books tagged “Biographical Fiction” (Biographical fiction)

books tagged “Biographical Fiction”

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The Agony and the Ecstasy
by Irving Stone

ISBN 1568493401 (1-56849-340-1)
Hardcover, Buccaneer Books

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Book summary:
Fictional depiction of Michelangelo. Includes bibliography, glossary and a list of the artist's works. [via]
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Anything for Billy
by Larry McMurtry, Bill Grose

ISBN 0671746057 (0-671-74605-7)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster

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Book summary:
The first time I saw Billy he came walking out of a cloud....Welcome to the wild, hot-blooded adventures of Billy the Kid, the American West's most legendary outlaw. Larry McMurtry takes us on a hell-for-leather journey with Billy and his friends as they ride, drink, love, fight, shoot, and escape their way into the shining memories of Western myth. Surrounded by a splendid cast of characters that only Larry McMurtry could create, Billy charges headlong toward his fate, to become in death the unforgettable desperado he aspires to be in life. Not since Lonesome Dove has there been such a rich, exciting novel about the cowboys, Indians, and gunmen who live at the blazing heart of the American dream. [via]
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Artemisia
by Alexandra Lapierre, Liz Heron

ISBN 0802138578 (0-8021-3857-8)
Softcover, Grove Pr

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More editions of Artemisia:
- Artemisia: ISBN 2221084012 (2-221-08401-2)
  Hardcover, R. Laffont
- Artemisia: ISBN 0802138578 (0-8021-3857-8)
  Softcover, Grove Pr
via
Artemisia
by Liz Heron, Alexandra Lapierre

ISBN 0802116728 (0-8021-1672-8)
Hardcover, Grove Pr

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Book summary:
Small wonder that biographer Alexandra Lapierre was drawn to write about Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the first female painters to gain acclaim in the male-dominated 17th-century art world. Her story has all the ingredients of high drama: rape, jealousy, and an infamous court trial set against a backdrop of art and passion. Meticulously researched, framed in a fictional context, Lapierre's treatment applies a painterly touch to a scholarly work. Billed as a biography in the U.K. but as a novel in the U.S., it combines the rigor of one genre with the page-turning immediacy of the other.
Born in Rome to the artist Orazio Gentileschi and his wife Prudenzia, Artemisia's life was turned upside down after the death of her mother. Orazio jealously guarded his only daughter, refusing her outside contact even as he taught her the subtleties of painting. At 17, Artemisia, already a skilled artist, was facing a life of spinsterhood as her father's prisoner. Yet the Gentileschi household was full of the comings and goings of artists whose shifting allegiances were as complex as the politics of the time. When Orazio's friend, arrogant trompe l'oeil master Agostino Tassi, set his sights on young Artemisia, her refusals only stoked his passion. What followed was rape. Tassi kept her quiet through promises of marriage; when marriage was not forthcoming, Tassi found himself in court.
Even under torture, Artemisia's statement never wavered, and eventually Tassi was convicted. The mild sentence scarcely harmed him, yet the experience had a lasting effect on his victim. Touched by scandal, Artemisia was able to marry an inferior painter only by virtue of a substantial dowry. Through an unhappy marriage, the deaths of her first children, and the lives of her daughters, however, she continued to paint, eventually gaining considerable acclaim. Interestingly enough, given her experiences, her paintings of religious allegory often portrayed women in illustrations of strength and dominance. If her depiction of Judith violently decapitating Holofernes elicited the Grand Duchess's repulsion, the Grand Duke Cosimo II was riveted. Others in the room saw the allusion to the artist's own past: "'This face, so close to death, brings someone to mind,' the secretary, Andrea Cioli, interjected insidiously. 'A painter, your Highness...'"
Artemisia blends storytelling and careful detail in a complex rendering that will particularly appeal to readers with an interest in either Baroque art or Italian history. Color plates illustrate the haunting quality of Artemisia's work, and the end notes make clear which portions derive from documentation and which are fictional strokes of color. The uninitiated may have a difficult time unraveling the intricacies of characters and politics, perhaps because Lapierre is more at home with scholarship than with fiction. Worse, her breathless prose sometimes tries too hard, even while doing little to reveal her characters' inner worlds. In the end, it's both the compelling quality of Artemisia's story and the lushness of Lapierre's supporting detail that hold this unusual book together. --Anne DeGrace [via]
More editions of Artemisia:
- Artemisia: ISBN 0802116728 (0-8021-1672-8)
  Hardcover, Grove Pr
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The Autobiography of Henry VIII
by Margaret George, William Sommers

