding new translation, commissioned by Ireland's renowned Abbey Theatre to commemorate its centenary, Seamus Heaney exposes the darkness and the humanity in Sophocles' masterpiece, and inks it with his own modern and masterly touch. Sophocles' play, first staged in the fifth century B.C., stands as a timely exploration of the conflict between those who affirm the individual's human rights and those who must protect the state's security. During the War of the Seven Against Thebes, Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus, learns that her brothers have killed each other, having been forced onto opposing sides of the battle. When Creon, king of Thebes, grants burial of one but not the "treacherous" other, Antigone defies his order, believing it her duty to bury all of her close kin. Enraged, Creon condemns her to death, and his soldiers wall her up in a tomb. While Creon eventually agrees to Antigone's release, it is too late: She takes her own life, initiating a tragic repetition of events in her family's history.
State Power Burial Rights Defiant Individual Greek Tragedy
I, Claudius Robert Graves
1989 480 pp
A modern classic of historical fiction written in the form of Claudius's autobiography. Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus lived from 10 B.C. to 54 A.D. Despised as a weakling and dismissed as an idiot because of his physical infirmities, Claudius survived the intrigues and poisonings that marked the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, and the mad Caligula to become emperor of Rome in 41 A.D. The first part of Robert Graves’s two-part account of the life of Tiberius Claudius, I, Claudius stands as a landmark historical novel of the 20th century from one of its great writers.
Imperial Court Unreliable Narrator Power and Paranoia Enslaved Characters
Pachinko Min Jin Lee
2017 480 pp
Busan, Korea 1911: A club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a fifteen-year-old beauty. The couple have one child, their beloved daughter Sunja. When Sunja falls pregnant by a married yakuza, the family face ruin. But then Isak, a Christian minister, offers her a chance of salvation: a new life in Japan as his wife. Following a man she barely knows to a hostile country in which she has no friends, no home, and whose language she cannot speak, Sunja’s salvation is just the beginning of her story. Through eight decades and four generations, Pachinko is an epic tale of family, identity, love, death and survival.
Colonial Aftermath Generational Trauma Ethnic Identity Statelessness
The Hired Man Aminatta Forna
2013 304 pp
The new novel from the winner of the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize, The Hired Man is a taut, powerful novel of a small town and its dark wartime secrets, unwittingly brought into the light by a family of outsiders. Aminatta Forna has established herself as one of our most perceptive and uncompromising chroniclers of war and the way it reverberates, sometimes imperceptibly, in the daily lives of those touched by it. With The Hired Man, she has delivered a tale of a Croatian village after the War of Independence, and a family of newcomers who expose its secrets. Duro is off on a morning’s hunt when he sees something one rarely does in Gost: a strange car. Later that day, he overhears its occupants, a British woman, Laura, and her two children, who have taken up residence in a house Duro knows well. He offers his assistance getting their water working again, and soon he is at the house every day, helping get it ready as their summer cottage, and serving as Laura’s trusted confidant. But the other residents of Gost are not as pleased to have the interlopers, and as Duro and Laura’s daughter Grace uncover and begin to restore a mosaic in the front that has been plastered over, Duro must be increasingly creative to shield the family from the town’s hostility, and his own past with the house’s former occupants. As the inhabitants of Gost go about their days, working, striving to better themselves and their town, and arguing, the town’s volatile truths whisper ever louder. A masterpiece of storytelling haunted by lost love and a restrained menace, this novel recalls Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee and Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje. The Hired Man confirms Aminatta Forna as one of our most important writers.
