At the Wolf's Table


Rosella Postorino - 2018
    'Wolf' was his nickname. As hapless as Little Red Riding Hood, I had ended up in his belly. A legion of hunters was out looking for him, and to get him in their grips they would gladly slay me as well."Germany, 1943: Twenty-six-year-old Rosa Sauer's parents are gone, and her husband Gregor is far away, fighting on the front lines of WWII. Impoverished and alone, she makes the fateful decision to leave war-torn Berlin to live with her in-laws in the countryside, thinking she'll find refuge there. But one morning, the SS come to tell her she has been conscripted to be one of Hitler's tasters: three times a day, she and nine other women go to his secret headquarters, the Wolf's Lair, to eat his meals before he does. Forced to eat what might kill them, the tasters begin to divide into The Fanatics, those loyal to Hitler, and the women like Rosa who insist they aren't Nazis, even as they risk their lives every day for Hitler's.As secrets and resentments grow, this unlikely sisterhood reaches its own dramatic climax. What's more, one of Rosa's SS guards has become dangerously familiar, and the war is worsening outside. As the months pass, it becomes increasingly clear that Rosa and everyone she knows are on the wrong side of history.

The Hunting Gun


Yasushi Inoue - 1949
    Told from the viewpoints of three different women, this is a story of the psychological impact of illicit love. First viewed through the eyes of Shoko, who learns of the affair through reading her mother's diary, then through the eyes of Midori, who had long known about the affair of her husband with Saiko, and finally through the eyes of Saiko herself.

The Story of the Night


Colm Tóibín - 1996
    Richard Garay lives with his mother, hiding his sexuality from her and from society. Stifled by his job, Richard is willing to take chances, both sexually and professionally. But Argentina is changing, and as his country edges toward peace, Richard tentatively begins a love affair. The result is a powerful, brave, and poignant novel of sex, death, and the diffculties of connecting one's inner life with the outside world.

A Very Long Engagement


Sébastien Japrisot - 1991
    Their brutal punishment has been hushed up for more than two years when Mathilde Donnay, unable to walk since childhood, begins a relentless quest to find out whether her fiancé, officially "killed in the line of duty," might still be alive. Tipped off by a letter from a dying soldier, the shrewd, sardonic, and wonderfully imaginative Mathilde scours the country for information about the men. As she carries her search to its end, an elaborate web of deception and coincidence emerges, and Mathilde comes to an understanding of the horrors, and the acts of kindness, brought about by war.A runaway bestseller in France and the winner of the 1991 Prix Interallié, this astonishing novel is many things at once: an absorbing mystery, a playful study of the different ways one story can be told, a moving and incisive portrait of life in France during and after the First World War, and a love story of transforming power and beauty.

To Dance with the White Dog


Terry Kay - 1990
    From author Terry Kay."A deftly shaped and vivid book...a tender and bracing tale of an octogenarian fighting to live a connected and purposeful life." ―The New York Times"A hauntingly beautiful story about love, family and relationships...I found it all such a moving experience, a lovely enduring tribute to love." ―The Most Reverend Desmond M. Tutu"Terry Kay is a perfect writer for those who love to read. His prose contains music and passion and fire. His work is tender and heartbreaking and memorable." ―Pat Conroy, New York Times best-selling authorThe elderly Sam Peek is still mourning the death of his beloved wife when a mysterious white dog appears. Seen only by Sam, White Dog becomes a part of Sam's grief. Though it's unclear if White Dog is real or phantom, the creature eases Sam's sorrow, brings him closer to his family, and helps him reconcile with his own mortality.Bestselling author Terry Kay brings Northeast Georgia to life through his elegant prose, and the thought-provoking themes of family, love, and loss will make readers come back to this touching story again and again.Also an Emmy Award-winning Hallmark Hall of Fame movie starring Hume Cronyn and Academy Award-winner Jessica Tandy.

Look at Me


Anita Brookner - 1983
    A lonely art historian absorbed in her research seizes the opportunity to share in the joys and pleasures of the lives of a glittering couple, only to find her hopes of companionship and happiness shattered.

The Page Turner


David Leavitt - 1998
    The two begin a love affair that affects their lives in ways neither could have predicted. "Absorbing from start to finish" (The New Yorker), The Page Turner testifies to the tenacity of the human spirit and the resiliency of the human heart.

