Book picks similar to
Across The Bridge by Mwangi Gicheru


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novels

In a Strange Room


Damon Galgut - 2010
    He travels lightly, simply. To those who travel with him and those whom he meets on the way - including a handsome, enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers and a woman on the edge - he is the Follower, the Lover and the Guardian. Yet, despite the man's best intentions, each journey ends in disaster. Together, these three journeys will change his whole life. A novel of longing and thwarted desire, rage and compassion, "In a Strange Room" is the hauntingly beautiful evocation of one man's search for love, and a place to call home.

The First Day


Marc Levy - 2009
    Together they embark on an extraordinary adventure which takes them from the banks of Lake Turkana in the heart of Africa to the mountains of China. They seek to reveal the object's hidden secrets and answer the age-old question: how did life begin?Keira is a passionate and ambitious archaeologist leading her first dig in the isolated Omo Valley in Ethiopia. When a sand storm destroys the site, she has no choice but to abandon her field work and go home: to Paris, to her sister and to the mundane city life she despises. She returns with an unusual stone, which was given to her by a local orphan boy. While visiting the museum where her sister works, a probing elderly professor takes a particular interest in Keira and above all in the talisman she wears around her neck. Adrian is an accomplished astrophysicist, who has taken a leave of absence from the illustrious Academy of Sciences in London to pursue his study of the stars in a remote observatory on the Atacama plateau in Chile. Ill-adapted to the altitude, he has to be rushed back to England before he can fully pursue his bold and unconventional research. Keira and Adrian's paths briefly cross while competing for an illustrious grant in London. Years earlier they had spent one brief, romantic summer together before going their separate ways. Keira leaves her necklace behind in Adrian's apartment, sparking his interest as a scientist and fuelling his hopes for a rekindling of old passions. With the help of a hapless administrator from the Academy, Adrian begins his own investigation of the stone's origins, but it quickly becomes apparent that he is not the only one interested in the mysterious object, and that the other party is determined to get hold of it at any cost. Adrian seeks out Keira who has returned to Africa. What innocently begins as a common pursuit of knowledge soon takes a dangerous turn when their guide is found dead. Despite heightening threats to their own safety, Keira and Adrian continue their search, which takes them across the world, from cutting edge laboratories to venerable museums, from forgotten Greek islands to monasteries hidden in the mountains. They follow maps written in the stars and clues buried within the earth, always guided by the slowly unraveling secrets of the strange object from Ethiopia. But the professor and his cohorts are always on their tracks and one step ahead... "A wonderful read" - Le Parisien "Over the years, Marc Levy has seduced millions of readers. What's his secret? He writes about quintessential themes, such as love, friendship, and the mysteries of life, in an accessible way." - Paris Match "A page-turning adventure story." - Nice Matin

ആരാച്ചാര്‍


K.R. Meera - 2012
    Set in Bengal, it tells the story of a family of executioners with a long lineage, beginning in the fourth century BC. The protagonist of the novel, Chetna, is a strong and tenacious woman who struggles to inherit this profession.According to noted literary critic M. Leelavathy, Aarachaar is one of the best literary works produced in Malayalam and follows the legacy of O. V. Vijayan's classic work Khasakkinte Itihasam. The novel received the 2013 Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award. It was also awarded the prestigious Odakkuzhal Award in 2013 and Vayalar Award in 2014.

Thornyhold


Mary Stewart - 1988
    When the child becomes a young woman, she inherits her dead cousin's house, as well as her reputation among the local community as a witch. However, as she finds out, this is no normal community, and worries quickly present themselves.Alternate cover edition for this ISBN 9780773672611 is here

P.S. Your Cat Is Dead


James Kirkwood Jr. - 1972
    Your best friend died in September, you've been robbed twice, your girlfriend is leaving you, you've lost your job...and the only one left to talk to is the gay burglar you've got tied up in the kitchen... P.S. your cat is dead.An instant classic upon its initial publication, P.S. Your Cat is Dead received widespread critical acclaim and near fanatical reader devotion. The stage version of the novel was equally successful and there are still over 200 new productions of it staged every year. Now, for the first time in a decade, James Kirkwood's much-loved black humor comic novel of manners and escalating disaster returns to bewitch and beguile a new generation.

The House of Rust


Khadija Abdalla Bajaber - 2021
    When her fisherman father goes missing, Aisha takes to the sea on a magical boat made of a skeleton to rescue him. She is guided by a talking scholar’s cat (and soon crows, goats, and other animals all have their say, too). On this journey Aisha meets three terrifying sea monsters. After she survives a final confrontation with Baba wa Papa, the father of all sharks, she rescues her own father, and hopes that life will return to normal. But at home, things only grow stranger.Khadija Abdalla Bajaber’s debut is a magical realist coming-of-age tale told through the lens of the Swahili and diasporic Hadrami culture in Mombasa, Kenya. Richly descriptive and written with an imaginative hand and sharp eye for unusual detail, The House of Rust is a memorable novel by a thrilling new voice.

Eagle in the Sky


Wilbur Smith - 1974
    Meeting Debra, an Israeli writer, he follows her to her homeland and becomes involved in her country's war for national survival, at a terrible cost to both Debra and himself.

