Book picks similar to
Living Without Liesl: A True Story by Douwleen Bredenham
prism-lending-library
south-african
tragedy
Karain
Joseph Conrad - 1897
None of us, I believe, has any property now, and I hear that many, negligently, have lost their lives; but I am sure that the few who survive are not yet so dim-eyed as to miss in the befogged respectability of their newspapers the intelligence of various native risings in the Eastern Archipelago. Sunshine gleams between the lines of those short paragraphs—sunshine and the glitter of the sea...
Romeo & Juliet: The Contemporary Film, the Classic Play
Craig Pearce - 1996
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio (What's Eating Gilbert Grape, The Basketball Diaries) and Claire Danes (My So-Called Life, Little Women) as the doomed lovers, the film is set in a modern city. The actors speak Shakespeare's words--but with their own American accents.Readers can now experience this new vision of Shakespeare's violent, tragic play alongside the Bards original text, in a special single volume that features an introduction by the film's director.--back cover
White Lightning
Justin Cartwright - 2002
This is the beginning of an extraordinary novel. It is told over the space of a few months, and in these few months one man's whole life - his failures, his successes, his longing for peace and fulfillment, his loves and his tragedies - are recounted. These memories include his film Suzi Crispin, Night Nurse, and - the darkest moment - the death of his son, which has haunted him. He inherits a small amount of money and buys a rundown farm, where he dreams of creating an Arcadia. On the farm is a captive baboon, Piet, who becomes startlingly involved in his new life. He also has a love affair with a local woman, and becomes hauntingly involved with an African family of squatters. All the while the narrator contemplates his own life back in England and so the novel is also a sharp commentary on what Englishness means. This is a novel about the human enterprise. It is surprising, tender, funny and utterly original.
Three Dog Tales: Old Yeller / Sounder / Savage Sam
Fred Gipson - 1995
Old Yeller
(Winner of the Newbery Honor)When his father sets out on a cattle drive for the summer, fourteen-year-old Travis is left to take care of his mother, younger brother, and the family farm. In the wilderness of early frontier Texas, Travis faces his new and often dangerous responsibilities, with many adventures along the way, all with the help of the big yellow dog who comes to be his best friend.
Savage Sam
In this sequel to Old Yeller, Travis and his younger brother are kidnapped by an Indian raiding party, and Savage Sam, the son of the beloved yellow dog, leads a frantic chase to bring them back.
Sounder
(
Winner of the John Newbery Medal)Sounder is a loyal family dog, determined to help his owners through thick and thin. This is the story of a great coon dog and the poor sharecroppers who own him, and of the courage and love that bind a black family together in the face of extreme prejudice from the outside world.
Blood Royal
Harold Robbins - 2005
Her wedding was a worldwide sensation. But she was deceived and betrayed before the honeymoon was over. Five months after a fairy tale wedding, she threw herself down a flight of stairs when she was pregnant with a future heir to the throne. Suicide attempts, illicit affairs, and paranoia that there were plots by the Royals to kill her became the norm as the fairy tale turned into a horror story. After suffering degradation and humiliation at the hands of her husband, the heir to the British throne, she shot him with one of his own antique pistols.Paranoid that her own attorneys would deceive her, the princess reaches across the Atlantic to hire someone she knows for certain has no ties to the Crown. Marlowe James is an American trial lawyer. Running away from an abusive home, she supported herself by working as a waitress, rising to become a famous trial lawyer.Marlowe James has been dubbed the "burning bed lawyer" by the news media because of her successful defense of women who killed their abusive husbands. And to top that, she was the accused in her first murder trial. Now she not only has to do battle in the Old Bailey with barristers loyal to the Crown, she has to come to grips with her own feelings about a woman who has been handed everything any woman would desire---and throws it all away.The explosive tale that will be exposed in the courtroom is one of jealous rage and unfulfilled desires, of sexual deceit by one of the most powerful men on earth---and the bloody revenge enacted by a woman scorned.
The Family Heart: A Memoir Of When Our Son Came Out
Robb Forman Dew - 1994
American Book Award winner Robb Forman Dew, known for her breathtaking ability to depict family love in all its ambiguity and pain, reaches deep into her own heart to write the story of finding out her son is gay.
Aeschylus Oresteia
Peter Meineck - 1998
Born in the last quarter of the sixth century, Aeschylus had fought with the victorious Greeks in one and probably both of the Persian Wars (190 and 480-79). He died around 456 at about seventy years of age in Gela, Sicily. His epitaph records his role as a soldier at Marathon, not his artistic achievements, but these were many. The author of more than seventy plays, he won his first of thirteen tragic victories in 484. Of these plays, only seven remain. The Oresteia is Aeschylus' only complete surviving trilogy; the satyr play with which it was first performed, Proteus, is lost. Peter Meineck has aimed to translate the Oresteia for the modern stage.
