Introduction In the thrilling, underground world of bohemian post-war London, Lexie Sinclair is making an extraordinary life for herself. Taken up by magazine editor Innes Kent, she learns to be a reporter, to know art and artists, to embrace her life fully and with a deep love at the center of it. Later, in present-day [...]
Archive of posts tagged historical fiction
Mr. Wroe's Virgins by Jane Rogers
Questions for Discussion We hope the following questions will stimulate discussion for reading groups and provide a deeper understanding of Mr. Wroe’s Virgins for every reader. 1. Why are we shown the same events from four different points of view? How do the different voices and perspectives of Leah, Joanna, Hannah, and Martha help [...]
Gatsby's Girl by Caroline Preston
“Preston employs immaculate research and a rich imagination . . . A fascinating rendering of the tragedy that was Fitzgerald’s life and of the young woman who was the catalyst for so much of his glorious body of work.” — Library Journal, starred review About the Book She was two months past her sixteenth [...]
Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
About Empress Orchid A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year “A fascinating novel, similar to Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha . . . A revisionist portrait of a beautiful and strong-willed woman.” — Houston Chronicle “Superb . . . [an] unforgettable heroine.” — People “A sexually charged, eye-opening portrayal of the [...]
An Unfinished Season by Ward Just
Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, winner of the Heartland Prize for Fiction, a New York Times Notable Book, and a Book Sense recommended title About the Book In An Unfinished Season, Ward Just brings us into the secret, shadow life that inhabits family, love, business, and politics in 1950s Chicago. In the small town [...]
La Tour Dreams of the Wolf Girl by David Huddle
About the Book “In [this] masterful new novel, an art history professor retreats from her failing marriage into fantasies of her research subject, Georges de La Tour . . . A truly remarkable piece of fiction.” — Washington Post Book World “Huddle skillfully counterpoints his three plots, and the result is a prismatic, gemlike [...]
The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
Downloadable Guide for Group Discussion and Classroom use “A masterpiece. How does she do it?” — A. S. Byatt Friedrich Leopold, Baron von Hardenberg (1772—1801), was born in Oberwiederstadt, Germany, studied law, philosophy, and history, worked as a government auditor at Weissenfels, and—under the pseudonym Novalis became known as the “prophet of Romanticism.” Best [...]
The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald
Downloadable Guide for Group Discussion and Classroom use “A beautiful book, a perfect little gem.” —BBC “Kaleidoscope” Penelope Fitzgerald’s second novel, her first to be short-listed for England’s prestigious Booker Prize, is set in the small East Anglian town of Hardborough in 1959. In this “island between sea and river,” Florence Green, a middle-aged [...]
The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies
About the Book “Beautifully realized…This novel will haunt the reader long after closing the book.” —Oregonian Questions for Discussion We hope the following questions will stimulate discussion for reading groups and provide a deeper understanding of The Welsh Girl for every reader. 1. The concept of cynefin is essential to the life and livelihood [...]
River Thieves by Michael Crummey
About this book: River Thieves is the riveting story of a group of European settlers of the New World in the early nineteenth century. The Peytons, their enigmatic housekeeper, and the men who manage their fishing and trapping concerns on the shores of Newfoundland live lives of punishing physicality, inarticulate longing, and violence. Their [...]