ISBN 0312194390 (0-312-19439-0)
Softcover, Griffin

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Book summary:
An extraordinary novel that brings into vivid focus the larger-than-life King Henry VIII, monarch of prodigious appetites for wine, women, and song. This is a readable, entertaining, tour de force that captures the essence of the Sixteenth Century, in all its drama and atmosphere. A can't-miss for readers who delight in wonderful historical fiction perfectly rendered.
"It doth brim with lust, violence, cruelty and lively conversation...Margaret George has found a new and fresh way to tell the story."
DETROIT FREE PRESS [via]
More editions of The Autobiography of Henry VIII:
- The Autobiography of Henry VIII: ISBN 0345342755 (0-345-34275-5)
  Softcover, Ballantine Books
- The Autobiography of Henry VIII: ISBN 0312194390 (0-312-19439-0)
  Softcover, Griffin
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Burr
by Gore Vidal

ISBN 1417633840 (1-4176-3384-0)
Hardcover, Bt Bound

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Book summary:
Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series spans the history of the United States from the Revolution to the post-World War II years. With their broad canvas and large cast of fictional and historical characters, the novels in this series present a panorama of the American political and imperial experience as interpreted by one of its most worldly, knowing, and ironic observers.

Burr is a portrait of perhaps the most complex and misunderstood of the Founding Fathers. In 1804, while serving as vice president, Aaron Burr fought a duel with his political nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, and killed him. In 1807, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of treason. In 1833, Burr is newly married, an aging statesman considered a monster by many. Burr retains much of his political influence if not the respect of all. And he is determined to tell his own story. As his amanuensis, he chooses Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler, a young New York City journalist, and together they explore both Burr's past and the continuing political intrigues of the still young United States. [via]
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Caesar
by Colleen McCullough

ISBN 0380710854 (0-380-71085-4)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers

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More editions of Caesar:
- Caesar: ISBN 0688093728 (0-688-09372-8)
  Hardcover, HarperCollins Publishers
- Caesar: ISBN 0380710854 (0-380-71085-4)
  Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
The Castle in the Forest: A Novel
by Norman Mailer

ISBN 0394536495 (0-394-53649-5)
Hardcover, Random House Inc

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More editions of The Castle in the Forest: A Novel:
- The Castle in the Forest: A Novel: ISBN 0394536495 (0-394-53649-5)
  Hardcover, Random House Inc
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Claudius the God
by Robert Graves

ISBN 0394608127 (0-394-60812-7)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group

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Book summary:
Robert Graves begins anew the tumultuous life of the Roman who became emporer in spite of himself. Captures the vitality, splendor, and decadence of the Roman world at the point of its decline.

From the Trade Paperback edition. [via]
More editions of Claudius the God:
- Claudius the God: ISBN 0394608127 (0-394-60812-7)
  Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina: The Troublesome Reign of Tiberius Claudius Caesar, Emperor of the Romans (Born 10 B.C., Died A.D. 54), as Described by Himself, Also His Murder at the Hands of the Notorious Agrippina (Mother of the Emperor Nero) and His Subsequent Deification, as Describ
by Robert Graves

ISBN 0679725733 (0-679-72573-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:
Picking up where the extraordinarily interesting I, Claudius ends, Claudius the God tells the tale of Claudius' 13-year reign as Emperor of Rome. Naturally, it ends when Claudius is murdered--believe me, it's not giving anything away to say this; the surprise is when someone doesn't get poisoned. While Claudius spends most of his time before becoming emperor tending to his books and his writings and trying to stay out of the general line of corruption and killings, his life on the throne puts him into the center of the political maelstrom. [via]
More editions of Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina: The Troublesome Reign of Tiberius Claudius Caesar, Emperor of the Romans (Born 10 B.C., Died A.D. 54), as Described by Himself, Also His Murder at the Hands of the Notorious Agrippina (Mother of the Emperor Nero) and His Subsequent Deification, as Describ:
- Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina: The Troublesome Reign of Tiberius Claudius Caesar, Emperor of the Romans (Born 10 B.C., Died A.D. 54), as Described by Himself, Also His Murder at the Hands of the Notorious Agrippina (Mother of the Emperor Nero) and His Subsequent Deification, as Describ: ISBN 0679725733 (0-679-72573-3)
  Softcover, Random House Inc
The Constant Princess
by Philippa Gregory

ISBN 0743272498 (0-7432-7249-8)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster

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Book summary:
"I am Catalina, Princess of Spain, daughter of the two greatest monarchs the world has ever known...and I will be Queen of England."

