Books like 'Old Baggage'
Readers who enjoyed Old Baggage by Lissa Evans also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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New Arrivals at Mulberry Lane: Full of family, friends and foes! by Rosie Clarke
Rated: 4.58 of 5 stars · 12 ratings1943, Mulberry Lane, London. In the midst of another bleak winter, life is hard for the residents of The Lane. When Rose Merchant arrives at Mulberry Lane, she is carrying a secret that haunts her...Categorized as:
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A Man by Oriana Fallaci
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"What's the point anyway — Of suffering, dying? It teaches us to live, boy. A man who does not struggle does not live, he survives." (quote from the book)The book is a pseudo-biography about Alexandros Panagoulis written in the form of a novel. Fallaci had an intense romantic relationship with Panagoulis...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction politics 20th-century adult book classics fiction -
The Spoon Stealer by Lesley Crewe
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBorn into a basket of clean sheets—ruining a perfectly good load of laundry—Emmeline never quite fit in on her family's rural Nova Scotian farm. After suffering multiple losses in the First World War, her family became so heavy with grief, toxicity, and mental illness that Emmeline felt their weight smothering her. And so, she fled across the Atlantic and built her life in England... -
The Darkest Canyon: Book Two in A Holocaust Story Series by Roberta Kagan
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNazi Germany. Gretchen Schmidt has a secret life. She is in love with a married Jewish man. She is hiding him while his wife is posing as an Aryan woman. Her best friend Hilde, who unbeknownst to Gretchen is a sociopath, is working as a guard at Ravensbruck concentration camp... -
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Kinfolk by Pearl S. Buck
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsKinfolk is the story of a Chinese family. Dr. Liang moves to America in search of a better life, but his children long to return to China. Each responds to their new life in China differently, providing rich insight into the struggles between Eastern and Western culture, and the differences between generations...Categorized as:
historical-fiction politics literary-fiction fiction classics historical family 20th-century -
A Mind at Peace by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsLibrarian note: Alternate cover edition of: 9780976395096Set on the eve of World War II, A Mind at Peace captures the anxieties of a Turkish family facing the difficult reality entrenched in the early republic, founded on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in 1923...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction politics 20th-century adult book classics fiction -
A Christmas Memory, One Christmas, & The Thanksgiving Visitor by Truman Capote
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsTaking its place next to Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood on the Modern Library bookshelf is this new and original edition of Capote's most famous short stories: "A Christmas Memory, " "One Christmas, " and "The Thanksgiving Visitor." All three stories are distinguished by Capote's delicate interplay of childhood sensibility and recollective vision, evoking a strong sense of place...Categorized as:
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A Letter From Pearl Harbor by Anna Stuart
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNinety-eight-year-old Ginny McAllister’s last wish is for her granddaughter to complete a treasure hunt containing clues to her past. Clues that reveal her life as one of the first female pilots at Pearl Harbor, and a devastating World War Two secret...Categorized as:
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The Secret Diary by Anna Stuart
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsTwo women. One house. And a secret that spans decades…The past merges with the present in an unforgettable, poignant story of love, loss and courage in this beautifully written story set between World War Two and the present day.She steps into the room and it’s like going back in time.Catapulting her right into the heart of the 1940s.The spindle of the record player frozen and ready to play...Categorized as:
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Fortress Besieged by Qian Zhongshu
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFortress Besieged is a classic of world literature, a masterpiece of parodic fiction that plays with Western literary traditions, philosophy and middle class Chinese society in the Republican era. The title is taken from an old French proverb, "Marriage is like a fortress besieged: those who are outside want to get in, and those who are inside want to get out"... -
A Foreign Woman by Sergei Dovlatov, Antonina W. Bouis
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAfter leaving the Soviet Union following a series of unsatisfying relationships, Marusya Tatarovich quickly becomes the center of the Russian community in Queens, New York, but finds that it mirrors in many ways the community she left...Categorized as:
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The Lion in Winter by James Goldman
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsInsecure siblings fighting for their parents’ attention; bickering spouses who can’t stand to be together or apart; adultery and sexual experimentation; even the struggle to balance work and family: These are themes as much at home in our time as they were in the twelfth century. In James Goldman’s classic play The Lion in Winter, domestic turmoil rises to an art form...Categorized as:
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The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the nationally bestselling author of the “powerful, heartbreaking” (Shelf Awareness) The Stationery Shop, a heartfelt, epic new novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran.In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown... -
The Girl With the Yellow Star by Natalie Meg Evans
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratings“We have to wear the yellow star! It’s the rules!” the little girl sobs. But her mother presses a desperate finger to her mouth. “Darling, today is different. We are going to leave our stars behind and go on a long journey. We must be very, very quiet, and pray nobody finds us until we are safe in England…”Cornwall, England, 1943...Categorized as:
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Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsBertie Wooster vows that nothing will induce him to return to Totleigh Towers, lair of former magistrate Sir Watkyn Bassett. Apart from Sir Watkyn himself, the place is infested with his ghastly daughter Madeline and her admirer, would-be dictator Roderick Spode. But when his old friend 'Stinker' Pinker asks for Bertie's help, there is nothing for it but to buckle down and go there...Categorized as:
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The Garden of the Departed Cats by Bilge Karasu
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn an ancient Mediterranean city, a tradition is maintained: every ten years an archaic game of human chess is staged, the players (visitors versus locals) bearing weapons. This archaic game, the central event of The Garden of the Departed Cats, may prove as fatal as the deadly attraction our narrator feels for the local man who is the Vizier, or Captain, of the home team...Categorized as:
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The Spitfire Girl in the Skies: A heartwarming and romantic WW2 saga by Fenella J. Miller
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWith the men on the front line, courageous Ellie must do her bit for the war effort. It's 1939 and the threat of war hangs over the country... Flying instructor Ellie Simpson has grown up a tomboy. She's never had an interest in the latest fashions or finding a husband, her only passion is flying her beloved Tiger Moth... -
1921: The Great Novel of the Irish Civil War by Morgan Llywelyn
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Irish fight for independence is one of the most captivating tales of the twentieth century. Morgan Llywelyn, the acclaimed historical writer of books like Lion of Ireland, Bard and The Horse Goddess , is the writer born to bring this epic battle to life...Categorized as:
historical-fiction politics literary-fiction fiction historical war 20th-century audiobook -
The Little World of Don Camillo by Giovannino Guareschi
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis tragicomical stories, often politically or socially charged, mostly situated in a fictional village on the Po called Boscaccio, in the period immediately after World War II, paint a clear picture of the post-war Italy. In this period the Italian Communist Party is very strong, but the Second World War and fascism are still vividly remembered. Boscaccio has a communist mayor named Peppone...Categorized as:
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The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel by Isaac Babel
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFollowing the historic publication of Norton's The Complete Works of Isaac Babel in the fall of 2001, The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel appears as the most authoritative and complete edition of his fiction ever published in paperback...Categorized as:
historical-fiction humor literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies classics fiction -
The Gift of the Magi and Other Short Stories by O. Henry
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHere are sixteen of the best stories by one of America's most popular storytellers. For nearly a century, the work of O. Henry has delighted readers with its humor, irony and colorful, real-life settings. The writer's own life had more than a touch of color and irony...Categorized as:
historical-fiction humor literary-fiction 20th-century anthologies audiobook classics drama -
Missing Soluch by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPerhaps the most important work in modern Iranian literature, this starkly beautiful novel examines the trials of an impoverished woman and her children living in a remote village in Iran, after the unexplained disappearance of her husband, Soluch.Lyrical yet unsparing, the novel examines her life as she contends with the political corruption, authoritarianism, and poverty of the village...Categorized as:
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شرق المتوسط by عبد الرحمن منيف
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsهل يمكن أن ترمم إرادة انسان لم تعد تربطه بالحياة رابطة؟ أنا ذاك الإنسان. لا لست انساناً، السجن في أيامه الولى حاول أن يقتل جسدي. لم أكن أتصور أني أحتمل كل ما فعلوه، لكن احتملت. كانت إرادتي هي وحدها التي تتلقى الضربات، وتردها نظرات غاضبة وصمتاً. وظللت كذلك. لم أرهب، لم أتراجع: الماء البارد، ليكن. التعليق لمدة سبعة أيام، ليكن. التهديد بالقتل والرصاص حولي تناثر، ليكن. كانت ارادتي هي التي تقاوم... -
Almonds and Raisins by Maisie Mosco
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe first in a trilogy about a Jewish family who flee Eastern Europe in the early 20th century and settle in Manchester, England. In the cold world of Manchester in 1905 the family Sandberg found the good things of life scarce and the hardships bitter as the chill northern winds. Sarah, the mother. A born survivor stranded in a land of strangers by the vicious tides of persecution... -
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This Is How It Begins by Joan Dempsey
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratings“In a time when religious liberty is on trial, This Is How It Begins is an extraordinarily pertinent novel dripping in suspense and powerful scenes of political discourse . . . a must read . . .” —Foreword (starred review)A woman bearing a thorny secret. A man fighting for religious freedom. A battle neither saw coming. Massachusetts, 2009. Ludka Zeilonka is relishing her emeritus status... -
The Lost Sister of Fifth Avenue by Ella Carey
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNew York, 1938: Martha pulled the door of her Fifth Avenue apartment closed, her heart thumping, re-reading the telegram she’d been dreading. Her beloved sister Charlotte needed her help. She was alone in Paris, and the threat of Nazi invasion grew ever stronger. The time had come for Martha to make the bravest decision of her life. She needed to bring Charlotte home...Categorized as:
historical-fiction friendship literary-fiction ww2 urban family female-mc historical -
The Book of Devices by İhsan Oktay Anar
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratings"He had sought to be the agent of all forces and actions on the Earth, and thus, just as he had transformed iron ingot into a music box, so had he strived to transform the Earth and all it contained into a machine." Ihsan Oktay Anar's 1996 novella, "The Book of Devices," is a skeleton key to the ever-inventive author's fictional world set in the Ottoman times...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book fiction historical fantasy -
The Women of the Copper Country by Mary Doria Russell
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn July 1913, twenty-five-year-old Annie Clements had seen enough of the world to know that it was unfair. She’s spent her whole life in the copper-mining town of Calumet, Michigan where men risk their lives for meager salaries—and had barely enough to put food on the table and clothes on their backs...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction friendship politics fiction historical audiobook feminism -
Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck, Robert DeMott
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn Monterey, on the California coast, Sweet Thursday is what they call the day after Lousy Wednesday, which is one of those days that are just naturally bad...Categorized as:
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Buddies by Ethan Mordden
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"What unites us, all of us, surely is brotherhood, a sense that our friendships are historic, designed to hold Stonewall together," muses on character in Ethan Mordden's Buddies. This need for friendship, for nonerotic affection, for buddies, shines forth as an American obsession from Moby-Dick through Of Mice and Men to The Sting... -
The Last Hurrah by Edwin O'Connor
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsO'Connor's 1956 account of big-city politics, inspired by the career of longtime Boston Mayor James M. Curley, portrays its Irish-American political boss as a demagogue and a rogue who nonetheless deeply understands his constituents. The book was later made into a John Ford film staring Spencer Tracy... -
Father of Frankenstein by Christopher Bram
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThis is a novel by the author of Hold Tight... -
The Engineer of Human Souls by Josef Škvorecký
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Engineer of Human Souls is a labyrinthine comic novel that investigates the journey and plight of novelist Danny Smiricky, a Czech immigrant to Canada. As the novel begins, he is a professor of American literature at a college in Toronto... -
Old Herbaceous: A Novel of the Garden by Reginald Arkell
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsBack in print after fifty yearsOld Herbaceous is a classic British novel of the garden, with a title character as outsized and unforgettable as P. G. Wodehouse’s immortal butler, Jeeves... -
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Miracle of the Rose by Jean Genet
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis is the third of Genet's prose works to be published in the United States, following Our Lady of the Flowers (1963) and The Thief's Journal (1964). It is, however, Genet's second novel, having been written in La Santé and Tourelles prisons in 1943, directly after Our Lady of the Flowers...Categorized as:
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The Luck of the Bodkins by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsMonty Bodkin's wooing of Gertrude Butterwick on the R.M.S. Atlantic is not progressing as it should. And the cause of all the trouble is Miss Lotus Blossum, the brightest star in Hollywood's firmament. The easy camaraderie of Miss Blossom, coupled with the idea that Monty is the only person who can send the errant Ambrose back to her welcoming arms, is causing Mr Bodkin moments of acute distress...Categorized as:
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Where the Air Is Clear by Carlos Fuentes
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"Where the Air Is Clear," Carlos Fuentes's first novel, is an unsparing portrayal of Mexico City's upper class. Departing from a traditional linear narrative, Fuentes overlays Mexican myths onto contemporary settings, showing that even the rich and powerful must succumb to the indomitable spirit of Mexico, which undermines all institutions and shapes all destinies...Categorized as:
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Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsADVISE AND CONSENT is a study of political animals in their natural habitat and is universally recognized as THE Washington novel. It begins with Senate confirmation hearings for a liberal Secretary of State and concludes two weeks later, after debate and controversy have exploded this issue into a major crisis...Categorized as:
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Thrush Green by Miss Read
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsMiss Read's charming chronicles of small-town life have achieved an almost legendary popularity worldwide by offering a welcome return to a gentler time and "wit, humor, and wisdom in equal measure" (Cleveland Plain Dealer). This volume introduces Thrush Green, the neighboring village to Fairacre: its blackthorn bushes, thatch-roofed cottages, enchanting landscape, and jumble sales...Categorized as:
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The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFirst published in 1935 and 1939, the two related novels, The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin, which make up The Berlin Stories are recognized today as classics of modern fiction...Categorized as:
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Leaving Cheyenne by Larry McMurtry
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Lonesome Dove Larry McMurtry comes the second novel about love and loss on the great plains of Texas. From 1920’s ranching to range cowboys and WWII grief, McMurtry is the undisputed father of the Western literary epic...Categorized as:
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Zayni Barakat by Gamal al-Ghitani, جمال الغيطاني
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratings"In the course of my long travels I have never seen a city so devastated. After a long time I ventured out into the streets. Death, cold and heavy, hung in the air. Walls have no value here, doors have been eliminated. No one is certain that they will see another day...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction politics 20th-century adult book fiction historical -
Under the Frog by Tibor Fischer
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsShortlisted for the Booker Prize, Under the Frog follows the adventures of two young Hungarian basketball players through the turbulent years between the end of World War II and the anti-Soviet uprising of 1956...Categorized as:
historical-fiction humor literary-fiction politics 20th-century action-adventure adult book -
The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin by Vladimir Voinovich, Владимир Войнович
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIvan Chonkin is a simple, bumbling peasant who has been drafted into the Red Army. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, he is sent to an obscure village with one week's ration of canned meat and orders to guard a downed plane. Apparently forgotten by his unit, Chonkin resumes his life as a peasant and passes the war tending the village postmistress's garden...Categorized as:
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Like People in History by Felice Picano
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsTraces forty years in the life of two gay men who share a madcap but enduring relationship and a passion for a handsome Vietnam veteran, against the backdrop of gay urban culture from the fifties up to the present... -
Sacred Country by Rose Tremain
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAt the age of six, Mary Ward, the child of a poor farming family in Suffolk, has a revelation: she isn't Mary, she's a boy. So begins Mary's heroic struggle to change gender, while around her others also strive to find a place of safety and fulfilment in a savage and confusing world...Categorized as:
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The Farewell Symphony by Edmund White
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFollowing A Boy's Own Story (now a classic of American fiction) and his richly acclaimed The Beautiful Room Is Empty, here is the eagerly awaited final volume of Edmund White's groundbreaking autobiographical trilogy...Categorized as:
historical-fiction humor lgbtq literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies classics -
Freya by Anthony Quinn
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsLondon, May 1945. Freya Wyley, twenty, meets Nancy Holdaway, eighteen, amid the wild celebrations of VE Day, the prelude to a devoted and competitive friendship that will endure on and off for the next two decades...Categorized as:
friendship historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction politics 20th-century 21st-century adult -
A Tuscan Memory by Angela Petch
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn a tiny hamlet nestled in the Tuscan mountains, farmers gather after a hard day in the meadows, and children’s laughter rings across the square: but one little boy does not join in their play. Behind his deep brown eyes, hides a heartbreaking secret…Ninety years later...Categorized as:
historical-fiction friendship literary-fiction fiction historical ww2 family 20th-century -
Theophilus North by Thornton Wilder, Christopher Buckley
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe last of Thornton Wilder’s works published during his lifetime, Theophilus North is part autobiographical and part the imagined adventures of Wilder’s twin brother who died at birth. This edition features an updated afterword from Wilder’s nephew, Tappan Wilder, with illuminating material about the novelist, story and setting...Categorized as:
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