Books like 'Becket'
Readers who enjoyed Becket by Jean Anouilh & André Aciman 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... -
The Physician by Noah Gordon
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 45 ratingsIn the 11th century, Rob Cole left poor, disease-ridden London to make his way across the land, hustling, juggling, peddling cures to the sick—and discovering the mystical ways of healing. It was on his travels that he found his own very real gift for healing—a gift that urged him on to become a doctor...Categorized as:
british-isles classics drama england europe historical-fiction literary-fiction medieval -
The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsA glorious novel of the controversial Richard III - a monarch betrayed in life by his allies and betrayed in death by history...Categorized as:
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The Twisted Sword by Winston Graham
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe eleventh novel in the legendary Poldark saga. Cornwall, 1815: Demelza sees a horseman riding down the valley and senses disruption to the domestic contentment she has fought so hard to achieve. For Ross has little option but to accept the summons - and travel to Paris with his family, as an "observer" of the French armed forces...Categorized as:
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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...Categorized as:
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An American in Paris by Siobhan Curham
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWalking through Montmartre that morning was like the eerie calm right before a storm. The roads were deserted. We carried on, arm in arm, and then finally, we saw them. Columns and columns of soldiers, spreading through the streets like a toxic grey vapour. ‘You must write about this,’ he whispered to me. ‘You must write about the day freedom left Paris...Categorized as:
europe urban historical-fiction classics friendship literary-fiction western-central-europe france -
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... -
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker, Marion Meade
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe second revision in sixty years, this sublime collection ranges over the verse, stories, essays, and journalism of one of the twentieth century's most quotable authors.For this new twenty-first-century edition, devoted admirers can be sure to find their favorite verse and stories. But a variety of fresh material has also been added to create a fuller, more authentic picture of her life's work...Categorized as:
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The Beantown Girls by Jane Healey
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsAn Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestseller.A novel of love, courage, and danger unfolds as World War II’s brightest heroines—the best of friends—take on the front lines.1944: Fiona Denning has her entire future planned out. She’ll work in city hall, marry her fiancé when he returns from the war, and settle down in the Boston suburbs...Categorized as:
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A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Nancy Bond
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 72 ratingsSara Crewe, an exceptionally intelligent and imaginative student at Miss Minchin's Select Seminary for Young Ladies, is devastated when her adored, indulgent father dies. Now penniless and banished to a room in the attic, Sara is demeaned, abused, and forced to work as a servant...Categorized as:
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The Runaway Children by Lindsey Hutchinson
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn two rundown houses, at the side of a barren Black Country heath, live six children with no family but each other. Abandoned or orphaned, every day is a fight to find food and keep warm. But they are determined to stay free of the clutches of the workhouse and the horrors that would face them if they were ever torn apart.Dora Parsons lives with her mother Mary and her evil grandmother Edith...Categorized as:
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Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsThe author of A Bridge Across the Ocean and The Last Year of the War journeys from the present day to World War II England, as two sisters are separated by the chaos of wartime...Current day, Oxford, England...Categorized as:
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Confusion by Elizabeth Jane Howard
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom Simon & Schuster, Elizabeth Jane Howard's Confusion is the next chapter in the Cazalet Chronicles perfect for any lovers of historical fiction and one that will not disappoint.The long, dark days of struggle provide the poignant background to the third book of the Cazalet Chronicle. As the war enters its fourth year, chaos has become a way of life...Categorized as:
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Casting Off by Elizabeth Jane Howard
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom Simon & Schuster, Elizabeth Jane Howard's Casting Off is the next chapter in the Cazalet Chronicles perfect for any lovers of historical fiction and one that will not disappoint.In the aftermath of Ve Day in England, the extended Cazalet family endures such difficult events as deaths, weddings, a shattering pregnancy, and divorces...Categorized as:
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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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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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Kam Sukhun Yusuf by Sabahattin Ali
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratings...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... -
Ofrene by Gerald Green
