Teenage Sunja, the beloved daughter of a disabled fisherman, falls in love with a rich stranger at a beach close to her house in Korea in the early 1900s. He makes a lot of promises, but she rejects his advances when she learns she’s pregnant and that her lover is married. Instead, she accepts a marriage proposal from a kind, frail clergyman who is passing through town while traveling to Japan. But by leaving her house and rejecting her son’s wealthy father, she starts a dramatic story that will last for many generations.
Pachinko is a beautifully written and incredibly poignant tale of love, devotion, ambition, and sacrifice. Strong, unyielding women, devoted sisters, and sons, fathers shook by moral crisis, and others Lee’s complex and passionate characters survive and thrive against the uncaring arc of history in everything from bustling street markets to the halls of Japan’s finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Living everyday in the presence of those who refuse to acknowledge your humanity takes great courage.”
“You want to see a very bad man? Make an ordinary man successful beyond his imagination. Let’s see how good he is when he can do whatever he wants.”
“Learn everything. Fill your mind with knowledge—it’s the only kind of power no one can take away from you.” Hansu never told him to study, but rather to learn, and it occurred to Noa that there was a marked difference. Learning was like playing, not labor.”
“History has failed us, but no matter.”
“We cannot help but be interested in the stories of people that history pushes aside so thoughtlessly.”
Graves weaves the endless intrigues, depravity, bloody purges, and mounting brutality of the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, which would soon lead to the deified insanity of Caligula, into the “autobiography” of Clau-Clau-Claudius, the pitiable stammerer who was destined to become Emperor despite himself.
I, Claudius and its follow-up, Claudius the God, are two of the most acclaimed and compelling historical novels ever produced.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“I was thinking, “So, I’m Emperor, am I? What nonsense! But at least I’ll be able to make people read my books now.”
“Let all the poison that lurks in the mud, hatch out.”
“there are two different ways of writing history: one is to persuade men to virtue and the other is to compel men to truth.”
“I made no more protests. What was the use of struggling against fate”
“He was always boasting of his ancestors, as stupid people do who are aware that they have done nothing themselves to boast about.”
This is the tale of how England came to be in the ninth and tenth centuries, when King Alfred the Great, his son, and his grandson drove out the Danish Vikings who had controlled three of England’s four kingdoms and invaded the country.
The narrative is told from the perspective of Uhtred, an impoverished nobleman who was raised by the Danes after being kidnapped and raised by them as a child. By the time the Northmen launch their attack on Wessex, Alfred’s kingdom, and the final area under English control, Uhtred almost considers himself to be a Dane. The fact that Alfred suddenly defeats the Danes and the Danes turn against Uhtred forces him to ultimately decide on a side despite the fact that he has little affection for Alfred, whom he views as a weakling of the faith and no match for Viking cruelty. He is a young fellow by this point, in love, fighting-ready, and prepared to take his position in the fearsome shield wall. But above all, he longs to reclaim the magical fort of Bebbanburg by the untamed northern sea, the ancestral home of his father.
This exciting story recounts a time when law and order were ruthlessly torn apart by a heathen onslaught on Christian England, an invasion that nearly brought England to its doom. It is based on historical accounts of Bernard Cornwell’s forefathers.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Destiny is all, Ravn liked to tell me, destiny is everything. He would even say it in English, “Wyrd biõ ful ãræd.”
“A leader leads,” Ragnar said, “and you can’t ask men to risk death if you’re not willing to risk it yourself.”
“Laughter in battle. That was what Ragnar had taught me, to take joy from the fight.”
“Only the gods tell him what to do, and you should beware of men who take their orders from the gods.”
“Start your killers young, before their consciences are grown. Start them young and they will be lethal.”
This magnificent debut novel, a literary sensation, and instant bestseller portrays one of Japan’s most famous geishas’ real confessions with perfect authenticity and exquisite lyricism.
Memoirs of a Geisha take us into a world where looks are everything, virginity is sold to the highest bidder, ladies are taught how to seduce the most powerful men, and love is ridiculed as a delusion. It is an original and outstanding piece of fiction that is thrilling, sexual, romantic, and absolutely unforgettable.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves until one day there are none. No hopes. Nothing remains.”
