Books like 'The L-Shaped Room'
Readers who enjoyed The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary 20th century classics literary-fiction historical-fiction coming-of-age family
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A Ballad for Georg Henig by Viktor Paskov
Rated: 4.56 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe poignant story of an elderly, impoverished violin maker, a master craftsman who refuses to trim his values for the modern age, as seen through the eyes of his young protégé. A best-seller in Bulgaria, this is one of Paskow's major works... -
![Captains of the Sands by Jorge Amado]()
Captains of the Sands by Jorge Amado
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsLiving by their wits in the steamy slums of Bahia, a gang of orphans and runaways, led by fifteen-year-old "Bullet," spend their time stealing from Brazil's rich and privileged until public outcry demands their capture... -
![When I Last Saw You by Bette Lee Crosby]()
When I Last Saw You by Bette Lee Crosby
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom USA Today Bestselling Author Bette Lee Crosby comes a powerful southern saga based on a true story... Betrayal and secrets tore her family apart decades ago, now a lonely widow must search for the pieces of her broken childhood. WHEN I LAST SAW YOUGeorgia, 1968 - Margaret Rose McCutcheon has just buried her husband and must now name a beneficiary for the estate upon her demise...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary fiction womens-fiction -
![The Short Novels of John Steinbeck by John Steinbeck]()
The Short Novels of John Steinbeck by John Steinbeck
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsCollected here for the first time in a deluxe paperback volume are six of John Steinbeck's most widely read and beloved novels...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century anthologies contemporary drama fiction -
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![Ours: A Russian Family Album by Sergei Dovlatov]()
Ours: A Russian Family Album by Sergei Dovlatov
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSergei Dovlatov’s The Compromise (“Fresh and funny!” said Kurt Vonnegut) and The Zone won him acclaim throughout the American literary establishment. His writings in The New Yorker and other prominent periodicals have made him one of the most widely read of Russian émigré authors... -
![The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever]()
The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsHere are sixty-one stories that chronicle the lives of what has been called "the greatest generation." From the early wonder and disillusionment of city life in "The Enormous Radio" to the surprising discoveries and common mysteries of suburbia in "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill" and "The Swimmer," Cheever tells us everything we need to know about "the pain and sweetness of life...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
![Selected Stories by Alice Munro]()
Selected Stories by Alice Munro
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSpanning almost thirty years and settings that range from big cities to small towns and farmsteads of rural Canada, this magnificent collection brings together twenty-eight stories by a writer of unparalleled wit, generosity, and emotional power...Categorized as:
classics family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook -
![Promise at Dawn by Romain Gary]()
Promise at Dawn by Romain Gary
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 20 ratings'Promise at Dawn' begins as the story of a mother's sacrifice. Alone and poor, she fights fiercely to give her son the very best. Gary chronicles his childhood with her in Russia, Poland, and on the French Riviera. And he recounts his adventurous life as a young man fighting for France in the Second World War...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook -
![Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver]()
Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWith this, his first collection, Carver breathed new life into the short story. In the pared-down style that has since become his hallmark, Carver showed us how humour and tragedy dwelt in the hearts of ordinary people, and won a readership that grew with every subsequent brilliant collection of stories, poems and essays that appeared in the last eleven years of his life...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
![What Work Is by Philip Levine]()
What Work Is by Philip Levine
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWinner of the National Book Award in 1991 “This collection amounts to a hymn of praise for all the workers of America. These proletarian heroes, with names like Lonnie, Loo, Sweet Pea, and Packy, work the furnaces, forges, slag heaps, assembly lines, and loading docks at places with unglamorous names like Brass Craft or Feinberg and Breslin’s First-Rate Plumbing and Plating...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction literary -
![The Grapes of Wrath/The Moon is Down/Cannery Row/East of Eden/Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck]()
The Grapes of Wrath/The Moon is Down/Cannery Row/East of Eden/Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Grapes of Wrath / The Moon Is Down / Cannery Row / East of Eden / Of Mice and...Categorized as:
classics family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary -
![Iza's Ballad by Magda Szabó]()
Iza's Ballad by Magda Szabó
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhen Ettie's husband dies, her daughter Iza insists that her mother give up the family house in the countryside and move to Budapest. Displaced from her community and her home, Ettie tries to find her place in this new life, but can't seem to get it right...Categorized as:
classics family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult aging -
![Beatles by Lars Saabye Christensen]()
Beatles by Lars Saabye Christensen
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBeatles is the story of Kim Karlsen and his three buddies, Gunnar, Ola and Seb - and, yes, they occasionally like to think of themselves as the Fab Four. They were born in 1951, and the story starts with the first wave of Beatlemania in Norway, in the spring of 1965... -
![Fool for Love and Other Plays by Sam Shepard]()
Fool for Love and Other Plays by Sam Shepard