Thus, bestselling author Philippa Gregory introduces one of her most unforgettable heroines: Katherine of Aragon. Daughter of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain, Katherine has been fated her whole life to marry Prince Arthur of England. When they meet and are married, the match becomes as passionate as it is politically expedient. The young lovers revel in each other's company and plan the England they will make together. But tragically, aged only fifteen, Arthur falls ill and extracts from his sixteen-year-old bride a deathbed promise to marry his brother, Henry; become Queen; and fulfill their dreams and her destiny.

"They tell me nothing but lies here and they think they can break my spirit. I believe what I choose and say nothing. I am not as simple as I seem."

Widowed and alone in the avaricious world of the Tudor court, Katherine has to sidestep her father-in-law's desire for her and convince him, and an incredulous Europe, that her marriage to Arthur was never consummated, that there is no obstacle to marriage with Henry. For seven years, she endures the treachery of spies, the humiliation of poverty, and intense loneliness and despair while she waits for the inevitable moment when she will step into the role she has prepared for all her life. Then, like her warrior mother, Katherine must take to the battlefield and save England when its old enemies the Scots come over the border and there is no one to stand against them but the new Queen.

"It was my dying husband's hope, my mother's wish, and God's will that I should be Queen of England; and for them and for the country, I will be Queen of England until I die."

Raised on the battlefield and in the most beautiful Moorish palace in the world, sent to England alone at the age of sixteen to take her place in a court where she couldn't speak the language, and abandoned and forced to endure poverty after the death of her husband, Katherine remained a woman of indomitable spirit, unwavering faith, and extraordinary strength. Philippa Gregory brings to life one of history's most inspiring women and creates one of the most compelling characters in historical fiction.
[via]
More editions of The Constant Princess:
- The Constant Princess: ISBN 074327248X (0-7432-7248-X)
  Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
- The Constant Princess: ISBN 0743272498 (0-7432-7249-8)
  Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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The First Man in Rome
by Colleen McCullough

ISBN 0380710811 (0-380-71081-1)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers

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Book summary:
With astounding narrative power, Colleen Mccullough--author of the internationally acclaimed #1 bestseller "The Thorn Birds"--sweeps the reader into the whirlpool of pageantry, passion, splendor, chaos and earth-shattering upheaval that was ancient Rome. [via]
More editions of The First Man in Rome:
- The First Man in Rome: ISBN 068809368X (0-688-09368-X)
  Hardcover, Harpercollins
- The First Man in Rome: ISBN 0380710811 (0-380-71081-1)
  Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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Girl With a Pearl Earring
by Tracy Chevalier

ISBN 141774829X (1-4177-4829-X)
Hardcover, Bt Bound

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Book summary:
With precisely 35 canvases to his credit, the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer represents one of the great enigmas of 17th-century art. The meager facts of his biography have been gleaned from a handful of legal documents. Yet Vermeer's extraordinary paintings of domestic life, with their subtle play of light and texture, have come to define the Dutch golden age. His portrait of the anonymous Girl with a Pearl Earring has exerted a particular fascination for centuries--and it is this magnetic painting that lies at the heart of Tracy Chevalier's second novel of the same title.
Girl with a Pearl Earring centers on Vermeer's prosperous Delft household during the 1660s. When Griet, the novel's quietly perceptive heroine, is hired as a servant, turmoil follows. First, the 16-year-old narrator becomes increasingly intimate with her master. Then Vermeer employs her as his assistant--and ultimately has Griet sit for him as a model. Chevalier vividly evokes the complex domestic tensions of the household, ruled over by the painter's jealous, eternally pregnant wife and his taciturn mother-in-law. At times the relationship between servant and master seems a little anachronistic. Still, Girl with a Pearl Earring does contain a final delicious twist.
Throughout, Chevalier cultivates a limpid, painstakingly observed style, whose exactitude is an effective homage to the painter himself. Even Griet's most humdrum duties take on a high if unobtrusive gloss:
I came to love grinding the things he brought from the apothecary--bones, white lead, madder, massicot--to see how bright and pure I could get the colors. I learned that the finer the materials were ground, the deeper the color. From rough, dull grains madder became a fine bright red powder and, mixed with linseed oil, a sparkling paint. Making it and the other colors was magical.
In assembling such quotidian particulars, the author acknowledges her debt to Simon Schama's classic study The Embarrassment of Riches. Her novel also joins a crop of recent, painterly fictions, including Deborah Moggach's Tulip Fever and Susan Vreeland's Girl in Hyacinth Blue. Can novelists extract much more from the Dutch golden age? The question is an open one--but in the meantime, Girl with a Pearl Earring remains a fascinating piece of speculative historical fiction, and an appealingly new take on an old master. --Jerry Brotton [via]
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The Grass Crown
by Colleen McCullough

