Here are 100 books that Shame and the Captives fans have personally recommended if you like
Shame and the Captives.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I have read adventure, crime, and thriller books all my life. Reading is a huge relaxation for me and a good novel will transport me from the stresses and strains of daily life into another place in my head. A place where I feel involved with the characters and the environment, a place where I can imagine I could be. A good storyteller is different from a crime writer. They take the reader on a journey that might be through history or different continents. A journey that the reader wants to travel as well. I try to emulate this in my writing.
The first of a brilliant historical series spanning many centuries in English history, this is a tale of ambition, anarchy and absolute power set against the sprawling medieval canvas of twelfth-century England. I thought it gave a wonderful insight into the Dark Ages and the following eras, based around a number of individuals and their descendants as the stories unfold in different centuries as civilization develops.
In my opinion, this is phenomenal storytelling over three massive tomes that didn’t bore for a second.
The "extraordinary . . . monumental masterpiece" (Booklist) that changed the course of Ken Follett's already phenomenal career-and begins where its prequel, The Evening and the Morning, ended.
"Follett risks all and comes out a clear winner," extolled Publishers Weekly on the release of The Pillars of the Earth. A departure for the bestselling thriller writer, the historical epic stunned readers and critics alike with its ambitious scope and gripping humanity. Today, it stands as a testament to Follett's unassailable command of the written word and to his universal appeal.
This is a novel about choices. How would you have chosen to act during the Second World War if your country had been invaded and occupied by a brutal enemy determined to isolate and murder a whole community?
That’s the situation facing an ordinary family man with two children, a…
My passion for historical fiction writing stems from a lifelong interest in history and a love for creating stories that have rich characters, with deep and meaningful personalities. My interest in history led me to study the subject at university, which has worked hand-in-hand with the pleasure I get from writing. Researching stories is another aspect that I enjoy, and it has seen me travel to destinations all over the world, where I have made some wonderful friendships.
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.
Storytelling wields the power to transcend time and place, connecting us through shared experiences and emotions. It shapes our understanding of the world and ignites the imagination, making it an essential part of the human journey. As a psychologist, I understand how the stories we tell about ourselves are crucial in defining who we are and that books and good people can help shape our character. The books I've chosen celebrate the human spirit and our ability to face adversity, adapt, and ultimately choose our destiny. As Stephen Covey wisely stated, “Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.”
This book resonated deeply with me because it explored the intricate layers of human nature, beautifully encapsulated in the quote, ‘To know what a person has done, and to know who a person is, are very different things.’
The gripping narrative, based on a true story set in 19th-century Iceland, draws me into the life of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, a woman accused of murder, as she awaits her execution. Kent's masterful storytelling skilfully delves into Agnes' complexities, making her a character so vividly real that I fervently hoped for a different outcome despite knowing the inevitable fate that awaited her.
This emotional investment and the stark portrayal of the human condition left a lasting impact. Kent captured both the darkness and light within us all.
Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.
Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.
Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tv=ti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her.…
'There it is, the city of Liverpool,' says Henry Kitto, master of the Hannah Leigh three days out of Fowey in Cornwall with a cargo of China Clay standing beside Ben Pascoe, 'a cesspool of humanity and no mistake. Yet full of opportunity for them that can grab it.'
My passion for historical fiction writing stems from a lifelong interest in history and a love for creating stories that have rich characters, with deep and meaningful personalities. My interest in history led me to study the subject at university, which has worked hand-in-hand with the pleasure I get from writing. Researching stories is another aspect that I enjoy, and it has seen me travel to destinations all over the world, where I have made some wonderful friendships.
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.
For those long years on the Western Front, they had known only war. They carried it with them even now, as they marched home with holes in their boots, broken, defeated. The only thing keeping Friedrich upright, placing one foot in front of the other, was his best friend's presence by his side. While Wilhelm still cared for him, still needed him, he could never forget the promise they had made: together, or not at all. Friedrich had never wanted to be a soldier. He had questioned it every time he raised his Mauser on the front line. Now, he…
I spent ten years uncovering hidden histories consulting with historians, conducting interviews, sourcing archival records, and visiting Poland and Germany to determine how my mother and grandparents survived the Holocaust. And how, as refugees starting again in new countries after the war, they dammed in their traumas with silence. I became fascinated by how repressing war traumas affects relationships and families—for example, in my family, a father who gave his daughter away, my mother’s loveless childhood with parents who turned out not to be hers, and the lies told that both protected and harmed her.
Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for nonfiction, this magnificent book begins as a memoir with Flannagan visiting the site of the POW camp in Japan where his father was subjected to slave labor during WWII, was starved, and faced certain death, saved only by the atomic bomb dropping on nearby Hiroshima. Throughout this book, Flanagan grapples with the fact he exists only because of this tragedy (as I grapple in Irena’s Gift with the fact I exist only because a Nazi SS officer who tortured and killed women saved my mother.)
