Other books that might interest you

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  The Trampled Fields

  Jeanne Williams

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  Jeanne Williams is a master of the historical novel, and nowhere more so than in this epic story of the Kansas Territory in the years just before and during the War Between the States.  
  Jonathan and Ellen Ware have immigrated to the area from their farm in Illinois with 13-year-old Christy Ware and her two older brothers. The Wares are only one of the families that will soon be caught up in the burning issue of slavery, with raids from the Border Ruffians out of Missouri and John Brown's small army devoted to ending slavery and helping runaways to escape to the north. 
  To aid and abet a runaway slave is a crime that carries a dear price. There are those who believe the only answer to the crisis is violence, and those who just want to protect their land and homes from war-like marauders. This is an incredible, memorable, and powerful story with characters that come vividly to life in the midst of turbulent times.

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  The Last Open Road

  Burt Levy

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  It's like no audio book you've ever listened to! Re-imagined by the author as a 1950's-style radio play, the audio presentation of B.S. Levy's The Last Open Road features professional Hollywood voice actors in the major roles, amazing and authentic sound effects, period music and a cast of over 40 players, including many famous motorsports personalities. The Last Open Road audio book won multiple awards as “The Best Motoring Book of the Year,” and several reviewers—including non-gearheads—have called it the most entertaining and unique audio book ever.The print edition of The Last Open Road was originally self-published in 1994 after being turned down by major fiction publishers, but earned rave reviews in both the mainstream and motoring press and has become a genuine cult classic on the motorsports and collector-car scenes. It's also been used in high school and college-level English classes and is on the recommended reading lists at many libraries and book clubs.Set in the spring, summer and fall of 1952, it's an entertaining and oft-hilarious coming-of-age tale told by an engaging, 19-year-old New Jersey gas-station mechanic named Buddy Palumbo, whom several reviewers have likened to Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye. Buddy's a true working-class hero whose mean-spirited, bullying father is a union shop steward at a big chemical plant in Newark, and he wants Buddy to work there, too. But Buddy hates the place, and really wants to hang around the corner gas station—Finzio's Sinclair in Passaic—and learn how to fix cars from the tough, combative, ex-Marine hard-hat diver named Butch and tentatively flirt around with Old Man Finzio's voluptuous, spirited and occasionally acid-tongued niece, Julie Finzio.Then the station's top customer, a street-wise, several times-divorced, Cadillac-driving scrap-yard owner/wheeler dealer named Big Ed Baumstein (who may or may not be mob-connected) buys himself a new Jaguar XK120 sports car, and Buddy has to learn how to care for it. Which naturally involves runs to the Jaguar dealership in Manhattan run by the slick, stylish, shifty and unscrupulous ex-pat Brit named Colin St. In the process, Buddy and Big Ed are drawn inexorably into the toney, upper-crust, dangerous and occasionally decadent world of open-road sports car racing at places like Bridgehampton, Long Island, Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin and Watkins Glen, New York.It's a wild, road-trip adventure through the America of 1952—before the Interstate Highway System, national motel chains and fast-food restaurants—and all the history in the book, from the real characters, events and machinery to the news headlines and social culture of the period, are presented exactly as they were, but as seen through Buddy's amazed, wide-open and oft-blinking eyes. As the reviewer for the Fort Worth Star Telegram put it:“The characters weave in and out of a story that features classism, elitism and racism, that is about triumph and tragedy, and right and wrong...a rich, compelling story that deserves a wide audience.”

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  Silas Marner

  George Eliot

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  Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe, published in 1861, is the third novel by George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Anne Evans. The seemingly simple story of the weaver Silas Marner deals with issues like community, industrialisation and positive transformation, in sophisticated and engaging ways.Silas, a weaver in a city in the north of England, is falsely accused of theft and cast out by his circle of friends. He moves to a city in the Midlands where he lives as a loner for many years. His hoarded wealth is stolen by the renegade son of the town’s wealthiest family but he soon finds a far greater treasure which he nurtures with abiding love. Silas Marner is an inspiring work which demonstrates the excellent fruits of forgiveness, loyalty and love.