Near to the Wild Heart


Clarice Lispector - 1943
    The novel, written in a stream-of-consciousness style reminiscent of the English-language Modernists, centers around the childhood and early adulthood of a character named Joana, who bears strong resemblance to her author: "Madame Bovary, c'est moi", Lispector said, quoting Flaubert, when asked about the similarities. The book, particularly its revolutionary language, brought its young, unknown creator to great prominence in Brazilian letters and earned her the prestigious Graça Aranha Prize.Joana, a young woman very much in the mode of existential contemporaries like Camus and Sartre, ponders the meaning of life, the freedom to be one's self, and the purpose of existence. Near to the Wild Heart does not have a conventional narrative plot. It instead recounts flashes from the life of Joana, between her present, as a young woman, and her early childhood. These focus, like most of Lispector's works, on interior, emotional states of mind.

The Betrothed


Alessandro Manzoni - 1827
    Forced to flee, they are then cruelly separated, and must face many dangers including plague, famine and imprisonment, and confront a variety of strange characters—the mysterious Nun of Monza, the fiery Father Cristoforo and the sinister “Unnamed”—in their struggle to be reunited. A vigorous portrayal of enduring passion, The Betrothed‘s exploration of love, power, and faith presents a whirling panorama of seventeenth-century Italian life and is one of the greatest European historical novels.“The 19th-century Italian literary classic renowned for its vivid descriptions of the 1630 pestilence that gutted Milan.” —The New York Times“Compulsory reading for Italian high school students, The Betrothed gives a historically accurate account of the bubonic plague that wiped out a quarter of Milan’s population in 1629-1631.” —Politico“This is not just a book; it offers consolation to the whole of humanity.” —Giuseppe Verdi

Body and Soul


Frank Conroy - 1993
    From Carnegie Hall to the smoky jazz clubs of London, Body & Soul burns with passion and truth--at once a riveting, compulsive read and a breathtaking glimpse into a boy's heart and an artist's soul.

The Passion


Jeanette Winterson - 1987
    The Passion is perhaps her most highly acclaimed work, a modern classic that confirms her special claim on the novel. Set during the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic Wars, The Passion intertwines the destinies of two remarkable people: Henri, a simple French soldier, who follows Napoleon from glory to Russian ruin; and Villanelle, the red-haired, web-footed daughter of a Venetian boatman, whose husband has gambled away her heart. In Venice’s compound of carnival, chance, and darkness, the pair meet their singular destiny.In her unique and mesmerizing voice, Winterson blends reality with fantasy, dream, and imagination to weave a hypnotic tale with stunning effects.

The Rose of Fire


Carlos Ruiz Zafón - 2012
    Set at the time of the Spanish Inquisition in the fifteenth century, Rose of Fire tells the story of the origins of the mysterious labyrinthine library, the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, which lies at the heart of Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s novels The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel’s Game, and now The Prisoner of Heaven.

Turtle Diary


Russell Hoban - 1975
    Detail by detail their diaries record a world in which thought leads to action and action brings William G. and Neaera H. to their own open sea.

Seven Days for an Eternity


Marc Levy - 2003
    The champions will have seven days to draw mankind towards good or evil, respectively. God picks his favorite angel, a ravishing young woman named Zofia. Lucifer picks Lucas, a male demon with devilishly good looks. The battlefield: present day San Francisco. The winner will rule mankind forever after: they have seven days for an eternity. Neither God nor the Devil could foresee that the two rivals, unaware of the other’s identity, would cross paths from the very start of the contest. Nor did they imagine that they could fall in love... “A love story that is both funny and moving…” - Le ParisienOne of France’s bestselling authors, Marc Levy’s novels have been translated into 45 languages and over 27 million copies of his books have been sold worldwide.

The Communist


Guido Morselli - 1976
    His father was a worker and an anarchist; Walter himself is a Communist. In the 1930s, he left Mussolini’s Italy to fight Franco in Spain. After Franco’s victory, he left Spain for exile in the United States. With the end of the war, he returned to Italy to work as a labor organizer and to build a new revolutionary order. Now, in the late 1950s, Walter is a deputy in the Italian parliament.He is not happy about it. Parliamentary proceedings are too boring for words: the Communist Party seems to be filling up with ward heelers, timeservers, and profiteers. For Walter, the political has always taken precedence over the personal, but now there seems to be no refuge for him anywhere. The puritanical party disapproves of his relationship with Nuccia, a tender, quizzical, deeply intelligent editor who is separated but not divorced, while Walter is worried about his health, haunted by his past, and increasingly troubled by knotty questions of both theory and practice. Walter is, always has been, and always will be a Communist, he has no doubt about that, and yet something has changed. Communism no longer explains the life he is living, the future he hoped for, or, perhaps most troubling of all, the life he has led.