Book picks similar to
Nomaswazi by Busisekile Khumalo


african-writers
novel
patty
african-magic

Bird Box: free sampler (chapter 1)


Josh Malerman - 2014
    The doors are locked, the curtains are closed, mattresses are nailed over the windows.They are out there. She might let them in.The children sleep in the bedroom across the hall.Soon she will have to wake them. Soon she will have to blindfold them.Today they must leave the house. Today they will risk everything.

Palace Walk / Palace of Desire / Sugar Street


Naguib Mahfouz - 1957
    The Nobel Prize-winning writer's masterwork is the engrossing story of a Muslim family in Cairo during Britain's occupation of Egypt in the early decades of the twentieth century.The novels of The Cairo Trilogy trace three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. Palace Walk introduces us to his gentle, oppressed wife, Amina, his cloistered daughters, Aisha and Khadija, and his three sons–the tragic and idealistic Fahmy, the dissolute hedonist Yasin, and the soul-searching intellectual Kamal. Al-Sayyid Ahmad’s rebellious children struggle to move beyond his domination in Palace of Desire, as the world around them opens to the currents of modernity and political and domestic turmoil brought by the 1920s. Sugar Street brings Mahfouz’s vivid tapestry of an evolving Egypt to a dramatic climax as the aging patriarch sees one grandson become a Communist, one a Muslim fundamentalist, and one the lover of a powerful politician.Throughout the trilogy, the family's trials mirror those of their turbulent country during the years spanning the two World Wars, as change comes to a society that has resisted it for centuries. Filled with compelling drama, earthy humor, and remarkable insight, The Cairo Trilogy is the achievement of a master storyteller.

GraceLand


Chris Abani - 2004
    Elvis Oke, a teenage Elvis impersonator spurred on by the triumphs of heroes in the American movies and books he devours, pursues his chosen vocation with ardent single-mindedness. He suffers through hours of practice set to the tinny tunes emanating from the radio in the filthy shack he shares with his alcoholic father, his stepmother and his stepsiblings. He applies thick makeup that turns his black skin white, to make his performances more convincing for American tourists and hopefully net him dollars. But still he finds himself constantly broke. Beset by hopelessness and daunted by the squalor and violence of his daily life, he must finally abandon his dream.With job prospects few and far between. Elvis is tempted to a life of crime by the easy money his friend Redemption tells him is to be had in Lago's underworld. But the King of the Beggars, Elvis's enigmatic yet faithful adviser, intercedes. And so, torn by the frustration of unrealizable dreams and accompanied by an eclectic chorus of voices, Elvis must find a way to a Graceland of his own making.Graceland is the story of a son and his father, and an examination of postcolonial Nigeria, where the trappings of American culture reign supreme.

Why the Tree Loves the Ax


Jim Lewis - 1998
    Readers of Denis Johnson, David Foster Wallace, Mary Gaitskill, Susanna Moore, and other contemporary fiction writers will welcome this haunting novel about a 27-year-old woman who flees her failed marriage only to find herself involved in a perplexing spiral of murder, counterfeit, and false identity.

Ian McEwan's Atonement, &, Saturday: a supplement to The work of Ian McEwan, a psychodynamic approach


Bernie C. Byrnes - 2006
    

The Cotton Blossom: A Novel


Dawn Gardner - 2020
    She’s an aspiring, young seamstress who is enchanted by a charming new suitor. His worldly ways and grandeur captivate her—until secrets, lies and unsavory behaviors bring her harm.Uncovering more than she ever imagined, Lillie is pushed to make decisions that she never expected. With the help of a close family friend and her brother Frank, Lillie tries to leave behind her mistakes.The discovery of a 1951 convertible dragged out of its watery grave leads reporters to the doorstep of Lillie Mae. The Cotton Blossom is a spellbinding journey about finding your power, learning from your mistakes and trusting your heart.

The Beautiful Years


Katia Lief - 2016
    Unfolding the story over seven years on three separate milestones—a graduation, a funeral, and a wedding— Katia Lief weaves between perspectives to reveal a tapestry rich in motive and emotion. The Beautiful Years is a dazzling rendering of hubris, consequence and the complexity of love.

A Day Like Any Other


Isla Dewar - 2021
    You can only use the experiences you live through to make your future better, wiser. Anna and her best friend George meet every week to remember, to sigh, to laugh, to reminisce about their moments of glory, guilt and mischief and share their sorrows over a glass or three of wine. The things they've done still make them blush. Anna wanted to be a poet - a famous poet. George left home in a childish rage and years later returned with her baby.When Anna is asked to look after the boy across the road for a few hours each week, she isn't sure. She doesn't really do children. But she takes the job on and, gradually, a child's view of her world shows her a different place.George remembers a flat she stayed in when she ran away from home. It had the kitchen of all kitchens and, oh, how she'd love to see it again. Anna sets out to see if it still exists and discovers a cookbook full of recipes, intimates notes and drawings from George's life.Does all this mark an ending or the beginning of something new and marvelous for Anna and George?

