Here are 93 books that When God Spoke English fans have personally recommended if you like
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During my twenties I served in the United States Navy, and what I experienced there—next to nothing compared to what the characters in the below-mentioned books experience—was traumatic enough to leave me wandering for a dozen years, hitchhiking, traveling around the country in search of some way to get a grasp on my experience. The vestiges of that experience still remain, and much of my writing has been an attempt to understand it.
For my money, Shakespeare is the greatest writer who ever lived; anything he has to say will be interesting, profound, and stated as well as anyone can state it. His portrayal of the Macbeths rivals Homer’s portrayal of Achilles in the understanding of trauma. For Macbeth, this is the trauma of military violence. For Lady Macbeth, this is the trauma of the loss of a child.
3
authors picked
Macbeth
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why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
9,
10, and
11.
What is this book about?
The authoritative edition of Macbeth from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers.
In 1603, James VI of Scotland ascended the English throne, becoming James I of England. London was alive with an interest in all things Scottish, and Shakespeare turned to Scottish history for material. He found a spectacle of violence and stories of traitors advised by witches and wizards, echoing James's belief in a connection between treason and witchcraft.
In depicting a man who murders to become king, Macbeth teases us with huge questions. Is Macbeth tempted by fate,…
I’m an author, researcher, and historian writing about Tudor women. As a woman myself, I’m naturally interested in what life was like for those who came before me, and I’m very passionate about writing the lesser-known, forgotten women back into the historical narrative of the period. We all know about Henry VIII’s six wives, his sisters, and daughters, but there were other women at the Tudor court whose stories are no less fascinating.
When Elizabeth I died, she was succeeded by her Scottish cousin James VI, who became James I of England.
However, the events before and after Elizabeth’s death make it clear that it was not as smooth a transition of power as many believe. It was a period of tension, thick with succession plots and intrigues.
This book is a reminder that we should never look back on history through the prism of hindsight. James I inherited Elizabeth’s throne, but it almost didn’t happen; Leanda de Lisle masterfully recreates the atmosphere of intrigue, fear, and courtly factionalism.
Many volumes have been written about the long reign of Elizabeth I. Now, for the first time, comes a brilliant new work that focuses on the critical year her reign ended, a time in which England lost its childless queen and a Machiavellian struggle ensued to find her successor.
December 1602. After forty-four years on the throne, Queen Elizabeth is in decline. The formidable ruler whose motto is Semper eadem (I never change) has become a dithering old woman, missing teeth and wearing makeup half an inch thick. The kingdom has been weakened by the cost of war with Spain…
I’m one of those odd people who always needs to know why. Why do computers work, why do societies break down? Why do humans kill? Why are cat videos so irresistible? All of those questions explore what it means to be human, but science fiction takes those questions to the extreme, pitting people against the most extreme environments and situations in order to see how they’ll react. To me, that never grows old, and the books I love the most are the ones that do it the best. In my humble opinion, of course.
The best way to describe the Repulse Chronicles is to say that they are a historical record of a war that hasn’t happened yet, using AI and military technology that hasn’t been invented, yet.
Written by Indie author Chris James, the Repulse Chronicles are innovative in the extreme, in both style and content, yet as with all the stories I love the most, it’s the interface between people and technology that fascinates me the most. Some people rise to the occasion, others sink, yet in all cases, we recognize ourselves in the characters. That is what makes the story so powerful.
On 7 February 2062, the New Persian Caliphate launched a devastating and unprovoked surprise attack against NATO. This was the initial salvo in a two-year war that would bring Europe to the brink of annihilation and cost millions of lives.
Onslaught is the first in a series of novels that tell the story of the 2062-2064 war as seen through the eyes of the people obliged to fight it.
Schoolteacher turned writer. With the encouragement of my old college friend, the great Michael Crichton I began writing detective novels—paperback originals at first, then a hardback thriller called Target of Opportunity, which was a detective novel but included a long section of historical background about the Resistance in southern France. From there I moved to biographical fiction: novels about Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant. Then straight historical fiction, often with a Parisian background, because I’ve lived and worked in that marvelous city and can’t get enough of it.
