Books like 'Gem of the Ocean'
Readers who enjoyed Gem of the Ocean by August Wilson also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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The Fortress by Meša Selimović
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA novel on 18th century Sarajevo under Ottoman rule, featuring a soldier returned from the wars. A Muslim, he marries a Christian girl who supports him while he dabbles in politics, eventually leading a raid to rescue a friend from jail... -
O Continente - Volume I by Erico Verissimo
Rated: 4.57 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA vast sprawling period novel of the minor wars that wracked Brazil from the days when its European masters gambled with their colonists' affairs to the Civil Wars which turned family against family and set Republicans and Federalists at each others throats. Backgrounded by these wars, the story follows the history of the Terra-Cambaras, during 150 years, in the southern part of Brazil. The men . -
Shipyard Girls in Love by Nancy Revell
Rated: 4.58 of 5 stars · 12 ratings'the author is one to watch' Sun'A riveting read is just what this is in more ways than one.' The Northern Echo'I enjoyed The Shipyard Girls very much indeed . . -
The Ways of White Folks by Langston Hughes
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsOne of his best-known works, Hughes wrote The Ways of White Folks while living in Carmel, California. In it, he shares acrid and poignant stories of blacks colliding--sometimes humorously, but often tragically--with whites throughout the 1920s and 1930s...Categorized as:
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Rain of Gold by Victor Villaseñor
Rated: 4.49 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsThis is the Hispanic Roots, an all-American story of poverty, immigration, struggle and success. It focuses on three generations of Villasenor's kin, their spiritual and cultural roots back in Mexico, their immigration to California and their overcoming poverty, prejudice and economic exploitation... -
The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsLangston Hughes's first book of poetry, including the following classic, poignant and moving Proem, The Weary Blues, Jazzonia, Negro Dancers, The Cat And The Saxophone (2 A.M... -
Shipyard Girls at War by Nancy Revell
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 12 ratings1941: It takes strength to work on the docks, but the war demands all hands on deck and the women are doing their best to fill the gap. Rosie is flourishing in her role as head-welder while still keeping her double life a secret. But a dashing detective is forcing Rosie to choose between love and her duty... -
Żelazny kaganek by Димитър Талев
Rated: 4.37 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsPowieść przedstawia losy macedońskiego rodu Głauszewów. Akcja powieści rozpoczyna się w połowie lat 30. XIX w. Stojan Głauszew, zabiwszy psa, który należał do lokalnego wielmoży tureckiego, w obawie przed jego gniewem decyduje się na ucieczkę ze wsi. Osiada w pobliskim mieście Prespa, gdzie poznaje Sułtanę, kobietę zaradną, silną i energiczną... -
Short Stories by Anton Chekhov
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe thirty-four stories in this volume span Chekhov's creative career. They present a wide spectrum of comic and serious themes and a variety of techniques. (His short novels, available in another Norton volume, Seven Short Novels by Chekhov, have been omitted... -
Jubilee by Margaret Walker
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA 50th anniversary edition of Margaret Walker's best-selling classic with a foreword by Nikki Giovanni Jubilee tells the true story of Vyry, the child of a white plantation owner and one of his black slaves. Vyry bears witness to the South’s antebellum opulence and to its brutality, its wartime ruin, and the promises of Reconstruction... -
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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The Colours of Love by Rita Bradshaw
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsCan love survive when all is lost? England is at war, but nothing can dim land girl Esther Wynford's happiness at marrying the love of her life - fighter pilot Monty Grant. Their short honeymoon results in a baby, but on the birth of her daughter, Joy, Esther's world falls apart... -
A Royal Visit to Victory Street by Pam Howes
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom Amazon charts bestseller Pam Howes comes an emotional and uplifting saga about the power of family and a community trying to rebuild their lives after the terrible war that nearly destroyed everything…1956, Liverpool. With the shadow of the war looming over them and bomb craters littering the surrounding streets, hope feels far away for the residents of Victory Street... -
Life in the Tomb by Stratis Myrivilis, Στρατής Μυριβήλης
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratings"Life in the Tomb" a war novel written in journal form by a sergeant in the trenches, has been the single most successful and widely read serious work of fiction in Greece since its publication in serial form in 1923-1924, having sold more than 80,000 copies in book form despite its inclusion on the list of censored novels under both the Metaxas regime and the German occupation... -
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The Inseparable Twins by Anatoly Pristavkin, Michael Glenny
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsВ этот сборник А.Приставкина вошли повесть "Ночевала тучка золотая" и рассказы, написанные в разные годы. Но объединены они все одной общей темой - темой войны. Это суровое и тяжкое детство, это люди, спасшие из военного пожара целое поколение. Это размышления автора о раннем взрослении юных, о дружбе и товариществе, о любви к родной земле... -
Prokleta avlija by Ivo Andrić, Celia Hawkesworth
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsProkleta avlija/The Damned Yard (Description from Ivo Andrić Foundation website)The novel is written in 1954. Ćamil, a wealthy young man of Smyrna living in the last years of the Ottoman Empire, is fascinated by the story of Džem, ill-fated brother of the Sultan Bajazet, who ruled Turkey in the fifteenth century...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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Early Novels & Stories: Go Tell It on the Mountain / Giovanni’s Room / Another Country / Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratings“The civil rights struggle,” said The New York Times Book Review, “found eloquent expression in [Baldwin’s] novels. His historical importance is indisputable.” Here, in a Library of America volume edited by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, is the fiction that established James Baldwin’s reputation as a writer who fused unblinking realism and rare verbal eloquence... -
Midnight by Beverly Jenkins
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn a time of peril, she fears nothing—except the forbidden passions of her heart. In Boston, revolution is in the wind—yet none would ever suspect Faith Kingston of treason. But under cover of darkness, the beautiful daughter of a Tory tavern owner becomes the notorious spy “Lady Midnight,” passing valuable secrets to the rebels...Categorized as:
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An Invincible Memory by João Ubaldo Ribeiro
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA family saga spanning nearly 400 years, this absorbing epic novel lays bare the soul of the Brazilian nation. Whaling, war, macumba, slavery, murder, cannibalism and Brazil's struggle for independence add momentum to Ribeiro's lyrical, effusive, sonorous, serpentine prose laced with a touch of magic realism, something of a cross between Melville and Gabriel Garcia Marquez... -
Collected Short Stories: Volume 2 by W. Somerset Maugham
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis final classic collection reveals Somerset Maugham's unique talent for exposing and exploring the bitter realities of human relationships in tales of love, infidelity, passion and prejudice. The stories range from "The Lotus Eater" where a man envisions a life of bliss in the Mediterranean, to the astringent tales of "The Outstation" and "The Back of Beyond" in Malaya and South East Asia...Categorized as:
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Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA timeless classic of sleazy London life in the 1930s, a world of streets full of cruelty and kindness, comedy and pathos, where people emerge from cheap lodgings in Pimlico to pour out their passions, hopes and despair in pubs and bars... -
مرگ یزدگرد by Bahram Beyzaie
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsبهرام بیضایی (زاده ۵ دی ماه ۱۳۱۷ در تهران) کارگردان سینما، تئاتر، نمایشنامهنویس، فیلمنامهنویس و پژوهشگر ایرانی است. بیضایی علاوه بر کارگردانی و نمایشنامهنویسی در سینما عرصههای دیگری چون تدوین، ساخت عنوانبندی و تهیهکنندگی را هم تجربه کرده است. وی کارگردان برخی از بهترین و ماندگارترین آثار سینمای تاریخ ایران است... -
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Tumbling by Diane McKinney-Whetstone
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsDiane McKinney-Whetstone's lyrical first novel, Tumbling, vividly captures a tightly knit African-American neighborhood in South Philadelphia during the forties and fifties. Its central characters, Herbie and Noon, are a loving but unconventional couple whose marriage remains unconsummated for many years as Noon struggles to repossess her sexuality after a brutal attack in her past... -
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:
drama historical-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult book fiction historical -
Morte e Vida Severina e Outros Poemas Para Vozes by João Cabral de Melo Neto
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsColetânea de poemas - 'O rio' (1953), 'Morte e Vida Severina' (1954-55), 'Paisagens com Figuras' (1955) e 'Uma Faca sem Lâmina' (1955) - de João Cabral de Melo Neto publicados na década de 1950. Para Cabral, esta década foi crucial para a consolidação da linguagem que viria a refinar nos anos seguintes... -
The Lady With the Little Dog and Other Stories, 1896-1904 by Anton Chekhov
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn the final years of his prominent life, Chekhov had reached the height of his powers as a dramatist, and also produced some of the stories that rank among his masterpieces. The poignant 'The Lady with the Little Dog' and 'About Love' examine the nature of love outside of marriage - its romantic idealism and the fear of disillusionment... -
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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Katherine's Marriage by D.E. Stevenson
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsReaders who discovered Katherine Wentworth and Alec MacLaren in Katherine Wentworth will be delighted to learn more about this lively pair. Those who are meeting them for the first time will find that this romantic story stands independently and beautifully on its own. The story opens with the honeymoon of Katherine and Alec at Ardfalloch in the idyllic Scottish Highlands... -
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:
black-mc classics drama historical-fiction poc-mc 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Of Time and the River: A Legend of Man's Hunger in His Youth by Thomas Wolfe
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe sequel to Thomas Wolfe's remarkable first novel, Look Homeward, Angel, Of Time and the River is one of the great classics of American literature. The book chronicles the maturing of Wolfe's autobiographical character, Eugene Gant, in his desperate search for fulfillment, making his way from small-town North Carolina to the wider world of Harvard University, New York City, and Europe... -
Aurélien by Louis Aragon
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsDans cette chronique parisienne de l'entre-deux guerres, Aragon décrit la toute nouvelle société surréaliste. Aurélien, jeune homme sensible et oisif, fréquente les salons parisiens d'avant-garde, y côtoie les poètes, les actrices, les peintres qui ne sont autres que Picabia ou Cocteau... -
Assassins by Stephen Sondheim, John Weidman
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsEvoking a fraternity of political assassins and would-be assassins across a hundred years of our history, Sondheim and Weidman daringly examine success, failure and the questionable drive for power and celebrity in American society. "Dark, demented humor, as horrifying as it is hilarious... -
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A Different Drummer by William Melvin Kelley
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSet in a mythical backwater Southern town, A Different Drummer is the extraordinary story of Tucker Caliban, a quiet, determined descendant of an African chief who for no apparent reason destroys his farm and heads for parts unknown--setting off a mass exodus of the state's entire Black population...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:
black-mc classics drama historical-fiction poc-mc 20th-century action-adventure adult -
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2: The Romantic Period through the Twentieth Century by M.H. Abrams, Stephen Greenblatt
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFirmly grounded by the hallmark strengths of all Norton Anthologies--thorough and helpful introductory matter, judicious annotation, complete texts wherever possible--The Norton Anthology of English Literature has been revitalized in this Eighth Edition through the collaboration between six new editors and six seasoned ones... -
The Slave by Isaac Bashevis Singer
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFour years after the Chmielnicki massacres of the seventeenth century, Jacob, a slave and cowherd in a Polish village high in the mountains, falls in love with Wanda, his master's daughter. Even after he is ransomed, he finds he can't live without her, and the two escape together to a distant Jewish community... -
My Fair Lady by Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe ancient Greeks tell the legend of the sculptor Pygmalion, who created a statue of a woman of such surpassing beauty that he fell in love with his own creation. Then, Aphrodite, taking pity on this man whose love could not reach beyond the barrier of stone, brought the statue to life and gave her to Pygmalion as his bride... -
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:
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The Major Plays by Anton Chekhov, Rosamund Bartlett
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAnton ChekhovThe Major PlaysIvanov * The Sea Gull * Uncle Vanya * The Three Sisters * The Cherry Orchard“Let the things that happen onstage be just as complex and yet just as simple as they are in life,” Chekhov once declared. “For instance, people are having a meal, just having a meal, but at the same time, their happiness is being created, or their lives are being smashed up... -
O Homem Elefante by Bernard Pomerance
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe Elephant Man is based on the life of John Merrick, who lived in London during the latter part of the nineteenth century. A horribly deformed young man, who has been a freak attraction in traveling side shows, is found abandoned and helpless and is admitted for observation to Whitechapel, a prestigious London hospital... -
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:
historical-fiction poc-mc slavery 20th-century action-adventure adult book colonization -
Love and Honor by Leslie Arlen
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSaga of the Borodins, one of the families who for centuries steered the golden destiny of Russia, amid the fabled Court of the Tsars. The dynasty that rode high to the crest of power-only to reach the brink of a rebel-torn New Age. Prince Peter: the unbending heir to the tempest of change. Ilona: the heartstrong Princess, slave to a renegade passion... -
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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:
classics drama historical-fiction 20th-century action-adventure anthologies comedy fiction -
Jean-Christophe Volume I Dawn, Morning, Youth, Revolt by Romain Rolland
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThis collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them... -
The Rains Came by Louis Bromfield
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsHindus and Moslems, Brahmins and Untouchables, western missionaries and British colonial bureaucrats, the famous novelist brings to life the social conditions of the last decade of the British Raj. Basis of a 1939 movie featuring Myrna Loy and Tyrone Power... -
Love is Just a Word by Johannes Mario Simmel, Йоханес Марио Зимел
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThis is the story of Oliver and Verena, who fall in love and risk everything to keep each other.He is the son of a notorious German industrialist. She is the voluptuous, indiscreet wife of a wealthy and ruthless businessman.Apart they have been two lonely people. Half alive. Together, they are radiant... -
An Instant in the Wind by André P. Brink
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe year is 1749, when the Boers ruled South Africa. And so it has come to his Baas's final command to his Hottentot slave Adam, to flog his mother, because she refuses to prune the master's vineyard in order to attend her own beloved mother's funeral. And when he refuses to do so, and his Baas smashes his face with a piece of wood, Adam turns on him, and beats him almost to death... -
The City by Valerian Pidmohylny
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe City (Ukrainian: Місто) is an urban novel by Ukrainian writer Valerian Pidmohylny, published in 1928. Pidmohylny created the modern novel, which is focused on urban problems and touches upon philosophical questions of being. In this novel psyche of the characters is analyzed and the conflict takes place between people with different worldviews...
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