In the Time of Famine


Michael Grant - 2011
    The British government called the famine an act of God. The Irish called it genocide. By any name the famine caused the death of over one million men, women, and children by starvation and disease. Another two million were forced to flee the country. With the famine as a backdrop, this is a story about two families as different as coarse wool and fine silk. Michael Ranahan, the son of a tenant farmer, dreams of breaking his bondage to the land and going to America. The passage money has been saved. He’s made up his mind to go. And then—the blight strikes and Michael must put his dream on hold. The landlord, Lord Somerville, is a compassionate man who struggles to preserve a way of life without compromising his ideals. To add to his troubles, he has to deal with a recalcitrant daughter who chafes at being forced to live in a country of “bog runners.”In The Time Of Famine is a story of survival. It’s a story of duplicity. But most of all, it’s a story of love and sacrifice.

Letters to Amelia


Lindsay Zier-Vogel - 2021
    Amidst her heartache, the 30 year-old library tech is tasked with reading newly discovered letters that Amelia Earhart wrote to her lover, Gene Vidal. She becomes captivated by the famous pilot who disappeared in 1937. Letter by letter, she understands more about the aviation hero while piecing her own life back together.When Grace discovers she is pregnant, her life becomes more intertwined with the mysterious pilot and Grace begins to write her own letters to Amelia. While navigating her third trimester, amidst new conspiracy theories about Amelia’s disappearance, the search for her remains, and the impending publication of her private letters, Grace goes on a pilgrimage of her own.Letters to Amelia is a stunning, contemporary epistolary novel from the creator of the internationally acclaimed Love Lettering Project. It underscores the power of reading and writing letters for both connection and self-discovery, and celebrates the unwritten, undocumented parts of our lives.Above all, Letters to Amelia is a story of the essential need for connection—and our universal ability to find hope in the face of fear.Praise for Letters to Amelia:"Brimming over with Lindsay Zier-Vogel's obvious love for the story of Amelia Earhart, Letters to Amelia is a wonderful novel about flight and passion, about love-letters and reaching out; a novel about how we never know quite what's coming next, but still keep launching ourselves into the blue tomorrow."—Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13"A tender portrait of heartbreak and a thoughtful ode to new motherhood. Letters to Amelia is an endorsement of finding our own ways to heal, and a celebration of that big, messy, wonderful journey of coming into one's own. Charming and beautifully rendered, this is a big-hearted hopeful novel, full of life and love." —Stacey May Fowles, author of Baseball Life Advice: Loving the Game that Saved Me"When we think of Amelia Earhart, we think enigmatic adventurer and feminist pioneer—and, of course, of her mysterious disappearance. But in Letters to Amelia, we meet a different Amelia Earhart, as seen through the eyes of Grace, the novel’s protagonist, a young library tech tasked with reading her letters: an Amelia who is funny, charming, joyful, sad, and most of all, full of life. Zier-Vogel writes with uncanny empathy about heartbreak, friendship, motherhood, and the common threads that connect women across time, geography, and even between earth and sky. Letters to Amelia is a gorgeous, big-hearted debut that will make you feel like you are flying, and Zier-Vogel is a writer whose career is about to soar." —Amy Jones, author of Every Little Piece of Me"Letters to Amelia invites us to hold our heroines close and to take heart – it is gentle and joyous, full of tenderness, alive and sturdy with hope." —Anne Michaels, author of Fugitive Pieces and The Winter Vault

Confessions of Madame Psyche


Dorothy Bryant - 1986
    Although she wins fame and fortune, Mei-li seeks a truer spirituality, and embarks on a pilgrimage that takes her to the death-soaked Europe of the First World War, to a utopian commune in the Santa Cruz Mountains in the 1920s, to the Depression-era migrant work camps and cannery strikes, and finally to the Napa State Hospital, where she finds wisdom and peace among the outcasts of the asylum.Mei-li’s modern-day epic is grounded in the history of Northern California in the first half of the twentieth century and peopled by comrades of many classes and cultures and by lovers both male and female. Yet her central odyssey remains one of inner discovery.In Confessions of Madame Psyche, Dorothy Bryant has created a character who is so honest in her search for truth, growth, and spiritual understanding that this quest becomes inherent to her survival.

Girl On A Train


P. Hawkins - 2016
    This debut international thriller tangles a sordid web of love and intrigue.

OLD HOUSE


Sharon Mierke - 2018
    Who has not wondered about old houses as they passed by? Who was the builder? Did he take pride in his work? Were the inhabitants always happy or were there hard times? How many people passed through the doors? Old House is a story about one house. It is located in a fictitious valley in the state of Montana U.S.A. Through the course of one hundred years, these are the people who lived, laughed, loved, and cried as they called this old house their home. Each chapter in the book is a story in itself. It begins with the man who built the house in the late 1860s, and it continues with the people who found lodging and refuge in it - from a young man with a bounty on his head, an old man in search of gold, to a woman seeking protection.

Cold Country


Russell Rowland - 2019
    

I Choose You


Gayle Curtis - 2020
    Now, grown up and married with a young family, they feel their worst nightmares are behind them. Until the day their daughter is abducted and murdered.Both Elise and Nathaniel lost their mothers to a notorious killer who manipulated innocent victims into taking their own lives. Could it be that ‘the Watcher’ has returned for another round of the same sadistic game? Why now? And why are Elise and Nathaniel being targeted again?When Elise’s family falls under suspicion, her world crashes down around her. Is there anyone she can trust, or is her whole life built on lies?Only one thing is clear: someone left their cruel game unfinished all those years ago. This time the Watcher intends to win – once and for all.