“This is why dreams can be such dangerous things: they smolder on like a fire does, and sometimes they consume us completely.”
“He was like a song I’d heard once in fragments but had been singing in my mind ever since.”
“I dont think any of us can speak frankly about pain until we are no longer enduring it.”
“Sometimes,” he sighed, “I think the things I remember are more real than the things I see. ”
Approximately seventy years after the death of Christ, A Voice in the Wind’s opening line carries readers back to Jerusalem during the first Jewish-Roman War. The story revolves around an ill-fated romance between Hadassah, a stubborn slave girl, and Marcus, the brother of her owner and a gorgeous aristocrat. It follows the prideHadassah attempts to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and to treat her masters according to His teachings, but she is compelled to conceal her religious affiliation in order to survive. She struggles to quietly introduce God into her captors’ lives while feeling lost and alone, clinging solely to her faith.
Julia is a cunning, rash, and evil character who makes every effort to bring Hadassah down. Marcus, though, is a very different kind than Julia. Is it possible for Hadassah and Marcus’ relationship to succeed in light of not only their different social statuses but also the contrast between Hadassah’s unwavering faith and Marcus’ lack of any kind of belief? and passions of a group of Jews, Romans, and Barbarians living at the time of the siege. Hadassah is caught and sold to a wealthy merchant’s family after escaping the Romans’ killing of her family and the destruction of Jerusalem. She is brought to Rome and forced to work as Julia Valerian’s personal slave. Atretes, a captured German soldier, is made into a gladiator at the same time. The barbarian’s battle for existence in the arena is set against the decadence of a civilization on the edge of self-destruction during the decline of Rome.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“We bear the consequences for what we have done to ourselves, and for the sin that rules this world. Jesus forgave the thief, but he didn’t take him down off the cross.”
“Stand firm in the Lord. Stand firm and let Him fight your battle. Do not try to fight alone.”
“True beauty is rare, and seldom recognized by the one who possesses it.”
“Never doubt God in the darkness what he has given us in the light.”
“Have faith have faith. When you have nothing else have faith.”
Edmond Dantes is imprisoned in the gloomy stronghold of If after being accused of a crime he did not commit. He discovers there that the Isle of Monte Cristo is home to a vast treasure trove, and he decides to utilize this information to not only organize his escape but also the demise of the three men who are to blame for his imprisonment. When it was first serialized in the 1840s, Dumas’ epic tale of agony and vengeance—which was based on a true story of wrongful imprisonment—was a hugely successful work of literature.
The entertaining English translation by Robin Buss is accurate to Dumas’s original style and is entire and unabridged. This edition comes with an introduction, explanations, and reading recommendations.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“I am not proud, but I am happy; and happiness blinds, I think, more than pride.”
“All human wisdom is contained in these two words – Wait and Hope”
“It’s necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.”
“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome. Do your worst, for I will do mine! Then the fates will know you as we know you”
“Woman is sacred; the woman one loves is holy.”
The Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s is covered in Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, which was first published in 1939. The Joads, an Oklahoma farm family, are driven from their homestead and compelled to move west to the promised land of California. A story that is intimately human yet magnificent in scope and moral vision, elemental but blunt, tragic but ultimately uplifting in its human dignity, emerges from their struggles and recurrent collisions with the harsh reality of an America split into Haves and Have-Nots.
The novel portrays the horrors of the Great Depression and inquires into the very essence of equality and justice in America. It is a depiction of the fight between the powerful and the downtrodden, of one man’s fierce response to injustice, and of one woman’s stoic strength. Steinbeck’s enduring classic work is arguably the most American of all American Classics because it functions simultaneously as a naturalistic epic, captivity tale, road fiction, and transcendental gospel.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, and emerges ahead of his accomplishments.”
“And her joy was nearly like sorrow.”
“If you’re in trouble or hurt or need–go to poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help–the only ones.”
“The bank – the monster has to have profits all the time. It can’t wait. It’ll die. No, taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can’t stay one size.”
“It was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials.”
In traditional agricultural China, this is the touching story of a Chinese farmer and his family. Wang Lung, a modest man, takes pride in the soil he cultivates, nurturing it as it does for him and his family. The lords of the nearby House of Hwang believe they are superior to the land and its inhabitants, but they will soon meet their own demise.