ISBN 038071082X (0-380-71082-X)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers

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More editions of The Grass Crown:
- The Grass Crown: ISBN 0688093698 (0-688-09369-8)
  Hardcover, Harpercollins
- The Grass Crown: ISBN 038071082X (0-380-71082-X)
  Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
Katherine
by Anya Seton, Philippa Gregory

ISBN 155652532X (1-55652-532-X)
Softcover, Chicago Review Pr

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Book summary:
This classic romance novel tells the true story of the love affair that changed history that of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the ancestors of most of the British royal family. Set in the vibrant 14th century of Chaucer and the Black Death, the story features knights fighting in battle, serfs struggling in poverty, and the magnificent Plantagenets Edward III, the Black Prince, and Richard II who ruled despotically over a court rotten with intrigue. Within this era of danger and romance, John of Gaunt, the king s son, falls passionately in love with the already married Katherine. Their well-documented affair and love persist through decades of war, adultery, murder, loneliness, and redemption. This epic novel of conflict, cruelty, and untamable love has become a classic since its first publication in 1954.
[via]
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La Joven De La Perla/girl With a Pearl Earring
by Tracy Chevalier, Pilar Vazquez

ISBN 8466307982 (84-663-0798-2)
Softcover, Santillana USA Pub Co Inc

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Book summary:
La joven de la perla centers on Vermeer's prosperous Delft household during the 1660s. When Griet, the novel's quietly perceptive heroine, is hired as a servant, turmoil follows. First, the 16-year-old narrator becomes increasingly intimate with her master. Then Vermeer employs her as his assistant--and ultimately has Griet sit for him as a model. Chevalier vividly evokes the complex domestic tensions of the household, ruled over by the painter's jealous, eternally pregnant wife and his taciturn mother-in-law. At times the relationship between servant and master seems a little anachronistic. Still, La joven de la perla does contain a final delicious twist.
Blurb in Spanish:
En la segunda mitad del siglo XVII, el pintor holandés Johannes Vermeer inmortalizó en una tela a una bella muchacha adornada con un turbante y un pendiente de perla. Sus labios parecen esbozar una sonrisa sensual, pero sus ojos irradian la tristeza más profunda.
Conocido como La Mona Lisa holandesa, detrás de ese enigmático rostro que esconde Griet, una joven de origen humilde que a los dieciséis años entra a trabajar como doncella en casa del artista a cambio de un mísero salario.Su extraordinaria sensibilidad y el cuidado que pone en todo lo que toca atraen al maestro, quien poco a poco la introduce en su mundo, un paraíso inundado por una luz mágica y poblado por criaturas femeninas de singular belleza. La joven de la perla es la historia de una fascinación, de cómo surge un sentimiento que se mueve entre la admiración y el amor. La luz en los ojos de Griet, la sirvienta convertida en musa, encierra el misterio más profundo en el proceso de creación de una obra de arte. Tracy Chevalier evoca la vida cotidiana en el siglo XVII holandés en esta hermosa novela sobre el despertar a la vida y al arte. [via]
More editions of La Joven De La Perla/girl With a Pearl Earring:
- La Joven De La Perla/girl With a Pearl Earring: ISBN 8466307982 (84-663-0798-2)
  Softcover, Santillana USA Pub Co Inc
The Last Great Dance on Earth
by Sandra Gulland

ISBN 0684856085 (0-684-85608-5)
Softcover, Touchstone Books

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More editions of The Last Great Dance on Earth:
- The Last Great Dance on Earth: ISBN 0684856085 (0-684-85608-5)
  Softcover, Touchstone Books
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Libra
by Don Delillo

ISBN 0451822102 (0-451-82210-2)
Hardcover, Penguin Books

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Book summary:
In his ninth novel, DeLillo (White Noise) gives the American psyche what it has been awaiting for 25 years--an eerily convincing fictional speculation on the events leading up to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. [via]
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Lincoln
by Gore Vidal

