I love books that take the reader to another country. Travel (even vicariously in a book) takes us out of our comfort zones and inspires us to open our minds to other cultures, ways of life and thought. These books constantly challenge us, not only to understand different surroundings, but also to understand unique people, to embrace adventures, glamour and romance and to share these new and meaningful thoughts and ideas with others.
A Theatre for Dreamers captures the halcyon days of the 60s artistic community on the Greek Island of Hydra. It focuses on the international bohemian set, including the authors Charmian Clift and George Johnston. Among the artists, poets and hangers-on are a Norwegian couple—Axel Jensen and Marianne Ihlen—and a young, charismatic Canadian by the name of Leonard Cohen. It is narrated by the likable ingenue Erica, a novitiate novelist in her late teens whose mother’s dying wish was for her daughter to go off on an adventure. Erica is like Nick Carraway, mainly on the periphery of events, observing and learning from the more experienced, glamorous people she has fallen in with. Interesting fact: author, Polly Samson, is married to David Gilmour of Pink Floyd.
'Delicious' Nigella Lawson 'Clever and beguiling' Guardian 'Sublime and immersive' Jojo Moyes
Erica is eighteen and ready for freedom. It's the summer of 1960 when she lands on the sun-baked Greek island of Hydra where she is swept up in a circle of bohemian poets, painters, musicians, writers and artists, living tangled lives. Life on their island paradise is heady, dream-like, a string of seemingly endless summer days. But nothing can last forever.
'A surefire summer hit ... At once a blissful piece of escapism and a powerful meditation on art and sexuality' Observer 'Heady armchair…
Elizabeth Spencer was an American writer who loved Italy and once lived there. This collection in one volume contains Spencer's six Italian tales.
In “The Light in the Piazza” a wealthy American woman and her beautiful but mentally disabled daughter meet a young Italian man in Florence who will have a profound impact on their lives.
In “Knights and Dragons” an American woman in Rome and Venice struggles for release from her husband's disturbing control over her. In “The Cousins,” “The Pincian Gate,” “The White Azalea,” and “The Visit,” Spencer shows the unique craft that has earned her acclaim as one of America's top writers of short stories.
Elizabeth Spencer died in 2019 at the age of 98. Interesting fact: She was a cousin of United States senator John McCain.
Elizabeth Spencer is captivated by Italy. For her it has been a second home. A one-time resident who returns there, this native-born Mississippian has found Italy to be an enchanting land whose culture lends itself powerfully to her artistic vision.Some of her most acclaimed work is set there. Her American characters encounter but never quite wholly adjust to the mysteries of the Italian mores. Collected here in one volume are Spencer's six Italian tales. Their plots are so alluring and enigmatic that Boccaccio would have been charmed by their delightful ironies and their sinister contrasts of dark and light.Spencer is…
When King Priam's pregnant daughter was fleeing the sack of Troy, Stan was there. When Jesus of Nazareth was beaten and crucified, Stan was there - one crossover. He’s been a Hittite warrior, a Silk Road mercenary, a reluctant rebel in the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381, and an information peddler…
Set in Haiti under the rule of François "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his secret police, the Tontons Macoutes, this novel explores political repression and terrorism through the figure Mr. Brown. Brown, a British ne’er-do-well who has inherited a failing hotel near the capital, Port-au-Prince, narrates.
The Comedians is a novel of character. Each of the leading characters reveals an unforeseen facet of personality: a naive fool who was once a candidate for U.S. president proves to be compassionate and courageous; a lying, cowardly gunrunner dies a hero; and a former Freedom Rider rises above her simple liberalism to unwittingly save Brown’s life.
I loved the cast of characters and was fascinated by the brutal regime of Haiti in the mid-60s. Like witnessing an accident, it’s hard to look away.
Three men meet on a ship bound for Haiti, a world in the grip of the corrupt "Papa Doc" and the Tontons Macoute, his sinister secret police. Brown the hotelier, Smith the innocent American and Jones the confidence man are the "Comedians" of Graham Greene's title.
Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully written scene after another, A Gentleman in Moscow is the story of handsome Count Alexander Rostov, who, after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, is sentenced to lifelong imprisonment in Moscow’s Metropol Hotel. The Count must adjust not only to a small room in the hotel’s belfry, but also to the knowledge that his way of life is disappearing.
Count Rostov has “opted for the life of the purposefully unrushed.” He was raised to appreciate the conveniences of life, such as keeping “a carriage waiting at the door of one party, so that on a moment’s notice it can whisk you away to another.” When asked by the Bolsheviks to state his occupation, he replies, “It is not the business of a gentleman to have occupations.” Charming!!
Interesting fact, this is set to be made into a movie starring fabulous Scottish actor Ewan McGregor!
The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers, soon to be a major television series
From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Rules of Civility, a beautifully transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel
In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and…
This book is an elegiac meditation on the will to survive. Tor, a beluga whaler, and his wife, Astrid, a botanist specializing in Arctic flora, are stranded during the dark season of 1937-38 at his remote whaling station in the Svalbard archipelago when they misjudge ice conditions and fail to…
In the Garden of Beasts follows the story of William E. Dodd, who was sent to Hitler’s Nazi Germany in 1933 as an American ambassador.
The Dodds move into a mansion across the street from Berlin’s public park called the “Tiergarten,” which means “the garden of beasts.” The mansion’s owner, a Jewish banker who lives upstairs, hopes that the American ambassador’s presence will dissuade authorities from breaking in and arresting him.
Along with his family, Dodd experiences the glamour and romance of Germany—until he becomes disturbingly aware of the Third Reich’s oppressive practices and terrifying plans.
It’s fascinating and horrifying to see Germany of 1933 through the eyes of this uniquely well-positioned American family (which included Dodd’s 24-year-old daughter, an adventurous young woman who joins Berlin’s social whirl).
It's Berlin, 1933. William E. Dodd, a mild-mannered academic from Chicago, has to his own and everyone else's surprise, become America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany, in a year that proves to be a turning point in history. Dodd and his family, notably his vivacious daughter, Martha, observe at first-hand the many changes - some subtle, some disturbing, and some horrifically violent - that signal Hitler's consolidation of power. Dodd has little choice but to associate with key figures in the Nazi party, his increasingly concerned cables make little impact on an indifferent U.S. State Department, while Martha is drawn…
Eighteen-year-old Flynn Flood is a Boston college student whose world falls apart when her beloved father dies of the "Irish Cancer"—alcoholism—and her once-vibrant mother, descends into a paralyzing depression. After a seemingly accidental encounter, help arrives in the form of earthy-looking Dante, an international student from Italy. Dante seems perfect, but when Flynn finds herself descending into a rabbit hole of frightening, mystical occurrences, she quickly deduces that Dante is no ordinary boyfriend.
A coming-of-age tale with humor, and unexpected violence, Wind explores the complex bonds of sisterhood, romantic longing, and the possibility of the existence of a divine, unseen world around us. Wind , Book One of The Eternal Symmetry Saga, advanced to the second round in the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award!
I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places…
In this book set against the backdrop of a changing America, Sarah must find the courage to confront the ghosts of her past and come to terms with her future. Sarah, a young woman from the rural town of Tolerance, Arkansas, has endured an impoverished and painful childhood.