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  The Great Stink - A Novel of...

  Clare Clark

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  A mystery that offers “a gripping and richly atmospheric glimpse into the literal underworld of Victorian England—the labyrinthine London sewer system” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).   Clare Clark’s critically acclaimed The Great Stink “reeks of talent” as it vividly brings to life the dark and mysterious underworld of Victorian London (The Washington Post Book World). Set in 1855, it tells the story of William May, an engineer who has returned home to London from the horrors of the Crimean War. When he secures a job trans­forming the city’s sewer system, he believes that he will be able to find salvation in the subterranean world beneath the city. But the peace of the tunnels is shattered by a murder, and William is implicated as the killer. Could he truly have committed the crime? How will he bring the truth above ground?   With richly atmospheric prose, The Great Stink combines fact and fiction to transport readers into London’s putrid past, and marks the debut of a remarkably talented writer in the tradition of the very best historical novelists.   “A crackerjack historical novel that combines the creepy intrigue of Caleb Carr, the sensory overload of Peter Ackroyd and the academic curiosity of A. S. Byatt.” —Los Angeles Times

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  Pride and Prejudice

  Jane Austen

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  It is a truth (almost) universally acknowledged that a person interested in good literature must be in want of this book …         	          	
  Set in England in the late 18th century, Pride and Prejudice tells the story of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet's five unmarried daughters after two gentlemen have moved into their neighbourhood …: the rich and eligible Mr. Bingley, and his status-conscious friend, the even richer and more eligible Mr. Darcy. While Bingley takes an immediate liking to the eldest Bennet daughter, Jane, Darcy is disdainful of local society and repeatedly clashes with the Bennets' lively second daughter, Elizabeth … 
  Pride and Prejudice retains a fascination for modern readers, continuing near the top of lists of "most loved books".

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  The Award

  Danielle Steel

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  Capturing historical events, terrifying moments of danger, tragedy, the price of war, and the invincible spirit of a woman of honor, The Award is a monumental tale from one of our most gifted storytellers-Danielle Steel's finest, most emotionally resonant novel yet. 
  Gaëlle de Barbet is sixteen years old in 1940 when the German army occupies France and frightening changes begin. She is shocked and powerless when French gendarmes take away her closest friend, Rebekah Feldmann, and her family, and send them to a detention camp for deportation to an unknown, ominous fate. 
  The local German military commandant makes Gaëlle's family estate outside Lyon into his headquarters. Her father and brother are killed by the Germans; her mother fades away into madness and ill health. Trusted friends and employees become traitors. And by accident, Gaëlle begins a perilous journey with the French Resistance, hoping to save lives to make up for the beloved friend she could do nothing to help. 
  Taking terrifying risks, Gaëlle becomes a valuable member of the Resistance, fearlessly delivering Jewish children to safety underneath the eyes of the Gestapo and their French collaborators. Then she is suddenly approached by the German commandant with an astonishing and dangerous plan to save part of France's artistic heritage as the Germans withdraw. And once again, her life is on the line. Conducted in secret, flawlessly carried out, her missions for the Resistance change her life and mark her for years. She is falsely accused of collaboration at the end of the war, and flees Lyon in disgrace, orphaned and alone. She goes to Paris to put the war behind her and begin a new life, with the ghosts of the past always close at hand. 
  Gaëlle's life will take her from Paris to New York, from a career as a Dior model to marriage and motherhood, unbearable loss, and mature, lasting love.  She returns to Paris to run a small museum, honoring victims of the Holocaust. She has never sought recognition for her courage during the war years she can never forget. Her label as a collaborator remains, until her granddaughter, a respected political journalist, is determined that past wrongs finally be made right, and her grandmother's brave acts be recognized. Now a grateful nation will finally acknowledge this remarkable woman. At last, she is absolved and honored as the war hero she was.

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