ISBN 1568496265 (1-56849-626-5)
Hardcover, Buccaneer Books

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Book summary:
Lincoln is a masterwork of historical fiction, in which Gore Vidal combines a comprehensive knowledge of Civil War America with 20th-century literary technique, probing the minds and motives of the men surrounding Abraham Lincoln, including personal secretary John Hay and scheming cabinet members William Seward and Salmon P. Chase, as well as his wife, Mary Todd. It is a book monumental in scope that never loses sight of the intimate and personal in its depiction of the power struggles that accompanied Lincoln's efforts to preserve the Union at all costs--efforts in which the eradication of slavery was far from the president's main objective. As usual, there's plenty of room for Vidal's wickedly humorous deflation of American icons, including a comic interlude in a Washington bordello in which Lincoln's former law partner informs Hay that Lincoln had contracted syphilis as a young man and had, just before marrying Mary Todd, suffered what can only be described as a nervous breakdown. (Protestors should note that Vidal is only passing along what that former partner had written in his own biography of Lincoln.) Don't be intimidated by the size of Lincoln; if you like historical fiction, you should read this book at the first opportunity. --Ron Hogan [via]
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Little House in the Big Woods
by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Garth Williams

ISBN 1581180780 (1-58118-078-0)
Hardcover, Library Reproduction Services

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More editions of Little House in the Big Woods:
- Little House in the Big Woods: ISBN 1581180780 (1-58118-078-0)
  Hardcover, Library Reproduction Services
The Little House on the Prairie
by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Garth Williams

ISBN 1557361495 (1-55736-149-5)
Hardcover, Cornerstone Books

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More editions of The Little House on the Prairie:
- The Little House on the Prairie: ISBN 1557361495 (1-55736-149-5)
  Hardcover, Cornerstone Books
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The Long Winter
by Laura Ingalls Wilder

ISBN 0590300946 (0-590-30094-6)
Softcover, Scholastic Paperbacks

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Book summary:
Paperback [via]
More editions of The Long Winter:
- The Long Winter: ISBN 0590300946 (0-590-30094-6)
  Softcover, Scholastic Paperbacks
The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
by Sandra Gulland

ISBN 0684856069 (0-684-85606-9)
Softcover, Touchstone Books

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More editions of The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.:
- The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.: ISBN 0684856069 (0-684-85606-9)
  Softcover, Touchstone Books
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Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles
by Margaret George

ISBN 0312155859 (0-312-15585-9)
Softcover, St Martins Pr

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Book summary:
A fictional account of the life of Mary Queen of Scots traces her lineage and describes her childhood, marriages, and her historic fight with Elizabeth over the throne of England. 150,000 first printing. $100,000 ad/promo. [via]
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Mary, Called Magdalene
by Margaret George

ISBN 0670030961 (0-670-03096-1)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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Book summary:
Of all the women in the Bible, perhaps no one's presence has been as constantly reinterpreted as that of Mary Magdalene. Was she a prostitute? A prophet? In Margaret George's epic historical novel, Mary, Called Magdalene (Geroge's previous subjects include Henry VIII, Mary, Queen of Scots, and Cleopatra), Mary comes alive as one of Jesus' first believers, a woman of infallible visions and a faith that earns her the title "Apostle to the Apostles." With numerous biblical and scholarly texts serving as the core of this intriguing woman's story, George recreates the world of Galilean fishermen and the oppressions of the Jewish people under Roman rule. Cast out from her family after Jesus expels the demons that have ravaged her mind, Mary follows the man from Nazareth until they receive attention from the skeptical hordes and the Roman magistrates controlling Jerusalem.
Mary, from beginning to end of this giant undertaking, is a woman who struggles to reconcile her absence from her young daughter's life with the chance to be part of something important. Through the lens of her ever-inquisitive mind, the story covers the formation of Jesus' ragtag band of disciples and the crucifixion, and ends with Mary's mission as the head of the Christian church in Ephesus, where she died at the age of 90. What makes this a compelling read is that Mary's story connects humanity with faith in a way that's possible to understand, whatever our contemporary beliefs. --Emily Russin [via]
More editions of Mary, Called Magdalene:
- Mary, Called Magdalene: ISBN 0670030961 (0-670-03096-1)
  Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
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The October Horse : A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra
by Colleen McCullough

ISBN 0671024205 (0-671-02420-5)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster

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Book summary:
In her new book about the men who were instrumental in establishing the Rome of the Emperors, Colleen McCullough tells the story of a famous love affair and a man whose sheer ability could lead to only one end -- assassination.
As "The October Horse" begins, Gaius Julius Caesar is at the height of his stupendous career. When he becomes embroiled in a civil war between Egypt's King Ptolemy and Queen Cleopatra, he finds himself torn between the fascinations of a remarkable woman and his duty as a Roman. Though he must leave Cleopatra, she remains a force in his life as a lover and as the mother of his only son, who can never inherit Caesar's Roman mantle, and therefore cannot solve his father's greatest dilemma -- who will be Caesar's Roman heir?
A hero to all of Rome except to those among his colleagues who see his dictatorial powers as threats to the democratic system they prize so highly, Caesar is determined not to be worshiped as a god or crowned king, but his unique situation conspires to make it seem otherwise. Swearing to bring him down, Caesar's enemies masquerade as friends and loyal supporters while they plot to destroy him. Among them are his cousin and Master of the Horse, Mark Antony, feral and avaricious, priapic and impulsive; Gaius Trebonius, the nobody, who owes him everything; Gaius Cassius, eaten by jealousy; and the two Brutuses, his cousin Decimus, and Marcus, the son of his mistress Servilia, sad victim of his mother and of his uncle Cato, whose daughter he marries. All are in Caesar's debt, all have been raised to high positions, all are outraged by Caesar's autocracy.
Caesar must die, they decide, for only when he is dead will Rome return to herold ways, her old republican self.
With her extraordinary knowledge of Roman history, Colleen McCullough brings Caesar to life as no one has ever done before and surrounds him with an enormous and vivid cast of historical characters, characters like Cleopatra who call to us from beyond the centuries, for McCullough's genius is to make them live again without losing any of the grandeur that was Rome.
Packed with battles on land and sea, with intrigue, love affairs, and murders, the novel moves with amazing speed toward the assassination itself, and then into the ever more complex and dangerous consequences of that act, in which the very fate of Rome is at stake.
"The October Horse" is about one of the world's pivotal eras, relating as it does events that have continued to echo even into our own times. [via]
More editions of The October Horse : A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra:
- The October Horse : A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra: ISBN 0684853310 (0-684-85331-0)
  Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
- The October Horse : A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra: ISBN 0671024205 (0-671-02420-5)
  Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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On the Banks of Plum Creek
by Laura Ingalls Wilder

ISBN 0808537989 (0-8085-3798-9)
Hardcover, Bt Bound

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Book summary:
A new home
When the Ingalls family decides to move west to Minnesota, Laura is certain she won't like her new home. Her feelings quickly change as she and Mary make friends and Pa's wheat crop flourishes. Things take a turn for the worse when a cloud of grasshoppers destroys the crops and Pa is forced to leave to find work. Now it's Laura's chance to prove that she can help the family to survive.
[via]
More editions of On the Banks of Plum Creek:
- On the Banks of Plum Creek: ISBN 0808537989 (0-8085-3798-9)
  Hardcover, Bt Bound
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The Other Boleyn Girl
by Philippa Gregory

ISBN 0743227441 (0-7432-2744-1)
Softcover, Touchstone Books

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Book summary:
Everyone knows the fate of Anne Boleyn, but not many know the story of her rise to majesty and the part played by her rival and sister, Mary, who was Henry's mistress and mother to two of his bastard children before the dazzling older Boleyn girl even caught his eye. Philippa Gregory, whose own role as the Queen of historical romance grows more secure with each new novel, has surpassed her self with this epic tale of lust, jealousy and betrayal. The Other Boleyn Girl charts the lives of both Boleyns--each in their turn "the other Boleyn Girl"--and their fiercely ambitious, conniving family who used the girls as pawns to advance their own positions at the court of Henry VIII. At 13, Mary is little more than a child when she is presented to Henry, ordered by her scheming family to serve her King and country by opening her legs whenever commanded, or doing anything else the great monarch desires. And while his loins are satisfied, life at court is sweet for the unofficial Queen and her pushy coterie. Inevitably though, the King's eyes soon begin to wander and Mary is overlooked, helpless to do anything but aid her family's plot to advance their fortunes, replace her with Anne and give Henry the greatest gift of all: a son and heir.
So good a job has Ms Gregory done at portraying the Boleyns and Howards as selfish, scheming, treacherous manipulators however, that it becomes increasingly hard to feel empathy for any of them. While Mary is merely hapless, Anne is the most ruthless of them all, so that instead of feeling cheated by knowing the outcome of her story, it only serves to help digest her unpalatable rise. Such a gruesome destiny was never more deserved. Ms Gregory has worked hard at researching her historical references. Daily life at court is described in fascinating detail--from the relentless leisure pursuits, masques and banquets laid on for the easily bored King to the complex hierarchies and machinations of the courtiers. However, the fall of Queen Katherine of Aragon and her only child, the Princess Mary, and the politics of the competing European courts and the break with Rome are seen only as a backdrop to the bawdy goings-on of the Boleyns and their fateful race for the crown. --Carey Green [via]
More editions of The Other Boleyn Girl:
- The Other Boleyn Girl: ISBN 0743269837 (0-7432-6983-7)
  Hardcover, Touchstone Books
- The Other Boleyn Girl: ISBN 0743227441 (0-7432-2744-1)
  Softcover, Touchstone Books
The Passion of Artemisia
by Susan Vreeland

