Wanda McCaddon
Helen Colijn's account of her wartime experiences is a window into a largely overlooked dimension of World War II: the imprisonment of women and children in Southeast Asia by the Japanese and how these prisoners of war responded to their dire circumstances. The conditions were harsh, terrible. Food was scarce, medicine unavailable. Held in captivity for three and a half years, more than a third of the women in Helen's camp died of disease or starvation.
...Rumor has linked Queen Elizabeth I to her master of horse, Robin Dudley. As gossip would have it, only his ailing wife, Amy, prevents marriage between Dudley and the queen. To quell the idle tongues at court, the queen dispatches Ursula Blanchard to tend to the sick woman's needs. But not even Ursula can prevent the "accident" that takes Amy's life. Did she fall or was she pushed? Was Ursula a pawn of Dudley and the queen?
Suddenly
...Michelangelo was recognized during his lifetime as the greatest living artist, creator of a number of masterpieces in sculpture, fresco painting, and architecture. He impressed his contemporaries as a forceful personality, a divine genius endowed with intense emotional power. Often portrayed as a solitary and austere figure, he in fact enjoyed a remarkable range of friendships, and those he loved and hated, served or resisted are presented here,
...In contemporary London, a loose-knit group of political vagabonds drifts from one cause to the next, picketing and strategizing for hypothetical situations. But within this world, one particular small commune is moving inexorably toward active terrorism.
At its center is Alice Mellings, a brilliant organizer who knows how to cope with almost anything, except the vacuum of her own life. Always reliable, she makes herself indispensable to the commune,
...85) Susanna Wesley
A late spring in 1142 has the monks of Shrewsbury Abbey dismayed, for there may be no roses by June 22. For three years, wealthy young widow Judith Perle has rented her house to the monks for the price of a single white rose each year, in honor of her late husband. When nature finally complies, a pious monk is sent to pay the rent—and found murdered beside the hacked rosebush.
Without a rose, the monks' rental contract becomes void,
...that she wants nothing more than to take quality time for rest and relaxation. But as soon as she begins closing the agency on weekends, she remembers that when she has plenty of quality time, she doesn’t know what to do with it. So it doesn’t take much for the vicar of a nearby village to persuade her to help publicize the church fête——especially...
89) Miss Mapp
"Long ago in 1945 all the nice people in England were poor, allowing for exceptions..." Thus begins Muriel Spark's tragic and rapier-witted portrait of a London ladies' hostel just emerging from the shadow of World War II. Like the May of Teck Club building itself—"three times window shattered since 1940 but never directly hit"—its lady inhabitants do their best to act as if the world were back to normal, practicing elocution and jostling
...The ancient Maya were the only fully literate pre-Colombian people in the Americas. Superb scientists, they developed highly sophisticated mathematics and an intricate and accurate calendar system. Theirs was one of the few complex societies to emerge in and to adapt successfully to a tropical forest environment. Their architecture, sculpture, and painting were sophisticated and compellingly beautiful.
In this comprehensive survey, updated
...In the dark winter of 1917, World War I was deadlocked. For Europe to be saved, the United States had to join the war—but President Wilson remained unshakable in his neutrality. Then, with a single stroke, the tool to propel America into the war came into a quiet British office. One of countless messages intercepted by the crack team of British decoders, the Zimmermann telegram was a top-secret message from Berlin inviting Mexico to join
...In two breathtakingly accomplished novellas, A. S. Byatt explores the landscape of Victorian England, where science and spiritualism are both popular manias and domestic decorum coexists with brutality and perversion.
In "Morpho Eugenia", a shipwrecked naturalist is rescued by a wealthy family and immediately falls for the eldest daughter. But before long the family's clandestine passions come to seem as inscrutable as the behavior of insects.
...Meet the woman behind the apron in Noël Riley Fitch's revealing biography of America's favorite cook: Julia Child.
A household name, Julia Child has entered the hearts of millions of Americans through their kitchens. Yet few know the richly varied private life that lies behind this icon. Fitch takes us from her exuberant youth through her years at Smith College, where Julia was at the center of every prank and party. When most of her
...Two-time Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Barbara Tuchman explores the complex relationship of Britain to Palestine that led to the founding of the modern Jewish state—and to many of the problems that plague the Middle East today.
From early times the British people have been drawn to the Holy Land through two major influences: the translation of the Bible into English and, later, the imperial need to control the road to India and access
...99) Oliver Twist
100) Anna Karenina
Described by William Faulkner as the best novel ever written and by Fyodor Dostoevsky as “flawless,” Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and thereby exposes herself to...