More Than Paradise
Jennifer Fulton - 2007
The last thing she expects is to find her team being led deep into the mist-shrouded jungle by a woman who has spent the past fifteen years working as a mercenary soldier and interpreter for shady characters in Indonesia and East Timor. To make matters worse, Ash Evans proceeds to hit on her five minutes after they meet. Although friends accuse Charlotte of being uptight, she simply has standards, and they don't include hooking up with brazen flirts like Ash. She can't wait until the helicopter returns to take the distracting and far too sexy guide out of her sight.But things aren't going her way. Torrential rains wash half the camp into a ravine, and when one of the scientists goes missing, the team is forced away from the helicopter rendezvous location on a journey deep into the unknown. Compelled to share a tent with her nemesis, Charlotte soon finds her determined reserve no match for the feelings Ash ignites.
Cawdor & Medea
Robinson Jeffers - 1970
She falls in love with his son, Hood, and the narrative unfolds in tragedy of immense proportions. Medea is a verse adaptation of Euripides' drama and was created especially for the actress Judith Anderson. Their combined genius made the play one of the outstanding successes of the 1940s. In Medea, Jeffers relentlessly drove toward what Ralph Waldo Emerson had called "the proper tragic element" terror.
American Ghoul
Walt Morton - 2012
American Ghoul is the story of an exceptionally odd teenager trying to survive the most terrible time anybody has to go through -- senior year at high school.
Unwritten
Tressie Lockwood - 2014
She put her cousin, the man she'd been raised with, before her husband. She had thought Anthony was just into small time crimes that would never hurt anyone. She was wrong. By the time her husband, FBI Special Agent, Kian Sloane, found out the truth, it was too late for his partner and best friend. Evie's cousin killed the agent in cold blood and was sentenced to prison. Evie couldn't forgive herself for her mistake, and it seemed her husband felt the same. When Kian turned cold and didn't even want to sleep in the same bed with her, she couldn't bear the hurt and filed for divorce. Now Kian is back, just when Evie thinks her heart has begun to heal, but Kian doesn't walk into the bar where she works for her ex-boyfriend in search of a reunion. Kian comes with the news that Anthony has escaped, and the FBI believes he wants revenge and to get Evie, the only family he knows. Evie must be protected and live with the man she still loves with all her heart. Will she and Kian get a second chance at love, or will Anthony and other devastating news tear them apart again?
Nicu II and Victoria's Incestuous Romance
Kenneth Jarrett Singleton - 2013
Prince Nicu II and Princess Victoria's immutable, romantic feelings for one another forces them to engage in extremely risky actions and fabricate various falsehoods. Throughout the play Nicu II and Victoria deceive everyone; including their parents King Nicu I and Queen Isabella. Nicu II is presumptuous in character, therefore, he maintains an excessive confidence within himself that he and his sister's romantic relationship can continue without being discovered, but Victoria fears that they cannot continue their affair emotionally unscathed. Despite Victoria's worries, she continues with the relationship as Nicu II emboldens her more and more.
Green Lion
Henrietta Rose-Innes - 2015
Much closer than it appears.”When a lion at a breeding park mauls an old school friend of his, Con steps in as the keeper of Sekhmet, the last remaining black-maned lioness in the world. In a Cape Town where fences keep people and wildlife apart, park officials and investors fret about their flagship big-cat project. And while Con grows steadily more bonded to his enigmatic charge, a cult of animal lovers with obscure alchemical aims seeks to claim the lioness as their own. When she escapes, Sekhmet engulfs the city’s imagination, stirring up rumours of terror and magic. In Con’s quest to track her down, he must enter the wilderness of a cordoned-off Table Mountain – and his own dark history. Henrietta Rose-Innes’s novel Green Lion gleams with stylistic precision as myth and reality fuse in a story that sparks off the page.
A Letter From Pearl Harbor
Anna Stuart - 2021
Clues that reveal her life as one of the first female pilots at Pearl Harbor, and a devastating World War Two secret.1941, Pearl Harbor: On the morning of December 7th, Ginny is flying her little yellow plane above the sparkling seas when she spots an unknown aircraft closing in on her. She recognises the red symbol of the Japanese fighter planes almost too late. Somehow, she manages to land unscathed but the choices she is forced to make in the terrible hours that follow have tragic consequences…2019, Pearl Harbor: Heartbroken Robyn Harris is reeling from the death of the strong, determined grandmother who raised her. Her only comfort is a letter written in Ginny’s distinctive hand which details a treasure hunt, just like the ones she used to set for her as a little girl. Except this time, the clues are scattered across the beautiful island of Hawaii. Despite her grief, Robyn finds herself intrigued as she follows the trail of letters, revealing the truth about Ginny’s service during the Second World War.But Robyn’s whole world is turned upside down when she’s faced with a shocking secret which has the power to change the course of her own life…Inspired by true events, this is a heartbreaking and unforgettable WW2 novel about love, loss and bravery. Perfect for fans of The Alice Network, The Nightingale and Kathryn Hughes.
Her First Ball
Katherine Mansfield - 1921
She had not previously gone to a ball due to living deep in the country, and she goes to the ball with her cousins due to lacking any siblings of her own.