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsGerald Green's novel Holocaust, which is based on his teleplay for the 1978 NBC miniseries, seeks to put faces on the tragedy by telling the story of the experience of two German families whose lives intersect at certain points... -
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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When We Were Brave by Suzanne Kelman
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe face of woman in the photograph was tilted upwards, as if enjoying the sunshine just for a moment, even as the wreckage of the bombed-out street lay behind her… 1944, Cornwall: Blinded by love, Vivienne Hamilton eloped to Paris with a Nazi prisoner-of-war, never to be seen again. A disgrace to her family, her name would not be mentioned by any of her relatives for over 75 years...Categorized as:
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The Citadel by A.J. Cronin
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Citadel follows the life of Andrew Manson, a young and idealistic Scottish doctor, as he navigates the challenges of practicing medicine across interwar Wales and England. Based on A.J. Cronin’s own experiences as a physician, this book boldly confronts traditional medical ethics, and has been noted as one of the inspirations for the formation of the National Health Service...Categorized as:
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Pied Piper by Nevil Shute
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIt is the summer of 1940 and in Europe the time of Blitzkrieg. John Howard, a 70-year-old Englishman vacationing in France, cuts shorts his tour and heads for home. He agrees to take two children with him.But war closes in. Trains fail, roads clog with refugees. And if things were not difficult enough, other children join in Howard's little band...Categorized as:
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The Black Moon by Winston Graham
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThe birth of a son to Elizabeth and George Warleggan seems to make the rift between the Poldark and Warleggan families worse. When Morwenna Chynoweth, governess to Elizabeth's son, grows to love Drake Carne, Demelza's brother, things get worse...Categorized as:
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To Sir, With Love by E.R. Braithwaite
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThis classic schoolroom drama of a black teacher in London's tough East End who triumphs over bigotry and ignorance to change the lives of his students forever was hailed by the "New York Times" as "a book that the reader devours quickly, ponders slowly, and forgets not at all"With opportunities for black men limited in post-World War II London, Rick Braithwaite, a former Royal Air Force pilot...Categorized as:
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The Footman by A. O'Connor
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom the country mansions of 1930s Ireland, to the decadence of 1940s wartime Paris to the courtrooms of London in modern times.What the Footman saw . . .In 1930s Ireland, Joe Grady becomes the footman at the stately home Cliffenden, owned by the glamorous Fullerton family...Categorized as:
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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... -
Strumpet City by James Plunkett
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThis new edition of the epic Strumpet City marks the centenary of the 1913 Lockout. It has been chosen as Dublin City Libraries' One City, One Book for 2013. First published in 1969, it has repeatedly been described as one of the greatest Irish novels of all time.Centring on the seminal lockout of 20,000 workers in Dublin in 1913, Strumpet City encompasses a wide sweep of city life...Categorized as:
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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...Categorized as:
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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...Categorized as:
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London Match by Len Deighton
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWith treason epidemic in London Central, a cloud of suspicion passes over each senior agent, and each falls helplessly into Moscow Centre's brilliant, complex trap. As LONDON MATCH rushes toward its amazing climax, the ultimate, decisive confrontation is about to take place--between Samson and the British KGB agent who, from the very beginning, has held Samson's entire life in delicate balance...Categorized as:
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The Moon Gate by Amanda Geard
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom the author of the Richard & Judy pick The Midnight House. A wartime secret. An abandoned house. How long can they run from the past? A mesmerising story of love, war, and a mystery that ensnares three generations, moving between Tasmania, London, and Kerry in 1939, 1975 and 2004. Perfect for fans of Natasha Lester, Kate Morton, and Lucinda Riley... -
West Side Story by Irving Shulman
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe classic novelization of one of Broadway’s most enduring and beloved musicals, updated with a beautiful new cover.Maria is young and innocent and has never known love—until Tony. And Tony, searching for life beyond the savagery of the streets, has discovered love for the first time with her, too. But Maria’s brother is the leader of the Sharks and Tony had once led the rival Jets...Categorized as:
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Battles in the Desert by José Emilio Pacheco
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThis landmark novella—one of the central texts of Mexican literature, is eerily relevant to our current dark times—offers a child’s-eye view of a society beset by dictators, disease, and natural disasters, set in “the year of polio, foot-and-mouth disease, floods...Categorized as:
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Be Careful What You Wish For by Jeffrey Archer, Otakar Brousek ml.