Colonial Jamestown, an English soldier turned American explorer, a bought wife who is in fact an escaping ward of King James I—a brutal pursuer, pirates, shipwrecks, Pocahontas’s brother, an Indian attack on Jamestown, poison! The plot is overloaded with incidents, but the details of colonial life are fascinating and Johnston’s perfect mastery of colonial English make this a thrilling adventure, a number one best-seller in 1900. For years it was a standard on school reading lists and was twice made into a film. Hard to find, but worth the effort.
A dauntless hero will do whatever it takes to win the heart of his bride in Mary Johnston’s bestselling historical adventure set in colonial Jamestown
Captain Percy is the embodiment of bravery. At the suggestion of a friend, he boards a ship to America to stake his claim in the New World—and perhaps even meet the woman of his dreams. Meanwhile, eligible women are setting sail to the very same place on “bride ships” in order to find husbands and forge new lives. Jocelyn Leigh is one such lady. She fled Europe in order to escape an unwanted suitor, but…
After life-threatening postpartum depression in the 1980s, I became a pioneer of maternal mental health in the U.S. I’ve helped moms and moms-to-be finally receive the support they deserve. Between masters’ degrees, Ph.D., teaching credentials, and becoming licensed as a clinical psychologist, I wrote four books and enjoy interviews on radio and TV. Training health professionals and my clients to develop a wellness strategy for motherhood has been my life’s passion. A few years ago I realized that during this movement, dads’ experiences had been disregarded and minimized, and my mission then shifted to parental mental health. Dad’s worries and needs are important too.
Enjoy this practical training manual compiled from interviews with over a hundred real dads of daughters. No matter if you’re becoming a father of a daughter, a new dad, or experienced dad of a daughter, you will find this book both useful and most definitely validating. One of my favorite things is that it’s written in small chunks which are easy to digest. You don’t need to read the book cover to cover, but rather pick out the sections in which you’re most interested. You can scan these little gems not mentioned in other parenting books. These are helpful (and often humorful) tips that only real fathers would know.
I am an Emeritus Professor of Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. I taught history for many years at several UK universities, and I was the Director of Studies in History at Churchill College, Cambridge. I am the author of six books, including Hellish Nell: Last of Britain’s Witches and Witchcraft: A Very Short Introduction. His latest book, The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World, will be published in November by Penguin. I live in Cambridge, England, and I am married with three children.
Nearly a century old now, this was one of the first books to open up this subject for me, and to connect witch-beliefs (and trials) in England and colonial America. It’s more of a collection of essays than a coherent monograph, but they’re thoughtful essays, and, crucially, not excessively lofty. Kittredge was at pains to understand witchcraft in the past rather than judging it from the vantage point of an enlightened present.
They are chapters on image magic, shape-shifting, diagnostic tests, witches’ sabbats, and many other subjects – all discursive explorations, drawing in examples from here and there, and presented in the leisurely style of the gentleman scholar. There’s some strong narrative, too, especially in the chapter on James I, which stands up as an account of how changing thinking about witchcraft, and its relationship to politics and religion, affected policy and legal practice. All in all, it’s stuffed with…
I’ve been fascinated by history since I was a fairly sickly child, which means I was gradually drawn towards the history of medicine. Add to that having a hereditary blood clotting condition and you can see why this topic appeals to me! I have a BA and a PhD in History from University College London and have held posts in the universities of Cambridge, Newcastle, Reading, and then at The Open University. I’ve also held visiting professorships in Vienna, Texas, and Minnesota and have published six books as well as editing others. I’m sort of retired but still writing and lecturing.
Harvey’s Heart is a tiny book but it packs in a lot, including plenty of illustrations. I used to teach the history of medicine and I found blood circulation a difficult topic – I’m squeamish myself, and faint at blood tests, which doesn’t help! But this book makes Harvey’s ideas very clear, not least how something we now take for granted wasn’t obvious at all until the 17th century.
