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The Girl at the Lion d'Or


Sebastian Faulks - 1989
    This Vintage Original edition marks its first appearance in the United States.On a rainy night in the 1930s, Anne Louvet appears at the run-down Hotel du Lion d'Or in the village of Janvilliers.  She is seeking a job and a new life, one far removed from the awful injustices of her past. As Anne embarks on a torrential love affair with a married veteran of the Great War, The Girl at the Lion d'Or fashions an unbreakable spell of narrative and atmosphere that evokes French masters from Flaubert to Renoir.

Comedy in a Minor Key


Hans Keilson - 1947
    This novella, first published in 1947 and now translated into English for the first time, shows Hans Keilson at his best: deeply ironic, penetrating, sympathetic, and brilliantly modern, an heir to Joseph Roth and Franz Kafka. In 2008, when Keilson received Germany’s prestigious Welt Literature Prize, the citation praised his work for exploring “the destructive impulse at work in the twentieth century, down to its deepest psychological and spiritual ramifications.” Published to celebrate Keilson’s hundredth birthday, Comedy in a Minor Key — and The Death of the Adversary, reissued in paperback — will introduce American readers to a forgotten classic author, a witness to World War II and a sophisticated storyteller whose books remain as fresh as when they first came to light.

The Reader


Bernhard Schlink - 1995
    In time she becomes his lover—then she inexplicably disappears. When Michael next sees her, he is a young law student, and she is on trial for a hideous crime. As he watches her refuse to defend her innocence, Michael gradually realizes that Hanna may be guarding a secret she considers more shameful than murder.

What She Lost


Melissa W. Hunter - 2019
    Will Sarah’s strong will and determination be enough for her to survive when everything she loves is taken from her? Part memoir, part fiction, What She Lost is the reimagined true-life story of the author’s grandmother growing into a woman amid the anguish of the Holocaust. It is a tale of resilience, of rebuilding a life, and of rediscovering love. About the Author Melissa W. Hunter is an author and blogger from Cincinnati, Ohio. She studied creative writing and journalism at the University of Cincinnati, receiving a BA in English literature and a minor in Judaic studies. She received the English Department’s Undergraduate Essay Award and Undergraduate Fiction Award over two consecutive years. In her senior year, she received a grant to study and write about the Holocaust at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. Her articles have been published on Kveller.com and LiteraryMama.com, and her short stories have appeared in the Jewish Literary Journal. She is a contributing blogger to the Today Show parenting community, and her novella Through a Mirror Clear was published as a serial installment on TheSame.blog, an online literary journal written for women by women. Her novel What She Lost is inspired by her grandmother’s life as a Holocaust survivor. When not writing, Melissa loves spending family time with her husband and two beautiful daughters.

When the War is Over


Anja May - 2018
     The true account of a teenage soldier in World War 2 Germany. Germany, 1945. Ever since Anton Kohler first heard the vibrant sound of the violin, he’s dreamed of mastering the instrument. But when his father dies, the fifteen-year-old must give up his passion to support his seven younger siblings. As the Russian army marches closer to his hometown, Anton and his best friend Gerhard are pulled from their families and forced to help defend their home in a last desperate stand. When Anton witnesses the slaughter of concentration camp prisoners, he vows to escape the war and find a way home to his family and his girl, Luise. In the chaos of impending defeat, Anton is torn between his promise to protect the life of his best friend and his desire to survive the war with his conscience intact. Based on a true account, this coming-of-age story set in the last turbulent months of World War 2, Germany, is a tale of love and friendship, of hope and loss. Read When the War is Over now to experience the poignant journey of a teenage soldier.