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsBestselling author Jeffrey Archer's Be Careful What You Wish For opens with Harry Clifton and his wife Emma rushing to hospital to learn the fate of their son Sebastian, who has been involved in a fatal car accident. But who died, Sebastian or his best friend Bruno? When Ross Buchanan is forced to resign as chairman of the Barrington Shipping Company, Emma Clifton wants to replace him...Categorized as:
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Rape of the Fair Country: The Mortymer Trilogy Book One by Alexander Cordell
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe first volume in Alexander Cordell's classic trilogy of mid-nineteenth century Wales...Categorized as:
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The Underground Library by Jennifer Ryan
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWhen the Blitz imperils the heart of a London neighborhood, three young women must use their fighting spirit to save the community’s beloved library in this heartwarming novel from the author of The Chilbury Ladies' ChoirWhen new deputy librarian, Juliet Lansdown, finds that Bethnal Green Library isn't the bustling hub she's expecting, she becomes determined to breathe life back into it...Categorized as:
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The Axe by Sigrid Undset
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSet in 13th-century Norway, The Axe is the first volume in Undset's epic tetralogy, The Master of Hestviken. In it, we meet Olav Audunsson and Ingunn Steinfinnsdatter, who were betrothed as children and raised as brother and sister. In the heedlessness of youth, they become lovers, unaware that their ardor will forge the first link in a chain of murder, exile, and disgrace...Categorized as:
europe historical-fiction classics medieval literary-fiction scandinavia fiction historical -
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 urban friendship literary-fiction ww2 family female-mc historical -
Back Home by Michelle Magorian
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsRusty Dickinson was sent to the United States from England at the age of seven in 1940 to survive the war. When she returns in 1945, she finds a country and a family she neither understands nor likes, and vice versa...Categorized as:
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Amok and Other Stories by Stefan Zweig
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA doctor in the Dutch East Indies torn between his medical duty to help and his own mixed emotions; a middle-aged maidservant whose devotion to her master leads her to commit a terrible act; a hotel waiter whose love for an unapproachable aristocratic beauty culminates in an almost lyrical death, and a prisoner-of-war longing to be home again in Russia... -
Sunday In The Park With George: A Musical by Stephen Sondheim, James Lapine
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsInspired by Georges Seurat's pointillist masterpiece Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte Sondheim and Lapine's musical celebrates the art of creation and the creation of art... -
Theatre by W. Somerset Maugham
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn Theatre, W. Somerset Maugham–the author of the classic novels Of Human Bondage and Up at the Villa–introduces us to Julia Lambert, a woman of breathtaking poise and talent whose looks have stood by her forty-six years. She is a star UK stage actress–-so good, in fact, that perhaps she never stops acting...Categorized as:
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Madeline in London by Ludwig Bemelmans
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMadeline and Pepito, the Bad Hat, take a wild ride on horseback through London... -
Wives of War by Soraya M. Lane
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsLondon, 1944. Two young nurses meet at a train station with a common purpose: to join the war effort. Scarlet longs for the chance to find her missing fiancé, Thomas, and to prove to her family—and to herself—that she’s stronger than everybody thinks. Nursing is in Ellie’s blood, but her humble background is vastly different from Scarlet’s privileged upbringing...Categorized as:
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The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn an alternate world where nobody won WWII, three brothers are the only boys left in an orphanage whose dark secret is the reason for their existence—and the key to their survival—from the acclaimed author of Pet.After a very different outcome to WWII than the one history recorded, 1979 England is a country ruled by a government whose aims have sinister underpinnings and alliances...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... -
A Traitor in Whitehall by Julia Kelly
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom Julia Kelly, internationally bestselling author of The Last Dance of the Debutante, comes the first in the mysterious and immersive Parisian Orphan series, A Traitor in Whitehall.1940, England: Evelyne Redfern, known as “The Parisian Orphan” as a child, is working on the line at a munitions factory in wartime London. When Mr...Categorized as:
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The Casuarina Tree by W. Somerset Maugham
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA collection of six stories—including the acclaimed “The Outstation”—by the renowned twentieth-century author of the classic Of Human Bondage. Set in the Federated Malay States during the 1920s, these stories portray the lives of the English living abroad and the clashes that occur with the native Malaysians—and among themselves...Categorized as:
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