His breakthrough was a weird mix of building on discoveries by others – such as knowing that valves stop the blood moving backwards – while observing, experimenting, and speculating for himself. Although he published his theory in 1628, he seems to have worked it out maybe ten years earlier. The conventions of science in his day meant he had to offer it to the world rather cautiously, because saying that the ancients had got it wrong was a dangerous claim…
The tale of William Harvey's momentous discovery - that the blood vessels form a closed system, carrying blood pumped rapidly around the body by the heart - is one of ingenuity, imagination and perseverence, and remarkable use of experiment, observation and skill.
I am an astronomer and educator (Ph.D. Astrophysics, University of Colorado), and I’ve now been teaching about global warming for more than 40 years (in courses on astronomy, astrobiology, and mathematics). While it’s frustrating to see how little progress we’ve made in combatting the ongoing warming during this time, my background as an astronomer gives me a “cosmic perspective” that reminds me that decades are not really so long, and that we still have time to act and to build a “post-global warming future.” I hope my work can help inspire all of us to act while we still can for the benefit of all.
I learned a lot from this book about the development of energy sources over the centuries, and how this history both leads to our current predicament with climate change and offers a path to solutions.
This history also points out that this is not the first time that we’ve needed to transition from one energy economy to another, and our past successes show that we can be successful again. I also enjoyed the descriptions of potential future solutions, including the book’s excellent discussion of nuclear energy.
A "meticulously researched" (The New York Times Book Review) examination of energy transitions over time and an exploration of the current challenges presented by global warming, a surging world population, and renewable energy-from Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning author Richard Rhodes.
People have lived and died, businesses have prospered and failed, and nations have risen to world power and declined, all over energy challenges. Through an unforgettable cast of characters, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes explains how wood gave way to coal and coal made room for oil, as we now turn to natural gas, nuclear power, and renewable…
There is a saying that you can take the girl out of Scotland but not Scotland out of the girl. I am that girl. Born and raised in Scotland, I earned an MA from Edinburgh University and a M.Litt from Oxford. I met my husband during the summer at Dartmouth College and the rest, as they say, is history. Or, at least it would be, except for the hankering back to Scotland that never leaves. My novel set in Scotland was published by Simon & Schuster.
This is an extensive biography of Scotland’s celebrated bard, Robert Burns, and includes a collection of unpublished letters. Scotland’s own “heaven taught ploughman,” gave life a run for its money, giving us in his few but fruitful years lines of poetry that match Shakespeare himself.
Oh, would some
Power the giftie
gie us
To see ourselves as
Others see us!
McIntyre gives Burns a good shot. No Scottish writer, including myself, could think of their career trajectory without Robert Burns standing out prominently along that line. He gave us the gift of hubris and the gift of the poetic gab.
This biography illuminates and explores the complexities and contradictions of Burns's character and personality, untangling the myth from the legend. Based on new evidence from 700 letters Burns wrote during his life, McIntyre concentrates on the circumstances of the writing of poetry itself, and paints a vivid picture of Burns's emotional and impulsive political views, the cruelty and gentleness of which he was capable, stressing the importance and the quality of the satirical poetry as well as the unforgettable love poetry immediately associated with his name.
Every country suffers from stereotypes, few more than Scotland. Since the nineteenth century, if not earlier, we—and the rest of the world—have built a fantasy history of romantic kilted highlanders, misty glens, and Celtic romance which bears very little relationship to the much richer, much more complex reality of Scotland's past. As a writer and scholar one of my goals has been to explore that past and to dispel—or at least explain—the myths which still obscure it. I live in a small fishing village on the east coast of the country. There are very few kilts and no misty glens.
What is the dividing line between genius and madness? The question is a pressing one when you face Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty (1611-1660), duelist, soldier, mathematician, genealogist, linguist, poet, historian, metaphysician, cryptographer, and endless self-promoter. It is said that Urquhart invented as many words as Shakespeare. The difference? Shakespeare's neologisms caught on, while "disobstetricate," "enixibility," and "scripturiency" remain firmly outside the dictionaries. If you're feeling brave, though, Urquhart's Discovery of a Most Exquisite Jewel More Precious Than Diamonds Inchased with Gold, The Like Whereof Was Never Seen in Any Age(he means his own writing) is one of the richest, maddest, most compelling narratives of a Scot trying to find himself and his country in the war-torn seventeenth century.