Corelli's Mandolin


Louis de Bernières - 1994
    Dr Iannis practices medicine on the island of Cephalonia, accompanied by his daughter, Pelagia, to whom he imparts much of his healing art. Even when the Italians do invade, life isn’t so bad—at first anyway. The officer in command of the Italian garrison is the cultured Captain Antonio Corelli, who responds to a Nazi greeting of “Heil Hitler” with his own “Heil Puccini”, and whose most precious possession is his mandolin. It isn't long before Corelli and Pelagia are involved in a heated affair--despite her engagement to a young fisherman, Mandras, who has gone off to join Greek partisans. Love is complicated enough in wartime, even when the lovers are on the same side. And for Corelli and Pelagia, it becomes increasingly difficult to negotiate the minefield of allegiances, both personal and political, as all around them atrocities mount, former friends become enemies and the ugliness of war infects everyone it touches. British author Louis de Bernières is well known for his forays into magical realism in such novels as The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord and The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman. Here he keeps it to a minimum, though certainly the secondary characters with whom he populates his island—the drunken priest, the strongman, the fisherman who swims with dolphins—would be at home in any of his wildly imaginative Latin American fictions. Instead, de Bernières seems interested in dissecting the nature of history as he tells his ever-darkening tale from many different perspectives. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin works on many levels, as a love story, a war story and a deconstruction of just what determines the facts that make it into the history books.

Breaking Point: A Novel of the Battle of Britain


John Rhodes - 2020
    Hitler's triumphant Third Reich has crushed all Europe--except Britain. As Hitler launches a massive aerial assault, only the heavily outnumbered British RAF and the iron will of Winston Churchill can stop him. The fate of Western civilization teeters in the balance.Johnnie Shaux, a Spitfire fighter pilot, knows that the average life expectancy of a pilot is a mere five hours of operational flying time. Sooner or later, his luck will run out. Yet he must constantly summon up the fortitude to fly into conditions in which death is all but inevitable and continue to do so until the inevitable occurs...Meanwhile, Eleanor Rand, a WAAF staff officer in RAF headquarters, is struggling to find her role in a man's world and to make a contribution to the battle. She studies the control room maps that track the ebb and flow of conflict, the aerial thrust and parry, and begins to see the glimmerings of a radical strategic breakthrough...Breaking Point is based on the actual events of six days in the historic Battle of Britain. The story alternates between Johnnie, face to face with the implacable enemy; and Eleanor, in 11 Group headquarters, using 'zero-sum' game theory to evolve a strategic model of the battle.

The Girl in the Pink Raincoat


Alrene Hughes - 2018
    Manchester, 1939. On the eve of war Gracie Earnshaw is working in Rosenberg's Raincoat factory – a job she hates – but her life is about to be turned upside down when she falls in love with Jacob, the boss’s charismatic nephew. Through Jacob, with his ambitions to be a writer, Gracie glimpses another world: theatre, music and prejudice. But their forbidden romance is cut short when Jacob is arrested and tragedy unfolds.Gracie struggles with heartbreak, danger and old family secrets, but the love of her first sweetheart comes back to her in an unexpected way giving her the chance of a new life and happiness.

Of Knights and Dogfights


Ellie Midwood - 2019
    A bohemian Berliner, a Flieger-Hitlerjugend member, a prodigy pilot, and a butcher’s son, with nothing in common but their love for the Luftwaffe and the freedom the sky has to offer. The bond they develop is put to the test by what might be a stronger adversary - war itself. Over the English Channel, in the dusty skies of Africa, on the brutal Eastern front, they will discover where their loyalty lies, and what true bravery means. “It’s Großdeutsches Reich, soldier. When one has a family at home, it doesn’t leave him many chances for the revolt.” As the war progresses, Willi and Johann grow more and more disillusioned with the regime they’re protecting with their lives. An SS unit appearing on their base to claim one of their own; bits of conversation revealing the truth about the extermination program accidentally overheard during the official reception - the pieces of the puzzle are slowly coming together, but it’s too late to do anything but fight to the bitter end, whatever it may bring.   Set during one of the bloodiest wars in history, “Of Knights and Dogfights” is the story of the shattered illusions of youth, tyranny and freedom, friendship and love guiding one out of the darkest hell of Soviet captivity.