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsHere are eight of Pulitzer-prizewinning Sam Shepard's most stunning plays. This brilliant American dramatist creates what The New Yorker dubbed "Shepard Country"--a landscape of the imagination, a unique theatrical experience that captures our culture and consciouness, our fears and fantasies... -
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![Island: The Complete Stories by Alistair MacLeod]()
Island: The Complete Stories by Alistair MacLeod
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe sixteen exquisitely crafted stories in Island prove Alistair MacLeod to be a master. Quietly, precisely, he has created a body of work that is among the greatest to appear in English in the last fifty years.A book-besotted patriarch releases his only son from the obligations of the sea. A father provokes his young son to violence when he reluctantly sells the family horse...Categorized as:
classics family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary -
![The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt]()
The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHelen DeWitt's extraordinary debut, The Last Samurai, centers on the relationship between Sibylla, a single mother of precocious and rigorous intelligence, and her son, who, owing to his mother's singular attitude to education, develops into a prodigy of learning... -
![Seven Plays by Sam Shepard]()
Seven Plays by Sam Shepard
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIncludes "Buried Child", "Curse of the Starving Class" , "The Tooth of Crime", "La Turista" , "Savage Loge", and "True West". Brilliant, prolific, uniquely American, Pulitzer prizewinning playwright Sam Separd is a major voice in contemporary theatre. And here are seven of his very best. "One of the most original, prolific and gifted dramatists at work today... -
![The Granddaughter by Bernhard Schlink, Charlotte Collins]()
The Granddaughter by Bernhard Schlink, Charlotte Collins
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"Anyone who wants to understand contemporary Germany must read The Granddaughter now" —Le Monde"The great novel of German reunification" —Le FigaroFrom the bestselling author of The Reader, a striking exploration of the wounds of the past, told through the story of a German bookseller’s attempt to connect with his radicalized granddaughter...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction family fiction contemporary audiobook drama 21st-century -
![Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour: An Introduction by J.D. Salinger]()
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour: An Introduction by J.D. Salinger
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsThe author writes: The two long pieces in this book originally came out in The New Yorker ? RAISE HIGH THE ROOF BEAM, CARPENTERS in 1955, SEYMOUR ? An Introduction in 1959. Whatever their differences in mood or effect, they are both very much concerned with Seymour Glass, who is the main character in my still-uncompleted series about the Glass family... -
![The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa]()
The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsSet among a community of cadets in a Lima military school, it is notable for its experimental and complex employment of multiple perspectives. The novel was so accurate in its portraiture of the academy that the academy's authorities burned one thousand copies and condemned the book as a plan by Ecuador to denigrate Peru... -
![Teresa Batista, Cansada de Guerra by Jorge Amado]()
Teresa Batista, Cansada de Guerra by Jorge Amado
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAt thirteen Tereza is sold by her aunt to a ranch owner who treats her like a piece of property, and sexually abuses her. When caught in bed with her lover she defends herself against the ranch owner’s violence with a knife and ends up in jail. Freed by a long-time admirer, she eventually ends up in a brothel...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary drama -
![Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo by Ntozake Shange]()
Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo by Ntozake Shange
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsNtozake Shange's most beloved novel, Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo, is the story of three "colored girls," three sisters and their mama from Charleston, South Carolina. Sassafrass, the oldest, is a poet and a weaver like her mother, gone north to college and living with other artists in Los Angeles, trying to weave a life out of her work, her man, her memories, and her dreams...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook -
![In The Garden Of The North American Martyrs by Tobias Wolff]()
In The Garden Of The North American Martyrs by Tobias Wolff
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAmong the characters you'll find in this collection of twelve stories by Tobias Wolff are a teenage boy who tells morbid lies about his home life, a timid professor who, in the first genuine outburst of her life, pours out her opinions in spite of a protesting audience, a prudish loner who gives an obnoxious hitchhiker a ride, and an elderly couple on a golden anniversary cruise who endure the...Categorized as:
classics family literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook contemporary -
![Shadowed Paths by Ivan Bunin]()
Shadowed Paths by Ivan Bunin
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe collection consists of the best of his early works - Sukhodol, The Last Rendezvous, Apple Fragrance, The Gentleman from San Francisco - and stories written in his last years - Leka, Sunstroke, Shadowed Paths, and others. They may be called stories about love and about the unforgettable Russian landscape. For here, Bunin writes about himself, in the hushed stillness of the fields..Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
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![Last of the Curlews by Fred Bodsworth]()
Last of the Curlews by Fred Bodsworth
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"The story of this migration is magnificent, informative, breathtaking and exotic". Los Angeles TimesMore than three million readers around the world have been touched by this conservation classic, the story of a solitary Eskimo curlew's last perilous migration and search for a mate. The lone survivor comes to stand for the entirety of a lost species...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult animals anthropomorphism book -
![Reader’s Block by David Markson]()
Reader’s Block by David Markson
