Books like 'An Instant in the Wind'
Readers who enjoyed An Instant in the Wind by André P. Brink also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Rated: 4.47 of 5 stars · 72 ratingsGhana, eighteenth century: two half sisters are born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the very same castle, and sold into slavery...Categorized as:
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Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsWhen he was a boy in Henning, Tennessee, Alex Haley's grandmother used to tell him stories about their family—stories that went back to her grandparents, and their grandparents, down through the generations all the way to a man she called "the African...Categorized as:
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Martin Eden by Jack London
Rated: 4.46 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsThe semiautobiographical Martin Eden is the most vital and original character Jack London ever created. Set in San Francisco, this is the story of Martin Eden, an impoverished seaman who pursues, obsessively and aggressively, dreams of education and literary fame... -
Broken Angels by Gemma Liviero
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA Nazi doctor. A Jewish rebel. A little girl. Each one will fight for freedom—or die trying. Imprisoned in the Lodz Ghetto, Elsi discovers her mother’s desperate attempt to end her pregnancy and comes face-to-face with the impossibility of their situation. Risking her own life, Elsi joins a resistance group to sabotage the regime...Categorized as:
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They Burn Thistles by Yaşar Kemal
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis is the story of a bitter war between the poor Turkish peasants of the Taurus Mountains and the Aghas who covet their land. Ali Safa is determined to take possession of the village of Vayvay but its inhabitants will not sell. Then one villager weakens, prepared to part with his land in return for the Agha's best stallion...Categorized as:
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To Live by Yu Hua, 余华
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFrom the author of Brothers and China in Ten Words this celebrated contemporary classic of Chinese literature was also adapted for film by Zhang Yimou. This searing novel, originally banned in China but later named one of that nation's most influential books, portrays one man's transformation from the spoiled son of a landlord to a kindhearted peasant...Categorized as:
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Take What You Can Carry by Gian Sardar
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsAn aspiring photographer follows her dreams and faces her fears in a poignant novel about finding beauty, promise, and love amid the chaos of war-torn Kurdistan.It’s 1979. Olivia Murray, a secretary at a Los Angeles newspaper, is determined to become a photojournalist and make a difference with her work... -
The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsHaunted all her life by feelings of terror and emptiness, forty-nine-year-old Urania Cabral returns to her native Dominican Republic - and finds herself reliving the events of 1961, when the capital was still called Trujillo City and one old man terrorized a nation of three million people...Categorized as:
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Centennial by James A. Michener
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 31 ratings"Michener is America's best writer, and he proves it once again in CENTENNIAL."THE PITTSBURGH PRESSA stunning panorama of the West, CENTENNIAL is an enthralling celebration of our country, brimming with the glory and the greatness of the American past that only bestselling author James Michener could bring to stunning life...Categorized as:
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Child of All Nations by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn Child of All Nations, the reader is immediately swept up by a story that is profoundly feminist, devastatingly anticolonialist—and full of heartbreak, suspense, love, and fury. Pramoedya immerses the reader in a world that is astonishing in its vividness: the cultural whirlpool that was the Dutch East Indies of the 1890s...Categorized as:
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Footsteps by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAs the world moves into the twentieth century, Minke, one of the few European-educated Javanese, optimistically starts a new life in a new town: Betawi. With his enrollment in medical school and the opportunity to meet new people, there is every reason to believe that he can leave behind the tragedies of the past...Categorized as:
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Hawaii by James A. Michener
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsAn alternate cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.Pulitzer Prize–winning author James A. Michener brings Hawaii’s epic history vividly to life in a classic saga that has captivated readers since its initial publication in 1959...Categorized as:
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House of Glass by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWith House Of Glass comes the final chapter of Pramoedya's epic quartet, set in the Dutch East Indies at the turn of the century. A novel of heroism, passion, and betrayal, it provides a spectacular conclusion to a series hailed as one of the great works of modern literature...Categorized as:
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Circles in a Forest by Dalene Matthee