Often, in families of war survivors, one son or daughter becomes curious—obsessed even—with how their parent survived, perhaps not realizing they are also seeking to understand their own identity given they inherited their parent’s trauma. Frustrated by a Japanese museum’s omission of his father’s slave labor experience, Flanagan poses his dilemma: “Sometimes I wonder…
Living in Britain for the past 20 years, I've been able to look at Japan with new eyes and to understand historical events from a global perspective. 'Cherry' Ingram's story isn't just about a man and his love for cherry blossoms. It's also about the cherry ideology and how it was perverted for militaristic purposes before and during World War II. While researching the book, I was amazed how many compelling anecdotes came to light that offered new insights into both British and Japanese society in the early 20th century.
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.
Alistair Urquhart was a soldier in the Gordon Highlanders captured by the Japanese in Singapore. He not only survived working on the notorious Bridge on the River Kwai , but he was subsequently taken on one of the Japanese 'hellships' which was torpedoed. Nearly everyone else on board died and Urquhart spent 5 days alone on a raft in the South China Sea before being rescued by a whaling ship. He was taken to Japan and then forced to work in a mine near Nagasaki. Two months later a nuclear bomb dropped just ten miles away ...This is the extraordinary…
Germany 1938. Herman watches in horror as his cousin is arrested. As a Jew, he realizes he must flee Germany, a decision that catapults him into a life changed forever by the gathering storm of world events.
Part coming-of-age fiction, part immigrant tale, part military adventure, Immigrant Soldier follows Herman’s…
Growing up, I felt both the denial and existential shame in the ether of my family—that something was missing. Decades after my birth, I learned that many of my ancestors died by the Nazis. I’m Jewish, but it was never mentioned; my grandfather and father kept it quiet. In fact, we celebrated Christmas. I started to research my lineage at the same time I was writing a story about a catholic boy who falls in love with a Jewish girl when I stumbled upon a reference to a WWII Nazi slave labor death camp called Berga and was stunned to learn that Jewish POWs were enslaved at a death camp.
I was on the edge of my seat, completely enthralled by the rich and suspenseful survival story of Louis Zamperini. Once the book was in my hand, I put it down only to sleep.
I tore through it like a hurricane tearing across the plains. This is one of the best nonfiction survival stories I’ve ever read. I was riveted by the sheer willpower and steel determination it took to survive being lost at sea, only to be rescued by the worst possible demonic enemy imaginable.
From the author of the bestselling and much-loved Seabiscuit, an unforgettable story of one man's journey into extremity. On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane's bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War. The lieutenant's name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood,…
Although I was born in Seattle after the World War II years, my parents, grandparents, and aunts spent time confined at the Minidoka site, and they very rarely talked about “camp.” During the ‘80s and ‘90s, I worked as a newspaper journalist during the time of the movement to obtain redress, and I heard survivors of the camps talk about it for the first time. My acquired knowledge of the subject led to my first book in 1993,Baseball Saved Us. Since then, the camp experience has become like a longtime acquaintance with whom I remain in constant contact.
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 the spring of 1942, shortly after the United States entered into war with Japan, the federal government initiated a policy whereby 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry were rounded up and herded into camps. They were incarcerated without indictment, trial, or counsel - not because they had committed a crime, but simply because they resembled the enemy. There was never any evidence of disloyalty or sabotage among them, and the majority were American citizens. The government's explanation for this massive injustice was military necessity.
Desert Exile tells the story of one family who lived through these sad years. It is…
I am a Research Professor in history at UNSW Canberra at the Australian Defence Force Academy. I now mostly write on the military history of British India history but for 27 years I worked at the Australian War Memorial, Australia’s national military museum, where I became Principal Historian. Much of my career was devoted to Australian military history and more than half of my 40 or so books are in that field. That puts me in a good position to comment upon what I think are the five best books in the field of Australian military history (my own excepted, of course).
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.
I have been a teacher for over 30 years and a writer of juvenile nonfiction for 10. In my research, I immersed myself in the early decades of the 20th century, which saw the rise of spectator sports and an increasing tension between amateur and professional. Investigating the evolution of competitive running for my book whet my appetite for more. I read other writers for young people to see how they treated the subject in different sports. The best works of children’s literature are informative, well-written, and worthwhile even for adult readers. (One project had me researching the War in the Pacific, hence the apparent outlier, Unbroken.)
Part sports book, part WWII book, and large part survival story: Hillenbrand's narrative never ceases to astonish. What Louis Zamperini endured adrift in a life raft for six weeks and in POW camps for two years is beyond imagining, and yet Hillenbrand documents it all in harrowing detail.
But first, Louis is just a troubled kid with a knack for making mischief. Running saves him. He qualifies for the 1936 Olympics and places 5th in the 5,000 meters. His Olympic dreams for 1940 are shattered by the war, but he becomes a bombardier in the Army Air Forces. Louis’s story doesn’t end with his rescue after the war. In the moving final section, Louis finds unexpected redemption and makes a triumphant Olympic return.
In this captivating and lavishly illustrated young adult edition of her award-winning #1 New York Times bestseller, Laura Hillenbrand tells the story of a former Olympian's courage, cunning, and fortitude following his plane crash in enemy territory. This adaptation of Unbroken introduces a new generation to one of history's most thrilling survival epics.
On a May afternoon in 1943, an American military plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the…
