Book picks similar to
The Fighting Days by Wendy Lill


plays
classics
feminism
historical-fiction

Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley


Lauren Gunderson - 2017
    Mary is growing tired of her role as dutiful middle sister in the face of her siblings’ romantic escapades. When the family gathers for Christmas at Pemberley, an unexpected guest sparks Mary’s hopes for independence, an intellectual match, and possibly even love. 3M, 5W

The Flower Girls


Dee Williams - 2012
    The twins are the apple of their parents' eye, and each other's best friend - they always know what the other is thinking. Feisty Rose has a more rebellious nature than her sister, but it's never before interfered with their closeness. However, Rose's secret dissatisfaction with her humdrum lifestyle reaches a head when she meets the rich and handsome Rodger. To the shock of the Flowers family, she elopes with him to Gretna Green. Once Rose has the money and glamour she's always craved, nothing will persuade her to contact her family again; not even her father's death. And then, in the wake of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, everything changes. With her charmed life in shreds and with no one left to turn to, Rose is determined to build bridges those she has hurt the most. But can forgiveness be sought so easily - and can she ever truly escape her troubled past?

A Jest of God


Margaret Laurence - 1966
    Through her summer affair with Nick Kazlik, a schoolmate from earlier years, she learns at last to reach out to another person and to make herself vulnerable.A Jest of God won the Governor General’s Award for 1966 and was released as the successful film, Rachel, Rachel. The novel stands as a poignant and singularly enduring work by one of the world’s most distinguished authors.

The Miracle Worker: A Play


William Gibson - 1956
    Born deaf, blind, and mute, with no way to express herself or comprehend those around her, she flew into primal rages against anyone who tried to help her, fighting tooth and nail with a strength born of furious, unknowing desperation. Then Annie Sullivan came. Half-blind herself, but possessing an almost fanatical determination, she would begin a frightening and incredibly moving struggle to tame the wild girl no one could reach, and bring Helen into the world at last....

Wise Children


Angela Carter - 1991
    Billed as The Lucky Chances, the sisters are the illegitimate and unacknowledged daughters of Sir Melchior Hazard, the greatest Shakespearean actor of his day. At once ribald and sentimental, glittery and tender, this rambunctious family saga is Angela Carter at her bewitching best.

The Flick


Annie Baker - 2014
    With keen insight and a ceaseless attention to detail, The Flick pays tribute to the power of movies and paints a heartbreaking portrait of three characters and their working lives. A critical hit when it premiered Off-Broadway, this comedy, by one of the country's most produced and highly regarded young playwrights, was awarded the coveted 2013 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, an Obie Award for Playwriting and the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Salomé


Oscar Wilde - 1891
    Symbolist poets and writers — Stéphane Mallarmé and Maurice Maeterlinck among them — defended the play's literary brilliance. Beyond its notoriety, the drama's haunting poetic imagery, biblical cadences, and febrile atmosphere have earned it a reputation as a masterpiece of the Aesthetic movement of fin de siècle England.Written originally in French in 1892, this sinister tale of a woman scorned and her vengeance was translated into English by Lord Alfred Douglas. The play inspired some of Aubrey Beardsley's finest illustrations, and an abridged version served as the text for Strauss' renowned opera of the same name. This volume reprints the complete text of the first English edition, published in 1894, and also includes "A Note on Salomé" by Robert Ross, Wilde's lifelong friend and literary executor. Students, lovers of literature and drama, and admirers of Oscar Wilde and his remarkable literary gifts will rejoice in this inexpensive edition.

Laundry and Bourbon


James McLure - 1981
    Book by McLure, James

Lives of Girls and Women


Alice Munro - 1971
    When she begins spending more time in town, she is surrounded by women -- her mother, an agnostic, opinionated woman who sells encyclopedias to local farmers; her mother's boarder, the lusty Fern Dogherty; and her best friend, Naomi, with whom she shares the frustrations and unbridled glee of adolescence.Through these unwitting mentors and in her own encounters with sex, birth, and death, Del explores the dark and bright sides of womanhood. All along she remains a wise, witty observer and recorder of truths in small-town life. The result is a powerful, moving, and humorous demonstration of Alice Munro's unparalleled awareness of the lives of girls and women.

The Drowsy Chaperone: A Musical Within a Comedy


Greg Morrison - 2007
    Includes: Accident Waiting to Happen * Bride's Lament * Cold Feets * I Am Aldolpho * I Remember Love * Show Off * Toledo Surprise * and more.

Hurlyburly & Those the River Keeps


David Rabe - 1995
    This edition contains the definitive versions of these works, a foreword in which Rabe examines the interwoven relationship of the plays, and an afterword in which he discusses the process of their construction.

Come and Join the Dance


Joyce Johnson - 1961
    A novel from the Beat generation.

The Elephant Man


Bernard Pomerance - 1979
    A horribly deformed young man, who has been a freak attraction in traveling side shows, is found abandoned and helpless and is admitted for observation to Whitechapel, a prestigious London hospital. Under the care of a famous young doctor, who educates him and introduces him to London society, Merrick changes from a sensational object of pity to the urbane and witty favorite of the aristocracy and literati. But his belief that he can become a man like any other is a dream never to be realized.

An Inspector Calls


John Scicluna - 1990
    York Notes author John Scicluna discusses all aspect of An Inspector Calls --a thorough run-down very helpful to anyone studying the famous Priestley play.

The Club


David Williamson - 1977
    It's about each and every club in the League and about soccer, rugby and baseball too," writes the Melbourne Sun's football commentator, Lou Richards, himself a former Aussie Rules champion who has seen it all. He and fellow fanatic, Professor Ian Turner of Monash University, introduce David Williamson's latest probe into the confrontations of Australian life. If you have ever belonged to a sports club, if you have ever been part of any organisation in which the will to win prevails and the trial of strength goes on in the clubroom long after the players have left the field - then you will know the men of The Club.