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe Knysna Forest: a primal world of strange beauty and hidden dangers, of secrets shrouded beneath the canopy of towering trees, where, for centuries, the only sounds were the songs of birds and the trumpeting of the magnificent elephants.... until man arrived to claim for himself the rare wood of the trees, and the rarer ivory of the elephants' tusks...Categorized as:
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Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA stunning tour de force following three fierce, unforgettable Southern women in the years leading up to the Great DepressionIt's 1924 South Carolina and the region is still recovering from the infamous boll weevil infestation that devastated the land and the economy...Categorized as:
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While Paris Slept by Ruth Druart
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA family's love is tested when heroes-turned-criminals are forced to make the hardest decisions of their lives in this unforgettably moving story of love, resistance, and the lasting consequences of the Second World War. After. Santa Cruz, California, 1953. Jean-Luc and Charlotte Beauchamps have left their war-torn memories of Paris behind to live a quiet life in America with their son, Sam...Categorized as:
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Palace of Desire by Naguib Mahfouz
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThe sensual and provocative second volume in the Cairo Trilogy, Palace Of Desire follows the Al Jawad family into the awakening world of the 1920's and the sometimes violent clash between Islamic ideals, personal dreams and modern realities...Categorized as:
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The Day of the Scorpion by Paul Scott, Richard Brown
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe second novel in The Raj Quartet: the arrest by British police of Mohammed Ali Kasim, who is known to sympathise with the Quit India movement, signifies a further deterioration in Anglo-India relations. For families such as the Laytons, who have lived and served in India for generations, the immediate social and political realities are both disturbing and tragic...Categorized as:
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If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsPrimo Levi was among the greatest witnesses to twentieth-century atrocity. In this gripping novel, based on a true story, he reveals the extraordinary lives of the Russian, Polish and Jewish partisans trapped behind enemy lines during the Second World War...Categorized as:
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Tuareg by Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe Tuaregs are the true sons of the desert. They can survive in the harshest of conditions like nobody else. The noble inmouchar Gacel Sayah, is the master of a large extension of the desert. One day, two fugitives arrive from the north and Gacel, following his ancient and sacred hospitality laws, gives them shelter...Categorized as:
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Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz, Naguib Mahfouz
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThis is a sweeping and evocative portrait of both a family and a country struggling to move toward independence in a society that has resisted change for centuries. Set against the backdrop of Britain's occupation of Egypt immediately after World War I, Palace Walk introduces us to the Al Jawad family...Categorized as:
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The Memory of Us by Camille Di Maio
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsJulianne Westcott was living the kind of life that other Protestant girls in prewar Liverpool could only dream about: old money, silk ball gowns, and prominent young men lining up to escort her. But when she learns of a blind-and-deaf brother, institutionalized since birth, the illusion of her perfect life and family shatters around her...Categorized as:
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Selected Stories by O. Henry
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratings"Selected Stories of O. Henry," by O. Henry, is part of the "Barnes & Noble Classics"" "series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras...Categorized as:
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My Mother's Secret by J.L. Witterick
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA novel based on a true story, a mother and daughter risk their lives to provide shelter to two families and a German soldier--all unbeknownst to each other--in a tiny two-room house in Sokal, Poland, during the Nazi invasion...Categorized as:
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The Great Swindle by Pierre Lemaitre
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsOctober 1918: the war on the Western Front is all but over. Desperate for one last chance of promotion, the ambitious Lieutenant Henri d'Aulnay Pradelle sends two scouts over the top, and secretly shoots them in the back to incite his men to heroic action once more... -
The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway by Ernest Hemingway, John Hemingway
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsTHE ONLY COMPLETE COLLECTION BY THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR In this definitive collection of Ernest Hemingway's short stories, readers will delight in the author's most beloved classics such as "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "Hills Like White Elephants," and "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and will discover seven new tales published for the first time in this collection...Categorized as:
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Anywhere But Home: A novel by Daniel Speck, Jaime McGill
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe English-language debut of the acclaimed international bestseller—Anywhere but Home crosses continents, cultures, and generations to tell a sweeping story of self-discovery, finding your own place in a new world, and the revelatory mysteries of being a family.Milan, 2014...Categorized as:
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The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe Young Lions is a vivid and classic novel that portrays the experiences of ordinary soldiers fighting World War II. Told from the points of view of a perceptive young Nazi, a jaded American film producer, and a shy Jewish boy just married to the love of his life, Shaw conveys, as no other novelist has since, the scope, confusion, and complexity of war...Categorized as:
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The Inhabited Woman by Gioconda Belli, Margaret Randall
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsLavinia is The Inhabited Woman: accomplished, independent, and fiercely modern. She is sheltered and self-involved, until the spirit of an Indian woman warrior enters her being, then she dares to join a revolutionary movement against a violent dictator and—through the power of love—finds the courage to act...Categorized as:
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A Single Swallow by Zhang Ling
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe eagerly awaited English translation of award-winning author Zhang Ling’s epic and intimate novel about the devastation of war, forgiveness, redemption, and the enduring power of love.On the day of the historic 1945 Jewel Voice Broadcast—in which Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender to the Allied forces, bringing an end to World War II—three men, flush with jubilation, made a pact...Categorized as:
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The Emigrants by Vilhelm Moberg
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsConsidered one of Sweden's greatest 20th-century writers, Vilhelm Moberg created Karl Oskar and Kristina Nilsson to portray the joys and tragedies of daily life for early Swedish pioneers in America. His consistently faithful depiction of these humble people's lives is a major strength of the Emigrant Novels...Categorized as:
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The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNnu Ego is a woman who gives all her energy, money and everything she has to raising her children - leaving her little time to make friends...Categorized as:
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What the Day Owes the Night by Yasmina Khadra
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratings'If a woman loves you, Younes, if she truly loves you, and if you have the wisdom to appreciate this great privilege, then there is no god to touch you.'As a young man Younes' life is irrevocably changed when he leaves his broken home for the vibrant, colourful and affluent European district of Río Salado... -
The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds by Selina Siak Chin Yoke
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFacing challenges in an increasingly colonial world, Chye Hoon, a rebellious young girl, must learn to embrace her mixed Malayan-Chinese identity as a Nyonya—and her destiny as a cook, rather than following her first dream of attending school like her brother... -
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The Third Daughter by Talia Carner
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom the author of Jerusalem Maiden comes a remarkable story, inspired by little-known true events, about the thousands of young Jewish women who were trafficked into prostitution at the turn of the 20th century, and whose subjugation helped build Buenos Aires.The turn of the 20th century finds fourteen-year-old Batya in the Russian countryside, fleeing with her family endless pogroms...Categorized as:
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The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsBased on the life of Paul Gauguin, The Moon and Sixpence is W. Somerset Maugham's ode to the powerful forces behind creative genius. Charles Strickland is a staid banker, a man of wealth and privilege. He is also a man possessed of an unquenchable desire to create art...Categorized as:
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Il giardino delle nebbie notturne by Tan Twan Eng
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsMalaya, 1949. After studying law at Cambrige and time spent helping to prosecute Japanese war criminals, Yun Ling Teoh seeks solace among the jungle fringed plantations of Northern Malaya where she grew up as a child... -
Two Thousand Seasons by Ayi Kwei Armah
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsTrans Atlantic and African slave trades are the subject of Armah's Two Thousand Seasons (1973) in which a pluralized communal voice speaks through the history of Africa, its wet and dry seasons, from a period of one thousand years. Arab and European oppressors are portrayed as "predators," "destroyers," and "zombies"...Categorized as:
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Selected Stories by O. Henry
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsO. Henry originated the humorous, energetic tale that ends with an ironic, even shocking twist. In "After Twenty Years," for example, two boys agree to meet at a particular spot exactly twenty years later. Both are faithful, but in the intervening years one boy has turned into a criminal, the other into a policeman...Categorized as:
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The Gamekeeper's Wife by Clare Flynn
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsMartha Walters is the widow of an abusive man. Christopher Shipley is the reluctant heir to a substantial family fortune. He has more money than he needs or wants – but responsibilities he can’t shirk. She has nothing, and now stands to lose even her home. They were never meant to fall in love …but sometimes you know the wrong person is the right one...Categorized as:
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Of Marriageable Age by Sharon Maas
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA spellbinding story of forbidden love, spanning three continents and three decades. Set against the Independence struggles of two British colonies, Of Marriageable Age is ultimately a story of personal triumph against a brutal fate, brought to life by a multicultural cast of characters:Savitri, intuitive and charismatic, grows up among the servants of a pre-war English household in the Raj...Categorized as:
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Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon by Jorge Amado
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsOne bright spring day in 1925, Gabriela arrives from the poverty-stricken backwoods of Brazil to the lively seaside port of Ilhéus amid a flock of filthy migrant workers. Though wearing rags and covered in dirt, she attracts the attention of Nacib, a cafe owner, who is in desperate need of a new cook. So dire is his situation that he hires the disheveled girl...Categorized as:
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The Ocean Liner by Marius Gabriel
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAs war engulfs Europe, 1,500 passengers risk everything to find a brighter future.Cousins Masha and Rachel Morgenstern board the luxury liner the SS Manhattan bound for New York, desperate to escape the concentration camps that claimed the rest of their family. America offers a safe haven, but to reach it they must survive a hazardous Atlantic crossing...Categorized as:
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The Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNo set of novels so richly recreates the last days of India under British rule--"two nations locked in an imperial embrace"--as Paul Scott's historical tour de force, " The Raj Quartet." "The Jewel in the Crown" opens in 1942 as the British fear both Japanese invasion and Indian demands for independence...Categorized as:
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Paper Wife by Laila Ibrahim
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsFrom the bestselling author of Yellow Crocus comes a heart-wrenching story about finding strength in a new world. Southern China, 1923. Desperate to secure her future, Mei Ling’s parents arrange a marriage to a widower in California. To enter the country, she must pretend to be her husband’s first wife—a paper wife.On the perilous voyage, Mei Ling takes an orphan girl named Siew under her wing...Categorized as:
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The End of the Hunt by Thomas Flanagan
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSet in Ireland at the time of the Troubles, during the watershed year of 1919, Thomas Flanagan's epic The End of the Hunt chronicles the years following World War I, in which the British attempted to put down once and for all the centuries-old dream of an independent Ireland...Categorized as:
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Lies Told in Silence by M.K. Tod
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn May 1914, Helene Noisette’s father believes war is imminent. Convinced Germany will head straight for Paris, he sends his wife, daughter, mother and younger son to Beaufort, a small village in northern France. But when war erupts two months later, the German army invades neutral Belgium, sweeping south towards Paris...Categorized as:
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Island of Shattered Dreams by Chantal T. Spitz
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFinally in English, Island of Shattered Dreams is the first ever novel by an indigenous Tahitian writer. In a lyrical and immensely moving style, this book combines a family saga and a doomed love story, set against the background of French Polynesia in the period leading up to the first nuclear tests...Categorized as:
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Queen of Clubs by Beezy Marsh
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsLondon, 1957: After rising up against gangland’s queen, Alice Diamond, formerly downtrodden Nell is living the perfect life of crime. Far from the East End slums where she was raised, she’s now an accomplished professional thief by day—lifting luxury goods from high-end department stores—and a glamorous nightclub owner after dark... -
The Bridge of Beyond by Simone Schwarz-Bart
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThis is an intoxicating tale of love and wonder, mothers and daughters, spiritual values and the grim legacy of slavery on the French Antillean island of Guadeloupe. Here long-suffering Telumee tells her life story and tells us about the proud line of Lougandor women she continues to draw strength from...Categorized as:
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