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn this spellbinding, utterly unconventional fiction, an aging author who is identified only as Reader contemplates the writing of a novel. As he does, other matters insistently crowd his mind - literary and cultural anecdotes, endless quotations attributed and not, scholarly curiosities - the residue of a lifetime's reading which is apparently all he has to show for his decades on earth...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary fiction philosophy -
![Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter by J. Nozipo Maraire]()
Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter by J. Nozipo Maraire
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWritten as a letter from a Zimbabwean mother to her daughter, a student at Harvard, J. Nozipo Maraire evokes the moving story of a mother reaching out to her daughter to share the lessons life has taught her and bring the two closer than ever before...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction family fiction contemporary epistolary 20th-century book -
![The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Hard Life by Flann O'Brien]()
The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Hard Life by Flann O'Brien
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Poor Mouth relates the story of one Bonaparte O'Coonassa, born in a cabin in a fictitious village called Corkadoragha in western Ireland equally renowned for its beauty and the abject poverty of its residents. Potatoes constitute the basis of his family's daily fare, and they share both bed and board with the sheep and pigs...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book comedy contemporary -
![Medea and Her Children by Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Ludmila Ulitskaya]()
Medea and Her Children by Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Ludmila Ulitskaya
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsMedea Georgievna Sinoply Mendez is an iconic figure in her Crimean village, the last remaining pure-blooded Greek in a family that has lived on that coast for centuries. Childless Medea is the touchstone of a large family, which gathers each spring and summer at her home...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book contemporary -
![The Wine of Youth by John Fante]()
The Wine of Youth by John Fante
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsContains the stories in Dago Red, first published in 1940, together with seven new stories, including "A Nun No More" and "My Father’s God...Categorized as:
classics family literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
![Girl by Jamaica Kincaid]()
Girl by Jamaica Kincaid
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry;..." Girl, a short story by Jamaica Kincaid, was originally published in the June 26, 1978 issue of The New Yorker and subsequently included in the short story collection At the Bottom of the River in 1983...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction family coming-of-age fiction feminism contemporary university -
![Her Lover by Albert Cohen]()
Her Lover by Albert Cohen
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsHandsome, worldly, and intelligent, Solal holds a position of enviable power in 1930s Geneva. But as Under-Secretary-General of the League of Nations, he has become bitterly disillusioned by international affairs and the self-serving people who surround him...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary dark-academia -
![The Knot of Vipers by François Mauriac, David Lodge]()
The Knot of Vipers by François Mauriac, David Lodge
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe masterpiece of one of the greatest modern Catholic writersthe divine grace that remains available to each of us until the very moment of our deaths. It is the unforgettable tale of the battle for one man's soul...Categorized as:
classics family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook book -
![Friend of My Youth by Alice Munro]()
Friend of My Youth by Alice Munro
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratings**Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature**A woman haunted by dreams of her dead mother. An adulterous couple stepping over the line where the initial excitement ends and the pain begins. A widow visiting a Scottish village in search of her husband's past - and instead discovering unsettling truths about a total stranger...Categorized as:
classics family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook -
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![Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes]()
Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsOut running an errand, Valeria Cossati gives in to a sudden impulse - she buys a shiny black notebook. She starts keeping a diary in secret, recording her concerns about her daughter, fears her husband will discover her new habit and the constant churn of the domestic routine. With each entry Valeria plunges deeper into her interior life, uncovering profound dissatisfaction and restlessness...Categorized as:
historical-fiction classics literary-fiction family fiction feminism audiobook contemporary -
![In a Single Moment by Imogen Clark]()
In a Single Moment by Imogen Clark
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFrom million-copy bestselling author Imogen Clark comes a story of two families, two babies and one maddeningly hot day that will change their lives forever.It’s the hottest day of the 1976 heatwave and there’s not a breath of fresh air in the labour ward at Lincoln County Hospital. Michelle is having her fourth child, a girl, while beloved husband Dean is sipping a cold pint in the pub...Categorized as:
historical-fiction family literary-fiction fiction audiobook contemporary womens-fiction female-mc -
![Drown by Junot Díaz]()
Drown by Junot Díaz
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsWith ten stories that move from the barrios of the Dominican Republic to the struggling urban communities of New Jersey, Junot Diaz makes his remarkable debut. Diaz's work is unflinching and strong, and these stories crackle with an electric sense of discovery... -
![The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman by Louis de Bernières]()
The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman by Louis de Bernières
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsThe epic finale of the Latin American trilogy following The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts and Senor Vivo and the Coca LordWhile the economy of his small South American country collapses, President Veracruz joins his improbable populace of ex-soldiers, former guerrillas, unfrocked priests and reformed - though by no means inactive - whores, in a bizarre search for sexual fulfilment...Categorized as:
classics family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary -
![The Book Of Nightmares by Galway Kinnell]()
The Book Of Nightmares by Galway Kinnell
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsGalway Kinnell's poetry has always been marked by richness of language, devotion to the things and creatures of the world, and an effort to transform every understanding into the universality of art... -
![The Grass Harp, Including A Tree of Night and Other Stories by Truman Capote]()
The Grass Harp, Including A Tree of Night and Other Stories by Truman Capote
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSet on the outskirts of a small Southern town, The Grass Harp tells the story of three endearing misfits--an orphaned boy and two whimsical old ladies--who one day take up residence in a tree house. AS they pass sweet yet hazardous hours in a china tree, The Grass Harp manages to convey all the pleasures and responsibilities of freedom...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies -
![Flesh and Blood by Michael Cunningham]()
Flesh and Blood by Michael Cunningham
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn Flesh and Blood, Michael Cunningham takes us on a masterful journey through four generations of the Stassos family as he examines the dynamics of a family struggling to "come of age" in the 20th century...Categorized as:
classics family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary -
![The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner]()
The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThis tour-de-force of American literature and a winner of the National Book Award is a profound, intimate, affecting novel from one of the most esteemed literary minds of the last century and a beloved chronicler of the West. Joe Allston is a cantankerous, retired literary agent who is, in his own words, "just killing time until time gets around to killing me"...Categorized as:
classics family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult aging audiobook -
![El Camino by Miguel Delibes]()
El Camino by Miguel Delibes
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsUpon entering the Royal Spanish Academy in 1975, Miguel Delibes delivered an address which reclaimed El Camino (1950) for the emerging Green movement...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century audiobook book contemporary -
![The Proof by Ágota Kristóf]()
The Proof by Ágota Kristóf
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen his twin brother Claus escapes across the frontier, Lucas is left to face a bleak existence in a post-war totalitarian state, "doing what has to be done in order to live". But all those he encounters, like himself, suffer an inner loss which primes them for ultimate tragedy...Categorized as:
classics family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook -
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![The Little Disturbances of Man by Grace Paley]()
The Little Disturbances of Man by Grace Paley
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWith a sure and humorous touch, Grace Paley explores the "little disturbances" that lie behind our everyday lives. Whether writing about sexy little girls, loving and bickering couples, angry suburbanites, frustrated job-seekers, or Jewish children performing a Christmas play, she captures the loneliness, poignancy, and humor of human experience with matchless style...Categorized as:
classics family literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary female-author -
![The Lover by A.B. Yehoshua, Philip Simpson]()
The Lover by A.B. Yehoshua, Philip Simpson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratings“Elusive, haunting.”— New York Times Book Review A husband’s search for his wife’s lover, lost amid the turbulence of the Yom Kippur War, is the heart of this dreamlike novel. Through five different perspectives, Yehoshua explores the realities and consequences of the affair and the search, laying bare deep-rooted tensions within family, between generations, between Jews and Arabs...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary fiction -
![In the Heart of the Heart of the Country and Other Stories by William H. Gass]()
In the Heart of the Heart of the Country and Other Stories by William H. Gass
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIN THIS SUITE of five short pieces -- one of the unqualified literary masterpieces of the American 1960s -- William Gass finds five beautiful forms in which to explore the signature theme of his fiction: the solitary soul’s poignant, conflicted, and doomed pursuit of love and community...Categorized as:
classics family literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction -
![Too Far to Go: The Maples Stories by John Updike]()
Too Far to Go: The Maples Stories by John Updike
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsStories that trace the decline and fall of a marriage, a history made up of the happiness of growing children and shared life, and the sadness of growing estrangement and the misunderstandings of love...Categorized as:
classics family literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook contemporary -
![A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow]()
A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAll about love, lust, and loneliness, the book introduces Vic Brown, a young working-class Yorkshireman. Vic is attracted to the beautiful but demanding Ingrid, and as their relationship grows and changes, he comes to terms the hard way with adult life and what it really means to love...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century book contemporary fiction literary -
![A Proper Marriage by Doris Lessing]()
A Proper Marriage by Doris Lessing
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsOne of Doris Lessing's most important novels -- here beautifully repackaged This is the second volume in Doris Lessing's renowned quartet of novels tracing the life of Martha Quest from her childhood in Africa to an imagined post-nuclear Britain. A Proper Marriage sees twenty-something Martha beginning to realise that her marriage has been a terrible mistake...
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