Book picks similar to
River Season by Jim Black
fiction
south
male-friendship
coming-of-age
Loyalties: A Novel of World War II
Thomas Fleming - 1994
In Berlin, Berthe von Hoffman dreams of an angel in the depths, embracing her husband's submarine – and remembers Kristallnacht, when Hitler declared all-out war on the Jews. The stench of evil in that memory draws her to the headquarters of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, enigmatic head of the German secret service – and guiding spirit of the Schwarze Kapelle, the circle of courageous men and women who comprise the secret dangerous resistance to Nazism. Aboard the USS Spencer Lewis off Iceland, Lieutenant Commander Jonathan Trumbull Talbot is denouncing President Franklin D. Roosevelt's unconstitutional undeclared war against Germany when a torpedo fired by Berthe's husband, Kapitanleutnant Ernst von Hoffmann, cut the destroyer in half. Out of this conjunction grows a tormented tangle of love and jealousy and patriotic deceit when the three meet in Spain after Pearl Harbor has catapulted American into the war. By that time, Talbot's criticism of the president has wrecked both his naval career and his marriage to Annie Richman, daughter of a congressman whose power depends on FDR's political wizardry. When Talbot returns from Spain to urge negotiations with Canaris and other leaders of the German resistance, Annie, now a powerful journalist, becomes a player in the struggle for the mind of the intransigent, mortally ill president. At its gripping climax, Loyalties draws everyone into an anguished confrontation with the limits of patriotism and God's baffling role in the middle of human destiny. From murderous contests between rival intelligence agencies in Spain to the labyrinthine political machinations in Washington, London, and Berlin to warfare beneath the North Atlantic, Loyalties is a dazzling mosaic of men and women caught in the crossfire of history – yet finding in the midst of destruction and chaos inexplicable glimpse of meaning and hope.
Mamma's Boarding House
John D. Fitzgerald - 1958
A scarce Fitzgerald title.
Lost Riders
Elizabeth Laird - 2008
Then they are separated and forced to become jockeys in the lucrative camel-racing business. Rashid is starved and worked to exhaustion by harsh supervisors - but he has a talent for racing and quickly becomes his stable's star jockey. Soon he begins to forget what life was like when he had a proper home. He almost begins to forget about Shari . . .
Rich Girl, Poor Girl
Val Wood - 2009
Polly, living in grinding poverty, loses her mother in childbirth and finds herself alone on the streets of Hull. Rosalie, brought up in affluence and comfort on the other side of town, loses her own mother in similar circumstances and on the same day. Polly takes a job as scullery maid in Rosalie's lonely house, and the two girls form an unlikely friendship. Traveling to the North Yorkshire Moors they discover a new kind of life and find unexpected joy and fulfillment.
Daughter of the Bamboo Forest
Sheng-Shih Lin - 2012
As the daughter of a wealthy landowning family, Little Jade spends her early life in a large, luxurious compound in the Chinese countryside. Though she has everything she could ever want materially and a staff of servants waiting on her every need, Little Jade is unfulfilled. She has no memories of her mother and rarely sees her father. Her paternal grandmother has lovingly raised her since her parents left to study at university shortly after she was born. When Little Jade's father returns home to marry a much younger woman -- his first wife, Little Jade's mother, disappeared after the Japanese invasion-- the story then follows the turbulent path of the richly drawn characters as they navigate their own personal turmoil through the instability of living in China in the years before revolution. Lin effortlessly weaves together the painful histories of Little Jade's mother, grandmother, stepmother and father into the child's own ordeals, which include being shipped off to live in a convent on the eve of civil war and a plague that decimates an entire village. Though at times their actions are appalling -- particularly Little Jade's father's -- Lin paints the characters in such a way to elicit sympathy as they confront changing family traditions and the immense unrest sweeping the country; their reactions are convincingly authentic. Lin's deft, graceful prose builds ominous tension for the novel... Lin succeeds in creating both an absorbing historical chronicle and the moving story of a family's unbreakable bond." Kirkus Reviews
A River Runs Through it and Other Stories
Norman Maclean - 1976
A retired English professor who began writing fiction at the age of 70, Maclean produced what is now recognized as one of the classic American stories of the twentieth century. Originally published in 1976, A River Runs through It and Other Stories now celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary, marked by this new edition that includes a foreword by Annie Proulx.Maclean grew up in the western Rocky Mountains in the first decades of the twentieth century. As a young man he worked many summers in logging camps and for the United States Forest Service. The two novellas and short story in this collection are based on his own experiences—the experiences of a young man who found that life was only a step from art in its structures and beauty. The beauty he found was in reality, and so he leaves a careful record of what it was like to work in the woods when it was still a world of horse and hand and foot, without power saws, "cats," or four-wheel drives. Populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, and set in the small towns and surrounding trout streams and mountains of western Montana, the stories concern themselves with the complexities of fly fishing, logging, fighting forest fires, playing cribbage, and being a husband, a son, and a father.
In the Sea There are Crocodiles: Based on the True Story of Enaiatollah Akbari
Fabio Geda - 2010
Thus begins Enaiat's remarkable and often punishing five-year ordeal.When ten-year-old Enaiatollah Akbari's small village in Afghanistan falls prey to Taliban rule in early 2000, his mother shepherds the boy across the border into Pakistan but has to leave him there all alone to fend for himself. Thus begins Enaiat's remarkable and often punishing five-year ordeal, which takes him through Iran, Turkey, and Greece before he seeks political asylum in Italy at the age of fifteen. Along the way, Enaiat endures the crippling physical and emotional agony of dangerous border crossings, trekking across bitterly cold mountain pathways for days on end or being stuffed into the false bottom of a truck. But not everyone is as resourceful, resilient, or lucky as Enaiat, and there are many heart-wrenching casualties along the way. Based on Enaiat's close collaboration with Italian novelist Fabio Geda and expertly rendered in English by an award-winning translator, this novel reconstructs the young boy's memories, perfectly preserving the childlike perspective and rhythms of an intimate oral history. Told with humor and humanity, In the Sea There Are Crocodiles brilliantly captures Enaiat's moving and engaging voice and lends urgency to an epic story of hope and survival.
The Best Medicine: Tales of Humor and Hope from a Small-Town Doctor
Walt Larimore - 2020
Walt Larimore moved his young family to Kissimmee, Florida, to start a small-town medical practice in 1985, he had no idea he was embarking on an enterprise that would change his life in ways both large and small. But there's no telling what you'll run into as a family physician in a rural, small-town community.Perfect for anyone yearning for a simpler, slower pace of life, as well as fans of Dr. Larimore's popular Bryson City series, The Best Medicine is a tender and insightful collection of stories chronicling one young doctor's passage from inexperience to maturity as a physician, husband, father, and community member. Filled with characters colorful and crusty, warm-hearted and hot-headed, witty and winsome, these captivating stories glow with warmth, love, and humor. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll wish Dr. Larimore was your doctor.
Rush
Jayme H. Mansfield - 2017
In competition with desperate homesteaders, ruthless land seekers, and a sheriff determined to see her fail, Mary rides out on a horse to strike her claim in the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1893. When she finally thrusts her flag into the dirt, 160 acres becomes her own. But with that claim, she risks more than she could ever imagine. A naïve school teacher and young mother abandoned by her hard-drinking, gold-seeking husband—whom she now believes to be dead—Mary is faced with letting go of a past riddled with loss, hardship, and reminders that a woman isn't capable of surviving on her own. Daniel McKenzie, an illustrative journalist sent on assignment to document the race, has his own past to forget. Bound by a lost love and guilt from a haunting event in the streets of Boston, he wonders whether he will ever know happiness again. Will Mary's and Daniel's stubborn and independent spirits keep them mired in the past? Or will two broken hearts find forgiveness and love in the wild plains of the Midwest?
Her Bohemian Husband (Marriages Made in India, #6)
Sundari Venkatraman - 2016
Yeah, he’s struck by wanderlust and can’t remain at home for more than a couple of weeks at one time. Avantika Kamath, the dusky beauty from Bengaluru, has chalked out a rocking career for herself as a dancer, heading her own troupe, as well as being a Bollywood choreographer. It is love at first sight for her when she sets eyes on Shatru at her best friend Dia’s wedding to his twin, Bharat. Shatru’s attracted to Avantika but fears the commitment as he leads a Bohemian life while her life’s grounded. Can the two ends meet? Will Avantika be able to juggle her career and the marriage she wants with Her Bohemian Husband?
Wartime with the Tram Girls (The Potteries Girls #2)
Lynn Johnson - 2021
While the young men disappear off to foreign battlefields, the women left at home throw themselves into jobs meant for the boys.Hiding her privileged background and her suffragette past, Constance Copeland signs up to be a Clippie - collecting money and giving out tickets - on the trams, despite her parents’ disapproval.Constance, now known as Connie, soon finds there is more to life than the wealth she was born into and she soon makes fast friends with lively fellow Clippies, Betty and Jean, as well as growing closer to the charming, gentle Inspector Robert Caldwell.But Connie is haunted by another secret; and if it comes out, it could destroy her new life.After war ends and the men return to take back their roles, will Connie find that she can return to her previous existence? Or has she been changed forever by seeing a new world through the tram windows?A captivating, lively, romantic saga set in WW1 that will engross fans of Johanna Bell and Jenny Holmes.
The Education of Little Tree
Forrest Carter - 1976
Little Tree as his grandparents call him is shown how to hunt and survive in the mountains, to respect nature in the Cherokee Way, taking only what is needed, leaving the rest for nature to run its course. Little Tree also learns the often callous ways of white businessmen and tax collectors, and how Granpa, in hilarious vignettes, scares them away from his illegal attempts to enter the cash economy. Granma teaches Little Tree the joys of reading and education. But when Little Tree is taken away by whites for schooling, we learn of the cruelty meted out to Indian children in an attempt to assimilate them and of Little Tree's perception of the Anglo world and how it differs from the Cherokee Way. A classic of its era, and an enduring book for all ages, The Education of Little Tree has now been redesigned for this twenty-fifth anniversary edition.
Blueberry Hill: a Sister's Story
Bette Lee Crosby - 2014
Based on the realities of her own family, Crosby calls this a memoir of sorts. Traveling back to a time when the sisters were young enough to feel invincible and foolish enough to believe it would last forever, Crosby has bared her soul in a story of regrettable decisions and inevitable outcomes. Blueberry Hill is a tale of family relationships, love and tragedy. It is a story that will touch your heart and stay with you long after you have closed the book.
Flatbellies
Alan Berch Hollingsworth - 2001
It's about life. Set in a small Oklahoma town in the mid-1960s—a simple place in a confusing time—Flatbellies is partly about the seemingly unreachable goal of a high school golf team: to win the state championship. But mostly it's about the way Chipper, Jay, L.K., Buster, the unforgettable Peachy, and their friends learn to deal with love, loss, friendship, fear, triumph, tragedy, growing up, and growing together. Fictionalized from the author's teenage years in the heartland of America, Flatbellies is a memorable and moving coming-of-age story.
The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man
James Weldon Johnson - 1912
In the 1920s and since, it has also given white readers a startling new perspective on their own culture, revealing to many the double standard of racial identity imposed on black Americans.Narrated by a mulatto man whose light skin allows him to "pass" for white, the novel describes a pilgrimage through America's color lines at the turn of the century--from a black college in Jacksonville to an elite New York nightclub, from the rural South to the white suburbs of the Northeast.This is a powerful, unsentimental examination of race in America, a hymn to the anguish of forging an identity in a nation obsessed with color. And, as Arna Bontemps pointed out decades ago, "the problems of the artist [as presented here] seem as contemporary as if the book had been written this year."