For Two Thousand Years


Mihail Sebastian - 1934
    Spending his days walking the streets and his nights drinking and gambling, meeting revolutionaries, zealots, lovers and libertines, he adjusts his eyes to the darkness that falls over Europe, and threatens to destroy him. Mihail Sebastian's 1934 masterpiece, now translated into English for the first time, was written amid the anti-Semitism which would, by the end of the decade, force him out of his career and turn his friends and colleagues against him. For Two Thousand Years is a prescient, heart-wrenching chronicle of resilience and despair, broken layers of memory and the terrible forces of history.

The Use of Man


Aleksandar Tišma - 1976
    Two become Nazis, one joins the Partisans, and one is sent to a concentration camp.Set in Yugoslavia prior to and during World War II, this tale of devastation traces the lives of four friends born in the same small town. They went to school together, took dancing lessons, stole kisses, were taught German by an old maid who kept a diary. But when war comes, half-Jewish Vera is sent to a concentration camp while her German cousin becomes a Nazi; Serbian boyfriend Milinko joins the Partisans; and another classmate, also a Serb, becomes fascinated by the magic of killing. Tisma's portrayal of their situation is certainly poignant, but he belabors the obvious in overly melodramatic fashion.

The Runaway Sisters


Ann Bennett - 2020
    I saw the first glimmers of daylight over the roofs from the window before I heard it. We were used to air raids by then and I recognised German engines, but something felt different this time. They were closer than I’d ever heard them before…Devon, 1940: When fifteen-year-old Daisy is evacuated from her home in London, she knows she must look after her younger sister Peggy. She is the only one who can reassure Peggy that life will go back to normal, reading to her from their one battered children’s book, ensuring she takes the cough medicine their mother tucked in the pocket of her gas mask bag.But when the sisters’ new home is suddenly bombed, they are taken into the countryside, and Daisy quickly realises that not everyone at home is on the right side of the war. Forced to work in fields alongside orphan children, she finds herself drawn to a young boy called John, who has tried and failed to escape many times before.Then Peggy gets sick and Daisy knows that, to save her life, they must run away. But now Peggy is not the only one Daisy is desperate to protect. As war rages all around, Daisy learns that sometimes you have to sacrifice everything if you want to save the people you love. And that the choices you make in your darkest days will affect your family for generations to come…Perfect for fans of Lisa Wingate, Diney Costeloe and Shirley Dickson, The Runaway Sisters is a tale of heartwrenching loss and uplifting courage. It’s a story about family, and the light that can be found in the dark clouds of war.

Consequences


Penelope Lively - 2007
    James's Park begins young Lorna and Matt's intense relationship. Wholly in love, they leave London for a cottage in a rural Somerset village. Their intimate life together—--Matt’'s woodcarving, Lorna's self-discovery, their new baby, Molly—--is shattered with the arrival of World War II. In 1960s London, Molly happens upon a forgotten newspaper--—a seemingly small moment that leads to her first job and, eventually, a pregnancy by a wealthy man who wants to marry her but whom she does not love. Thirty years later, Ruth, who has always considered her existence a peculiar accident, questions her own marriage and begins a journey that takes her back to 1941 —and a redefinition of herself and of love. Told in Lively's incomparable prose, Consequences is a powerful story of growth, death, and rebirth and a study of the previous century--—its major and minor events, its shaping of public consciousness, and its changing of lives.

Save Me Twice


E.A. Dustin - 2016
    After spending months digging trenches as a deterrent for Russian tanks, Karl and his brother are captured by the Russians. Known for their atrocities, Karl in immense danger, flees Russian captivity and surrenders to the Americans. What happens to his brother? As an American POW Karl helps clean up Mauthausen-Gusen, where he finds his neighborhood friend Michael whose entire family had gone missing. Karl remains in American prison camp for five months: will the American GIs set him free or hand him over to the Russians? The Russians are demanding that prisoners in their territory are handed back. Will Karl make it home alive?

The English Patient


Michael Ondaatje - 1992
    Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burned man who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning.