Books like 'Jottings under Lamplight'
Readers who enjoyed Jottings under Lamplight by Lu Xun & Eileen Cheng also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical politics literary-fiction
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I Am Rome by Santiago Posteguillo
Rated: 4.56 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe runaway international bestseller--part sweeping historical epic, part legal thriller--following the trial that shaped the life of the young Julius Caesar and gave root to an immortal legacy.Every legend has a beginning.Rome, 77 B.C... -
Silva Rerum II by Kristina Sabaliauskaitė
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsRomāna darbība notiek no 1707. līdz 1710.gadam. Karš, mēris, bads, nesamērīga greznība un nāvīgs izsalkums, zviedru un krievu karavīri, jūdu ārsti, holandiešu kāršu spēlmaņi, turku konkubīnes, franču dāmas, spītīgi žemaiši un ironiski viļņieši, bezvārda mūks, kurš apglabājis vairāk nekā divdesmit tūkstošus mēra upuru, un, protams, vēl viena bajāru Norvaišu dzimtas paaudze... -
Sarah and Solomon: Only A Stone Should Be Alone by Roberta Kagan
Rated: 4.60 of 5 stars · 10 ratings“…Fathers and Give me your children!” – Chaim RumkowskiIt is September 1942, and the already battered occupants of the Lodz Ghetto have just been dealt another horrendous blow from Hitler’s iron fist. They must surrender their sick, elderly, and children for ‘deportation... -
The Lanterns of the King of Galilee: A Novel of 18th-Century Palestine by Ibrahim Nasrallah
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn eighteenth-century Palestine, on the shores of Galilee's Lake Tiberias, visionary political and military leader Daher al-Umar al-Zaydani undertakes a journey toward the greatest aim anyone could hope to achieve in his day: the establishment of an autonomous Arab state...Categorized as:
literary-fiction politics adult audiobook book fiction historical historical-fiction -
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يسمعون حسيسها by أيمن العتوم
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsخلف الوادي انتشرت أشجار هرمة . إلا انها ظلت خضراء على طول عمرها الذي تجاوز مئات السنين . -
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:
politics literary-fiction fiction historical-fiction classics historical family 20th-century -
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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... -
Erin's Child by Sheelagh Kelly
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFamily ties have united the Feeneys through famine and poverty, but can they withstand success? It is 1875 and the Feeneys have left the squalor of York’s slums behind them. Yet all is not well. Patrick remains a man of simple tastes, increasingly out of touch with Thomasin’s ambition to expand her business empire still further across Yorkshire... -
Eclipse of the Sun by Michael D. O'Brien
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn this fast-paced, reflective novel, (the third in a trilogy following Strangers and Sojourners and Plague Journal) Michael O'Brien presents the dramatic tale of a family that finds itself in the path of a totalitarian government... -
Before Herring Cove Road: Ruth Goldman and the Nincompoop by Michael Kroft
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsTO BE RELEASED VALENTINE'S DAY, 2017 The Amusing and Heartwarming Prequel to the Family Saga Series, Herring Cove Road With her mother's death two years before, her father's recent marriage to a woman she doesn't get along with, and then finding herself engaged to a man she isn't even sure she loves, Ruth Goldman has decided to take a year off to discover what she wants in life... -
Noontime in Yenisehir by Sevgi Soysal
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSeemingly disparate lives are brought together in a clever, prism-like plot in this award-winning novel. The story is based on three people—Ali, Dogan, and Olcay—and vividly depicts the struggle between the older generation who were content with the new (post-Ottoman) Turkey and who are disturbed by changes sought and brought on by the rebellious young generation... -
So Long: Stories 1987-1992 by Lucia Berlin
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsTwenty-three stories from a widely recognized master. Each will resonate, as questions of the human condition always do, in the heart of the reader. Lucia Berlin is widely recognized as a master of the short story... -
Tread Softly on My Dreams by Gretta Curran Browne
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Emmets are Protestants, belonging to the elite society of Ireland’s ruling class. Born in 1778, Robert Emmet, the youngest son of the State Physician of Ireland, has grown up in the heart of a prosperous and loving family, one of the most respected in Dublin city. From his parents he acquired a deep love of Ireland and a commitment to justice... -
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Fortunata and Jacinta by Benito Pérez Galdós, Agnes Moncy Gullón
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsCapturing a ninteenth-century Spanish world of political tumult and personal obsession, Benito Pérez Galdós's Fortunata and Jacinta tells of two women who love the same man unfailingly—one as his mistress, the other as his wife... -
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:
politics literary-fiction historical-fiction fiction historical war 20th-century audiobook -
The Twilight Zone by Nona Fernández
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAn engrossing, incantatory novel about the legacy of historical crimes by the author of Space InvadersIt is 1984 in Chile, in the middle of the Pinochet dictatorship. A member of the secret police walks into the office of a dissident magazine and finds a reporter, who records his testimony... -
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... -
The Neighbors by Ahmad Mahmoud
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAhmad Mahmoud sets The Neighbors against the backdrop of the oil nationalization crisis that gripped Iran in the early 1950s...Categorized as:
literary-fiction politics adult audiobook book fiction historical historical-fiction -
Success by Lion Feuchtwanger
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn enthralling roman à clé depicting the rise of Nazi ideology in Germany. Martin Krüger, a museum director in Munich, has become quite unpopular and some people would like to be rid of him. Consequently, the lawsuit against him does not turn out to his favor. However, his friends keep fighting to prove his innocence. "The novel Success is more than a 'documentation of Bavaria... -
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 Death Ship by B. Traven
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe Death Ship tells the story of an American sailor, stateless and penniless because he has lost his passport, who is harassed by police and hounded across Europe until he finds an 'illegal' job shoveling coal in the hold of a steamer bound for destruction.The Death Ship is the first of B... -
The Trench by عبد الرحمن منيف
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsMunif sets this second volume of his critically acclaimed Cities of Salt trilogy in a Middle Eastern kingdom during the 1950s... -
Manto: Selected Stories by Saadat Hasan Manto
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratings...Categorized as:
literary-fiction politics fiction classics anthologies drama 20th-century historical -
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Tamas by Bhisham Sahni
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsClassic novel on partition, based on riots in 1947.The book is about the exodus of a Sikh and Hindu family to India, in the backdrop of riot-stricken Pakistan, at the time of Partition of India in 1947. It shows a gruesome side of politics, and the compassionate side of humanity that survives any carnage...Categorized as:
politics literary-fiction fiction historical-fiction classics religion historical spirituality -
News from the Empire by Fernando del Paso
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsOne of the acknowledged masterpieces of Mexican literature, Fernando del Paso's News from the Empire is a powerful and encyclopedic novel of the tragic lives of Maximilian and his wife, Carlota, the short-lived Emperor and Empress of Mexico...Categorized as:
literary-fiction politics historical-fiction fiction historical 20th-century book adult -
Mandariinit I by Simone de Beauvoir
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn her most famous novel, Simone de Beauvoir does not flinch in her look at Parisian intellectual society at the end of World War II. Drawing on those surrounding her---Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Arthur Koestler---and her passionate love affair with Nelson Algren, Beauvoir dissects the emotional and philosophical currents of her time... -
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... -
Vladimir Nabokov: Novels 1955–1962 by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThis Library of America volume is the second of three volumes that contain the most authoritative versions of the English works of the brilliant Russian émigré, Vladimir Nabokov.Lolita (1955), Nabokov’s single most famous work, is one of the most controversial and widely read books of its time...Categorized as:
literary-fiction politics fiction classics humor 20th-century psychological historical -
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:
literary-fiction politics 20th-century adult book fiction historical historical-fiction -
The Four Books by Yan Lianke
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom the Franz Kafka Prize–winning author of Lenin’s Kiss, a “stupendous and unforgettable” novel of Mao’s China (The Times, London). In the ninety-ninth district of a re-education compound, freethinking artists and academics are detained to strengthen their loyalty to Communist ideologies...Categorized as:
literary-fiction politics fiction historical-fiction historical 21st-century humor satire -
Eating Fire and Drinking Water by Arlene J. Chai
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratings"I was someone hungry for stories; more specifically, I was someone who craved after facts. I was, you see, a person with no history. Lacking this, I developed a curiosity about other's people's stories. . . ."Clara Perez is a reporter on a small South seas island. An orphan raised by nuns, she is a young woman with origins shrouded in mystery...Categorized as:
literary-fiction politics adult anthologies classics female-author fiction historical -
Tempest at Dawn by James D. Best
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAs featured on The Glenn Beck Show . Tempest at Dawn is on the Glenn Beck Reading List. The United States is on the brink of total collapse. The military has been reduced to near extinction, economic turmoil saps hope, and anarchy threatens as world powers hover like vultures, eager to devour the remains... -
Thank You, Mr. Nixon by Gish Jen
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn her first collection of stories since the acclaimed Who's Irish?, the beloved author of The Resisters refracts the fifty years since the opening of China through the lives of ordinary people. Beginning with a cheery, kindly letter penned by a Chinese girl in heaven to "poor Mr. Nixon" in hell, Gish Jen embarks on an eleven-story journey through U.S...Categorized as:
literary-fiction politics fiction historical-fiction audiobook historical anthologies poc-author -
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Without a Glimmer of Remorse by Pino Cacucci
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA fascinating dramatized fiction of the life and times of Jules Bonnot, his ‘gang’, and associates, the individualist anarchists of the time, including the young Victor Serge... -
人面桃花 (江南三部曲) / Ren mian tao hua [Peach Blossom Beauty] by Ge Fei, 格非
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsPeach Blossom Beauty won the 9th Mao Dun Literary Prize in 2015. This is the first of the "Face and Peach Blossom" trilogy. It is about a legend life of a village girl called Xiu Mi. It is an immediate hit after publishment. It combines the modern spirits with the traditional culture...Categorized as:
literary-fiction politics adult anthologies dystopia fiction historical historical-fiction -
Spain, Take This Chalice from Me and Other Poems: Parallel Text Edition (Penguin Classics) by César Vallejo
