Book picks similar to
Operation Heartbreak by Duff Cooper
persephone
persephone-books
novels
ww2
The Emigrants
W.G. Sebald - 1992
But gradually, as Sebald's precise, almost dreamlike prose begins to draw their stories, the four narrations merge into one overwhelming evocation of exile and loss.Written with a bone-dry sense of humour and a fascination with the oddness of existence The Emigrants is highly original in its heady mix of fact, memory and fiction and photographs.
The Yellow Bird Sings
Jennifer Rosner - 2020
After the Jews in their town are rounded up, Roza and her five-year-old daughter, Shira, spend day and night hidden in a farmer's barn. Forbidden from making a sound, only the yellow bird from her mother's stories can sing the melodies Shira composes in her head.Roza does all she can to take care of Shira and shield her from the horrors of the outside world. They play silent games and invent their own sign language. But then the day comes when their haven is no longer safe, and Roza must face an impossible choice: whether to keep her daughter close by her side, or give her the chance to survive by letting her go . . . The Yellow Bird Sings is a powerfully gripping and deeply moving novel about the unbreakable bond between parent and child and the triumph of humanity and hope in even the darkest circumstances.
The Heat of the Day
Elizabeth Bowen - 1948
Stella Rodney is one of those who chose to stay. But for her, the sense of impending catastrophe becomes acutely personal when she discovers that her lover, Robert, is suspected of selling secrets to the enemy, and that the man who is following him wants Stella herself as the price of his silence. Caught between these two men, not sure whom to believe, Stella finds her world crumbling as she learns how little we can truly know of those around us.
Art and Lies
Jeanette Winterson - 1994
Picasso, as she calls herself, is a young artist who has been sexually abused by her brother but whose family thinks she is at fault for her dark moods. Sappho is, indeed, Sappho, the lesbian poet of ancient Greece, who here proclaims herself a sensualist and then proceeds to dissect "the union of language and lust." The three converge in a place that may be England in a not-too-distant future made ugly by pollution and even uglier by greed. This is not a novel but an extended rift on art, sex, religion, social repression, the dangers of patriarchy, and everything that is wrong with the contemporary drift to the right. As such, it will be hard going for most readers, but those with some patience will discover exceptionally evocative writing and a vivifying review of some much-discussed contemporary issues.
Black Rain
Masuji Ibuse - 1965
Ibuse began serializing Black Rain in the magazine Shincho in January 1965. The novel is based on historical records of the devastation caused by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Surviving the War
Adiva Geffen - 2020
Perfect for fans of THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ, THE VOLUNTEER and THE LIBRARIAN OF AUSCHWITZ.
_______________________________
Against all odds, love will lead them home.Shurka, her husband and their two small children never thought the war would reach their remote Polish village. They were wrong. Forced to flee their family home, they find shelter with their fellow Jews in the ghetto - but every night more and more people disappear, taken away on trucks to never be seen again. As terrible rumours of extermination camps swirl, Shurka realises that the longer they stay in the ghetto, the lower their chances of survival.Their best hope is to flee into the Polish forest, where Jewish resistance fighters hold out against Nazi search parties. Their new life is precarious in the extreme - and will test them more than they ever thought possible...
Even in the dark, hope can be found.
_______________________________
Surviving The War is the international Amazon bestselling survival and holocaust story, based on an incredible true story and previously published as Surviving The Forest. It has been translated into English from the original Hebrew.
Angels and Insects
A.S. Byatt - 1992
Byatt returns to the territory she explored in Possession: the landscape of Victorian England, where science and spiritualism are both popular manias, and domestic decorum coexists with brutality and perversion. Angels and Insects is "delicate and confidently ironic.... Byatt perfectly blends laughter and sympathy [with] extraordinary sensuality" (San Francisco Examiner).
A Woman's Place: 1910-1975
Ruth Adam - 1975
Provides an overview of 20th century women's lives, covering what the reader want to know about the suffragettes, early 'type-writers', contraception, and work in wartime; and it complements Persephone's other books by exploring factually what they, indirectly, explore in fiction.
Last Train from Kummersdorf
Leslie Wilson - 2004
The Russian armies are closing in. When Hanno Frisch sees his twin brother killed, he's had enough. On the run, he meets streetwise Effi. She's on her way to the West to find her father, who's in the US Army. Effi's learned the hard way that she must keep secrets to herself - and she's even less keen to trust Hanno when she finds out he's a policeman's son. But there are far more dangerous people on the road: Russian soldiers, German deserters - and Major Otto, who likes to play games with people before he kills them.
Love and Ruin
Paula McLain - 2018
She also finds herself unexpectedly—and uncontrollably—falling in love with Hemingway, a man already on his way to becoming a legend. In the shadow of the impending Second World War, and set against the tumultuous backdrops of Madrid, Finland, China, Key West, and especially Cuba, where Martha and Ernest make their home, their relationship and professional careers ignite. But when Ernest publishes the biggest literary success of his career, For Whom the Bell Tolls, they are no longer equals, and Martha must make a choice: surrender to the confining demands of being a famous man's wife or risk losing Ernest by forging a path as her own woman and writer. It is a dilemma that will force her to break his heart, and her own.
The Unbearable Bassington
Saki - 1912
Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
The Last Telegram
Liz Trenow - 2012
She’s tried for decades to forget, but now an unexpected event pulls her back to the 1940s British countryside. She finds herself remembering the brilliant, lustrous colors of the silk she helped to weave at her family’s mill, the relentless pressure of the worsening war, and the kind of heartbreaking loss that stops time. In this evocative novel of love and consequences, Lily finally confronts the disastrous decision that has haunted her all these years.
Orphans of the Carnival
Carol Birch - 2016
Yet few can see past the thick hair that covers her: she is both the fascinating toast of a Governor's ball and the shunned, revolting, unnatural beast, to be hidden from children and pregnant women. But what is her wonderful and terrible link to Rose, collector of lost treasures in an attic room in modern-day south London? In this haunting tale of identity, love and independence, these two lives will connect in unforgettable ways.
Harriet Said...
Beryl Bainbridge - 1972
She roams listlessly along the shoreline and the woods still pitted with wartime trenches, and encounters 'the Tsar' - almost old, unhappily married, both dangerously fascinating and repulsive.Pretty, malevolent Harriet finally arrives - and over the course of the long holidays draws her friend into a scheme to beguile then humiliate the Tsar, with disastrous, shocking consequences. A gripping portrayal of adolescent transgression, Beryl Bainbridge's classic first novel remains as subversive today as when it was written.
A London Child of the 1870s
Molly Hughes - 1934
Molly Hughes writes of her suburban London Victorian family in the 1870s. In this first book she describes her happy childhood, growing up with her 4 brothers. She describes outings in London and holidays with her mother's family in Cornwall. Hughes notes details when describing people, places and things that make the story come alive. The foreward by Adam Gopnik tells the real, not so happy, story of what happened to her family.