Post-Occupation Memory Collaboration vs Resistance Balkan History Buried Secrets
Modern Classics Memoirs of Hadrian Marguerite Yourcenar
2001 288 pp
Framed as a letter from the Roman Emperor Hadrian to his successor, Marcus Aurelius, Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian is translated from the French by Grace Frick with an introduction by Paul Bailey in Penguin Modern Classics. In her magnificent novel, Marguerite Yourcenor recreates the life and death of one of the great rulers of the ancient world. The Emperor Hadrian, aware his demise is imminent, writes a long valedictory letter to Marcus Aurelius, his future successor. The Emperor meditates on his past, describing his accession, military triumphs, love of poetry and music, and the philosophy that informed his powerful and far-flung rule. A work of superbly detailed research and sustained empathy, Memoirs of Hadrian captures the living spirit of the Emperor and of Ancient Rome. Marguerite de Crayencour (1903-88), who went by the inexact anagrammatic pen name 'Marguarite Yourcenar', was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist, the first woman to be elected to the Académie française . Her first novel Alexis was published in 1929; in 1939 she was invited to America by her lover Grace Frick, where she lectured in comparative literature at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. When Mémoires d'Hadrien was first published in 1951, it was an immediate success and met with great critical acclaim. If you enjoyed Memoirs of Hadrian , you might like Robert Graves's I, Claudius , also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'A timeless masterpiece ... every page is informed by her profound scholarship' Paul Bailey, author of Gabriel's Lament 'Yourcenar conjures worlds. She can make us share passion - for beauty, bodies, ideas, even power - and consider it closely at the same time. She is that most extraordinary thing: a sensual thinker' Independent on Sunday
Imperial Self-Reflection Conquered Peoples Roman Empire First Person Confession
The Lacuna Barbara Kingsolver
2009 688 pp
PARTITA - THE HEARTRENDING NEW NOVEL FROM BARBARA KINGSOLVER - COMING OCTOBER 2026 FROM THE WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION TWICE WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION THE MULTI-MILLION COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR 'Lush.' SUNDAY TIMES 'Superb.' DAILY MAIL 'Elegantly written.' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH Born in America and raised in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd starts work in the household of Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. A compulsive diarist, he records and relates his colourful experiences of life in the midst of the Mexican revolution, but political winds toss him between north and south. The Lacuna is the heartbreaking story of a man torn between the warm heart of Mexico and the cold embrace of 1950s America in the shadow of Senator McCarthy. It is both a portrait of the artist-and of art itself. Readers loved The Lacuna : 'My new favourite book . . . it gets under your skin.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'An amazing tale. You must read it!' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'One of those books that you don't want to end and which stays with you.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Brilliant. You will never forget this book.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Cultural Hegemony Mixed Heritage Identity Political Exile Artist and State
The Return (Pulitzer Prize Winner) Hisham Matar
2017 272 pp
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR • The acclaimed memoir about fathers and sons, a legacy of loss, and, ultimately, healing—one of The New York Times Book Review ’s ten best books of the year, winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize One of the New York Times ’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Century When Hisham Matar was a nineteen-year-old university student in England, his father went missing under mysterious circumstances. Hisham would never see him again, but he never gave up hope that his father might still be alive. Twenty-two years later, he returned to his native Libya in search of the truth behind his father’s disappearance. The Return is the story of what he found there. The Pulitzer Prize citation hailed The Return as “a first-person elegy for home and father.” Transforming his personal quest for answers into a brilliantly told universal tale of hope and resilience, Matar has given us an unforgettable work with a powerful human question at its core: How does one go on living in the face of unthinkable loss? NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY: Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times • The Washington Post • The Guardian • Financial Times “A tale of mighty love, loyalty and courage. It simply must be read.” — The Spectator (U.K.) “Wise and agonizing and thrilling to read.” —Zadie Smith “[An] eloquent memoir . . . at once a suspenseful detective story about a writer investigating his father’s fate . . . and a son’s efforts to come to terms with his father’s ghost, who has haunted more than half his life by his absence.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “This outstanding book . . . roves back and forth in time with a freedom that conceals the intricate precision of its art.” — The Wall Street Journal “Truly remarkable . . . a book with a profound faith in the consolations of storytelling . . . a testament to [Matar’s] father, his family and his country.” — The Daily Telegraph (U.K.) “ The Return is a riveting book about love and hope, but it is also a moving meditation on grief and loss. . . . Likely to become a classic.” —Colm Tóibín “Matar’s evocative writing and his early traumas call to mind Vladimir Nabokov.” —The Washington Post “Utterly riveting.” — The Boston Globe “A moving, unflinching memoir of a family torn apart.” —Kazuo Ishiguro, The Guardian “Beautiful . . . The Return, for all the questions it cannot answer, leaves a deep emotional imprint.” — Newsday “A masterful memoir, a searing meditation on loss, exile, grief, guilt, belonging, and above all, family. It is, as well, a study of the shaping—and breaking—of the bonds between fathers and sons. . . . This is writing of the highest quality.” — The Sunday Times (U.K.)
Internal Occupation Disappeared Family Authoritarian State Exile and Return