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA major new bilingual edition of the Peruvian poet's workCesar Vallejo is one of the best-known Latin American poets of the twentieth century. Challenging, intense, and difficult to translate, Vallejo's work has often been overshadowed by his fervent endorsement of communism...Categorized as:
literary-fiction politics classics 20th-century anthropomorphism fiction anthologies historical -
The Players by Minette Walters
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA gripping tale of compassion, imposture, trickery and surprising alliances set against the backdrop of The Bloody Assizes, from the bestselling author of The Last Hours and The Swift and the Harrier.The much-anticipated sequel to The Swift and The HarrierEngland, 1685...Categorized as:
politics literary-fiction historical-fiction historical fiction audiobook early-modern crime -
Stories of Mr. Keuner by Bertolt Brecht
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsBertolt Brecht's Stories of Mr. Keuner is a collection of fables, aphorisms, and comments on politics, everyday life, and exile. From 1930 til his death in 1956, Brecht penned these ironic portraits of his times as he was "changing countries more often than shoes...Categorized as:
literary-fiction politics 20th-century adult anthologies classics fiction historical -
The House of Hunger by Dambudzo Marechera
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsJoint winner of The Guardian Fiction Prize, this book is a collection of stories about growing up in Rhodesia... -
Waiting for an Angel by Helon Habila
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsLomba is a young journalist living under military rule in Lagos, Nigeria, the most dangerous city in the world. His mind is full of soul music and girls and the lyric novel he is writing. But his roommate is brutally attacked by soldiers; his first love is forced to marry a wealthy old man; and his neighbors on Poverty Street are planning a demonstration that is bound to incite riot and arrests...Categorized as:
literary-fiction politics adult book fiction historical historical-fiction poc-author -
The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai by Wang Anyi, Yvonne André
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsSet in post-World War II Shanghai, "The Song of Everlasting Sorrow" follows the adventures of Wang Qiyao, a girl born of the "longtong," the crowded, labyrinthine alleys of Shanghai's working-class neighborhoods.Infatuated with the glitz and glamour of 1940s Hollywood, Wang Qiyao seeks fame in the Miss Shanghai beauty pageant, and this fleeting moment of stardom becomes the pinnacle of her life... -
These Dreams of You by Steve Erickson
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsOne November night in a canyon outside L.A., Zan Nordhoc-a failed novelist turned pirate radio DJ-sits before the television with his small, adopted black daughter, watching the election of his country's first black president. In the nova of this historic moment, with an economic recession threatening their home, Zan, his wife and their son set out to solve the enigma of the little girl's life... -
The Splendor Before the Dark by Margaret George
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAscending to the throne was only the beginning... Now Margaret George, the author of The Confessions of Young Nero, weaves a web of politics and passion, as ancient Rome's most infamous emperor cements his place in history.With the beautiful and cunning Poppaea at his side, Nero Augustus commands the Roman empire, ushering in an unprecedented era of artistic and cultural splendor... -
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Mi petición de más espacio by John Hersey
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsUna calle en New Haven. Una fila de personas, cuadras de largo, más apretujadas que los subterráneos de las horas pico de los buenos viejos tiempos.Poynter ha estado en la línea desde antes del amanecer, al igual que miles de personas más, apretujadas, esperando su turno en la ventana para presentar sus peticiones individuales... -
The Last Man in Europe by Dennis Glover
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsApril, 1947. In a run-down farmhouse on a remote Scottish island, George Orwell begins his last and greatest work: Nineteen Eighty-Four...Categorized as:
politics literary-fiction fiction historical-fiction historical 20th-century 21st-century book -
Jews Without Money by Michael Gold
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAs a writer and political activist in early-twentieth-century America, Michael Gold was an important presence on the American cultural scene for more than three decades. Beginning in the 1920s his was a powerful journalistic voice for social change and human rights, and Jews Without Money--the author's only novel--is a passionate record of the times...Categorized as:
literary-fiction politics fiction historical-fiction classics historical university spirituality -
Parallel Stories by Péter Nádas
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA New York Times Notable Book for 2011 In 1989, the year the Wall came down, a university student in Berlin on his morning run finds a corpse on a park bench and alerts the authorities. This scene opens a novel of extraordinary scope and depth, a masterwork that traces the fate of myriad Europeans―Hungarians, Jews, Germans, Gypsies―across the treacherous years of the mid-twentieth century... -
The Accordionist's Son by Bernardo Atxaga
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA celebrated international author, listed among the "21 top writers for the 21st century" (The Observer, U.K... -
The Gypsy Goddess by Meena Kandasamy
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsTamil Nadu, 1968. Landlords rule over a feudal system that forces peasants to break their backs in the fields or be punished. As a small spark of defiance begins to spread among communities, the landlords vow to break them; party organizers suffer grisly deaths and the flow of food into the marketplaces dries up. But it only strengthens the villagers' resistance...
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