Life is What You Make It: A Story of Love, Hope and How Determination Can Overcome Even Destiny


Preeti Shenoy - 2011
    Pretty and intelligent, Ankita has everything she wants: friends, boys in hot pursuit, and admission into a premier management school for her MBA. But six months later, she finds herself a patient in a mental health hospital. How did she get here and will she ever get back her life again? Somehow, everything that made up her world has been taken away - and now she must fight like she has never had to, to recover her rightful lot. A gripping story of the pains of growing up, the strength afforded by faith and the indestructibility of the spirit, here is an inspiring story for modern readers.

Desert Flower


Waris Dirie - 1998
    She traveled alone across the dangerous Somali desert to Mogadishu — the first leg of a remarkable journey that would take her to London, where she worked as a house servant; then to nearly every corner of the globe as an internationally renowned fashion model; and ultimately to New York City, where she became a human rights ambassador for the U.N. Desert Flower is her extraordinary story.

The Mechanics of Yenagoa


Michael Afenfia - 2020
    Some of his troubles are self-inflicted: like his recurring entanglements in love triangles; and his unauthorised joyriding of a customer’s car which sets off a chain of dire events involving drugs, crooked politicians, and assassins. Other troubles are caused by the panorama of characters in his life, like: his sister and her dysfunctional domestic situation; the three other mechanics he employs; and the money-loving preacher who has all but taken over his home. The story is fast-paced with surprising twists and a captivating plot - a Dickenesque page-turner. This is Ebinimi’s story but it is about a lot more than him. It is an exploration of the dynamics between working-class people as they undertake a colourful tour of Yenagoa, one of Nigeria’s lesser-known cities, while using humour, sex, and music, as coping mechanisms for the everyday struggle. It is a modern-classic tale of small lives navigating a big city.

I Too Had a Love Story


Ravinder Singh - 2007
    Will you still call this a love marriage? And what if on the engagement day while you pull the ring out from your pocket, you realize what you planned was just a dream which never comes true…? How would you react when a beautiful person comes into your life, becomes your most precious possession and then one day goes away from you…forever? Not all love stories are meant to have a perfect ending. Some stay incomplete. Yet they are beautiful in their own way. Ravin’s love story is one such innocent and beautiful story. He believes love stories seldom die. They are meant to stay for the generations yet to come and read them. And given that one chance to narrate his love story, this is how he began…

Veronica


Nicholas Christopher - 1996
    Veronica is looking for an appetite, a savior. And she is soon leading Leo into a dangerous labyrinth of delights that winds beneath and beyond a luminously transformed city of underground streams, dragonpoints, and mystically altered time. At the frozen apex of an extraordinary winter, Veronica has enticed Leo into a wonderful, terrible world...and away from his ordinary life forever.

Ilustrado


Miguel Syjuco - 2008
    On a clear day in winter, the battered corpse of Crispin Salvador is pulled from the Hudson River—taken from the world is the controversial lion of Philippine literature. Gone, too, is the only manuscript of his final book, a work meant to rescue him from obscurity by exposing the crimes of the Filipino ruling families. Miguel, his student and only remaining friend, sets out for Manila to investigate.To understand the death, Miguel scours the life, piecing together Salvador’s story through his poetry, interviews, novels, polemics, and memoirs. The result is a rich and dramatic family saga of four generations, tracing 150 years of Philippine history forged under the Spanish, the Americans, and the Filipinos themselves. Finally, we are surprised to learn that this story belongs to young Miguel as much as to his lost mentor, and we are treated to an unhindered view of a society caught between reckless decay and hopeful progress.Exuberant and wise, wildly funny and deeply moving, Ilustrado explores the hidden truths that haunt every family. It is a daring and inventive debut by a new writer of astonishing talent.

Black Sunday


Tola Rotimi Abraham - 2020
    To have no memory of ever being alone."Twin sisters Bibike and Ariyike are enjoying a relatively comfortable life in Lagos in 1996. Then their mother loses her job due to political strife, and the family, facing poverty, becomes drawn into the New Church, an institution led by a charismatic pastor who is not shy about worshipping earthly wealth.Soon Bibike and Ariyike's father wagers the family home on a "sure bet" that evaporates like smoke. As their parents' marriage collapses in the aftermath of this gamble, the twin sisters and their two younger siblings, Andrew and Peter, are thrust into the reluctant care of their traditional Yoruba grandmother. Inseparable while they had their parents to care for them, the twins' paths diverge once the household shatters. Each girl is left to locate, guard, and hone her own fragile source of power.Written with astonishing intimacy and wry attention to the fickleness of fate, Tola Rotimi Abraham's Black Sunday takes us into the chaotic heart of family life, tracing a line from the euphoria of kinship to the devastation of estrangement. In the process, it joyfully tells a tale of grace and connection in the midst of daily oppression and the constant incursions of an unremitting patriarchy. This is a novel about two young women slowly finding, over twenty years, in a place rife with hypocrisy but also endless life and love, their own distinct methods of resistance and paths to independence.

The Adventures of Sally


P.G. Wodehouse - 1922
    A trip to England only made things worse, but then a piece of speculation might just offer a happy ending.