100 books like Shame and the Captives

I utterly loved this book so much it is in the top five books I ever read. Although it is years since I read it I still remember Aliena (the main female character) so well it is as if I know her personally. I wish there were a sequel with her in it. 

The book had it all – a fantastic plot that grabs you from the first chapter and then branches off into seemingly unconnected subplots, and it is only at the end that it all comes together. An amazing job and inspired me more than any other book as a writer.  

I have included When The Lion Feeds because it is the first “grown up” book that I read as a young person.

It was many years ago, but Wilbur Smith’s novel had a big impact on me with his descriptive writing drawing me into the South African setting. The characters in Smith’s novel make for a strong and powerful narrative, and his imagery is captivating.

In many ways, When The Lions Feed is what could be described as a page-turner. I had mentioned in another review that an indicator of a good story is when the reader feels that they know the character(s), and it is certainly the case with this book.

As somber and sobering as the Icelandic landscape it takes place in, this tale of the last person condemned to die in that remote country at the turn of the 19th century is one of endurance and hope in the face of injustice.

In vivid and atmospheric writing, Kent brings a little-known historical figure into a new light, leaving us with a new and lasting legacy for someone few knew or cared for before.

Kent has resurrected Agnes into an unforgettable, all-too-human being whose place in history would surely be among those forgotten without her sensitive and moving book,

Friedr and Wim is a novel that I can highly recommend and one of those gems you find outside of the mainstream.

The story moves from the trenches of World War One to a Germany in the 1920s that is in turmoil: politically, economically, and socially. The author gives the reader a different perspective to the one we might be used to in relation to the time period, by following the lives of two young German men as they move through arguably the most traumatic period in world history.

The author creates a story that is historically accurate, but rich in emotion and drama, while at the same time raising many questions for the reader.

Many British, Australians, Canadians, Dutch, and Americans have written about their appalling treatment by the Japanese as POWs during World War II. Urquhart's account is one of the more compelling, all the more so because he waited for more than 60 years to tell this harrowing, anecdote-rich story.

Reading this book was a journey that I can’t forget.

One aspires to be the main subject of this piece of non-fiction – a young WWII soldier who survived, first being lost at sea in shark-infested waters and then in a vicious POW camp. The details and context of the story hooked me in, and I learned details about the Pacific front that left me aghast. I’m not a WWII scholar, and you don’t need to be one to love this book.

The author takes you by the hand and presents history to you as the story progresses. She also adroitly makes this a story about a man and his personality, with all its imperfections. It’s not a series of unfortunate events – it’s the unflinching character profile of one man and his unyielding will to live, mostly out of spite!  

If it’s possible to have lived multiple lives in a single lifetime, then Louis Zamperini did it.

I am a big fan of The Greatest Generation and Unbroken is the story of that generation, the deep beliefs they held, and the many sacrifices they made, not for themselves but for the generations that would follow them. You can’t miss the examples of selflessness, perseverance, and faith that jump out at you from the very first chapter.

Most of the best books about the Japanese American World War II experience are memoirs by those who actually lived through it, and this is one of the best.

Removed along with her family from Berkeley, California and confined at the Topaz, Utah camp, pick any page and the reader will see Uchida’s skillful descriptions: “As we plodded through the powdery sand toward Block 7, I began to understand why everyone looked like pieces of flour-dusted pastry.”

Also, that I am a writer for young readers was trailblazed by Yoshiko Uchida who, along with her publisher, had the courage to write and publish her first book, The Dancing Kettle, and Other Japanese Folk Tales in 1949──during a time in America when hatred against all things Japanese still ran strong.

In 1942 about 22,000 Australians – an entire army division – were captured by the Japanese, mostly in Singapore. When the survivors returned from the Burma-Thailand railway and camps across south-east Asia and Japan, a third of them were dead. This ordeal, so much at variance with Australia’s tradition of victory in war, remained largely neglected. In the early 1980s academic historian Hank Nelson teamed up with Tim Bowden, a radio presenter, to interview hundreds of former PoWs of the Japanese, many speaking for the first time, and together they produced a powerful Australian Broadcasting Corporation documentary series which told their stories. Hank produced the equally profound book based on the recordings, effectively kick-starting the investigation of PoW history, now an important part of Australian military history.

Floating Clouds tells the story of a young woman who returns to Tokyo from Japan’s ex-colony in Indochina after the war and resumes the love affair with the man she met there. Their relationship is tormented and ultimately broken, like Japan’s dreams of empire and the promises of youth. The author, who had experienced destitution when she was young, weaves into the story the contrasting luxuriance of the colony’s tropical forests and the grime and spiritual emptiness of post-war Tokyo. This is such an honest and heart-wrenching novel.