ISBN 0670894494 (0-670-89449-4)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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More editions of The Passion of Artemisia:
- The Passion of Artemisia: ISBN 0670894494 (0-670-89449-4)
  Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
by Vincent Starrett

ISBN 1883402050 (1-883402-05-0)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster

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More editions of Private Life of Sherlock Holmes:
- Private Life of Sherlock Holmes: ISBN 040408964X (0-404-08964-X)
  Hardcover, Ams Pr Inc
- Private Life of Sherlock Holmes: ISBN 1883402050 (1-883402-05-0)
  Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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Red Tent
by Anita Diamant

ISBN 1417616466 (1-4176-1646-6)
Hardcover, Bt Bound

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Book summary:
The red tent is the place where women gathered during their cycles of birthing, menses, and even illness. Like the conversations and mysteries held within this feminine tent, this sweeping piece of fiction offers an insider's look at the daily life of a biblical sorority of mothers and wives and their one and only daughter, Dinah. Told in the voice of Jacob's daughter Dinah (who only received a glimpse of recognition in the Book of Genesis), we are privy to the fascinating feminine characters who bled within the red tent. In a confiding and poetic voice, Dinah whispers stories of her four mothers, Rachel, Leah, Zilpah, and Bilhah--all wives to Jacob, and each one embodying unique feminine traits. As she reveals these sensual and emotionally charged stories we learn of birthing miracles, slaves, artisans, household gods, and sisterhood secrets. Eventually Dinah delves into her own saga of betrayals, grief, and a call to midwifery.
"Like any sisters who live together and share a husband, my mother and aunties spun a sticky web of loyalties and grudges," Anita Diamant writes in the voice of Dinah. "They traded secrets like bracelets, and these were handed down to me the only surviving girl. They told me things I was too young to hear. They held my face between their hands and made me swear to remember." Remembering women's earthy stories and passionate history is indeed the theme of this magnificent book. In fact, it's been said that The Red Tent is what the Bible might have been had it been written by God's daughters, instead of her sons. --Gail Hudson [via]
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Schindler's List
by Thomas Keneally

ISBN 1568951051 (1-56895-105-1)
Hardcover, Wheeler Pub Inc

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Book summary:
Oskar Schindler risks his life to save more than 1,000 Jews from certain death in the concentration camps of World War II. Based on a true story, the book was adapted by Steven Spielberg into one of the most important and powerful war films of all time. [via]
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Schindler's List Piano Solos
by John Williams

ISBN 0793532779 (0-7935-3277-9)
Softcover, Hal Leonard Corp

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Book summary:
8 beautiful piano solos from the Oscar-winning movie. Pieces include: Theme from Schindler's List Give Me Your Names I Could Have Done More Stolen Memories and more. Features photos from the film. [via]
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- Schindler's List Piano Solos: ISBN 0793532779 (0-7935-3277-9)
  Softcover, Hal Leonard Corp
Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe
by Sandra Gulland

ISBN 0684856077 (0-684-85607-7)
Softcover, Touchstone Books

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- Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe: ISBN 0684856077 (0-684-85607-7)
  Softcover, Touchstone Books
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Underworld
by Don Delillo

ISBN 0684842696 (0-684-84269-6)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster

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Book summary:
While Eisenstein documented the forces of totalitarianism and Stalinism upon the faces of the Russian peoples, DeLillo offers a stunning, at times overwhelming, document of the twin forces of the cold war and American culture, compelling that "swerve from evenness" in which he finds events and people both wondrous and horrifying. Underworld opens with a breathlessly graceful prologue set during the final game of the Giants-Dodgers pennant race in 1951. Written in what DeLillo calls "super-omniscience" the sentences sweep from young Cotter Martin as he jumps the gate to the press box, soars over the radio waves, runs out to the diamond, slides in on a fast ball, pops into the stands where J. Edgar Hoover is sitting with a drunken Jackie Gleason and a splenetic Frank Sinatra, and learns of the Soviet Union's second detonation of a nuclear bomb. It's an absolutely thrilling literary moment. When Bobby Thomson hits Branca's pitch into the outstretched hand of Cotter--the "shot heard around the world"--and Jackie Gleason pukes on Sinatra's shoes, the events of the next few decades are set in motion, all threaded together by the baseball as it passes from hand to hand.
"It's all falling indelibly into the past," writes DeLillo, a past that he carefully recalls and reconstructs with acute grace. Jump from Giants Stadium to the Nevada desert in 1992, where Nick Shay, who now owns the baseball, reunites with the artist Kara Sax. They had been brief and unlikely lovers 40 years before, and it is largely through the events, spinoffs, and coincidental encounters of their pasts that DeLillo filters the Cold War experience. He believes that "global events may alter how we live in the smallest ways," and as the book steps back in time to 1951, over the following 800-odd pages, we see just how those events alter lives. This reverse narrative allows the author to strip away the detritus of history and pop culture until we get to the story's pure elements: the bomb, the baseball, and the Bronx. In an epilogue as breathless and stunning as the prologue, DeLillo fast-forwards to a near future in which ruthless capitalism, the Internet, and a new, hushed faith have replaced the Cold War's blend of dread and euphoria.
Through fragments and interlaced stories--including those of highway killers, artists, celebrities, conspiracists, gangsters, nuns, and sundry others--DeLillo creates a fragile web of connected experience, a communal Zeitgeist that encompasses the messy whole of five decades of American life, wonderfully distilled. [via]
More editions of Underworld:
- Underworld: ISBN 0684842696 (0-684-84269-6)
  Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
The Viceroy of Ouidah
by Bruce Chatwin

ISBN 0671412531 (0-671-41253-1)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster

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More editions of The Viceroy of Ouidah:
- The Viceroy of Ouidah: ISBN 0671412531 (0-671-41253-1)
  Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Woman Warrior
by Maxine Hong Kingston

ISBN 0679721886 (0-679-72188-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:
The Woman Warrior is a pungent, bitter, but beautifully written memoir of growing up Chinese American in Stockton, California. Maxine Hong Kingston (China Men) distills the dire lessons of her mother's mesmerizing "talk-story" tales of a China where girls are worthless, tradition is exalted and only a strong, wily woman can scratch her way upward. The author's America is a landscape of confounding white "ghosts"--the policeman ghost, the social worker ghost--with equally rigid, but very different rules. Like the woman warrior of the title, Kingston carries the crimes against her family carved into her back by her parents in testimony to and defiance of the pain. [via]
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The Woman Warrior China Men
by Maxine Kingston, Mary Gordon

ISBN 1400043840 (1-4000-4384-0)
Hardcover, Random House Inc

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(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

Herefor the first time in one volumeare two classic, brilliantly original works on the experience of Chinese immigrants in America. In both books Maxine Hong Kingston mines her familys past and her cultures stories, weaving myth and memory to fashion works of enormous revelatory power.

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, is Kingstons disturbing and fiercely beautiful account of growing up Chinese-American in California. The young Kingston lives in two worlds: the America to which her parents have emigrated, a place inhabited by white ghosts, and the China of her mothers talk stories, a place haunted by the ghosts of the past. Her mother, who had been a doctor in China but in the United States is reduced to running a laundry, tells her daughter traditional tales of strong, wily women warriorstalesthat clash puzzlingly with the real oppression of Chinese women. Kingston learns to fill in the mystifying spaces in her mothers stories with stories of her own, engaging her familys past and her own present with anger, imagination, and dazzling passion.

China Men, a National Book Award winner for fiction, is Kingstons unforgettable imaginative journey into the hearts and minds of generations of Chinese men in America, from those who worked on the transcontinental railroad in the 1840s to those who fought in Vietnam. Mixing vivid fables and legends, personal stories from her own family, and details of the historical hardships faced by Chinese immigrants in different times and places, Kingston illuminates their long, arduous search for the Gold Mountain. [via]
More editions of The Woman Warrior China Men:
- The Woman Warrior China Men: ISBN 1400043840 (1-4000-4384-0)
  Hardcover, Random House Inc
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The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts
by Maxine Hong Kingston

ISBN 0394400674 (0-394-40067-4)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group

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Book summary:
The Woman Warrior is a pungent, bitter, but beautifully written memoir of growing up Chinese American in Stockton, California. Maxine Hong Kingston (China Men) distills the dire lessons of her mother's mesmerizing "talk-story" tales of a China where girls are worthless, tradition is exalted and only a strong, wily woman can scratch her way upward. The author's America is a landscape of confounding white "ghosts"--the policeman ghost, the social worker ghost--with equally rigid, but very different rules. Like the woman warrior of the title, Kingston carries the crimes against her family carved into her back by her parents in testimony to and defiance of the pain. [via]
More editions of The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts:
- The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts: ISBN 0394400674 (0-394-40067-4)
  Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group