Wang Lung and his family experience difficult times after being forced to seek employment in the city by flood and drought. The wealthy were forced to evacuate as a result of the working class rioters smashing into their homes. Even when the House of Hwang declines, Wang Lung rises in the world when he offers charity to one noble and is rewarded.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“It is the end of a family- when they begin to sell their land. Out of the land we came and into we must go – and if you will hold your land you can live- no one can rob you of land.”
“And roots, if they are to bear fruits, must be kept well in the soil of the land.”
“Hunger makes thief of any man.”
“But hers was a strange heart, sad in its very nature, and she could never weep and ease it as other women do, for her tears never brought her comfort.”
“And out of his heaviness there stood out strangely but one clear thought and it was a pain to him, and it was this, that he wished he had not taken the two pearls from O-lan that day when she was washing his clothes at the pool, and he would never bear to see Lotus put them in her ears again.”
Philadelphia’s streets are bustling with mosquitoes in the late summer of 1793 with reports of fever. Many people have fallen ill down by the docks, and the number of fatalities is rising. They now consist of Polly, a Cook Coffeehouse server. Mattie Cook, then fourteen, is not given time to grieve the loss of her childhood friend. Far from the mosquito-infested river, new customers have flooded her family’s coffee shop, and Mattie’s worries about fever are all but overwhelmed by fantasies of turning her family’s little business into a successful venture. However, when the fever starts to spread closer to her home, Mattie’s effort to start a new life must make way for a new battle—the battle to survive.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Had she ever enjoyed anything? Had every day been a struggle? Perhaps death would be a release, a rest for the weary.”
“What did it feel like to die? Was it a peaceful sleep? Some thought it was full of either trumpet-blowing angels or angry devils. Perhaps I was already dead.”
“Too much sleep is bad for your health, Matilda.” She slipped a freshly made ball of butter into a stone crock. “It must be such a grippe, a sleeping sickness.”
“Life was a battle, and Mother a tired and bitter captain”
“Our inhumane neighbors, instead of sympathizing with us tauntingly proclaim the healthfulness if their won cities…”
Two short pieces from a masterwork that was originally assumed to be lost, written by a pre-WWII bestselling novelist who was sent to Auschwitz and perished before her work could be finished. Irène Némirovsky, a Ukrainian-born author living in Paris, had already achieved great success by the early 1900s when she started writing Suite Française, the first two sections of a planned five-part novel. She was also a Jew, thus in 1942 she was sent to Auschwitz after being caught, and a month later she passed away at the age of 39.
She started writing her novel, a brilliant picture of a human drama in which she too would become a victim, two years prior while residing in a little village in central France with her husband and their two young girls. The handwritten manuscripts for the two parts of the epic that she had finished when she was arrested were kept in a suitcase that her daughters would later use to flee to safety. We may now read Némirovsky’s literary masterwork after 64 years.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Waiting is erotic”
“After all, people judge one another according to their own feelings. It is only the miser who sees other enticed by money, the lustful who see others obsessed by desire.”
“All the light of the day, fleeing the earth, seemed for one brief moment to take refuge in the sky; pink clouds spiralled round the full moon that was as green as pistachio sorbet and as clear as glass; it was reflected in the lake.”
“Paris had its sweetest smell, the smell of chestnut trees in bloom and of petrol with a few grains of dust that crack under your teeth like pepper. In the darknes the danger seemed to grow. You could smell the suffering in the air, in the silence. Everyone looked at their house and thought, “Tomorrow it will be in ruins, tomorrow I’l have nothing left.”
“The tender June day persisted, refusing to die. Each pulse of light was fainter and more exquisite than the last, as if bidding farewell to the earth, full of love and regret.”
An elderly church deacon by the name of Sportcoat rearranges into the yard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn in September 1969, pulls a.38 from his pocket, and shoots the project’s drug dealer in front of everyone at point-blank range.
In Deacon King Kong, McBride vividly depicts the individuals impacted by the shooting: the victim, the African-American and Latinx witnesses, the white neighbors, the neighborhood police assigned to the investigation, and the congregants of the Five Ends Baptist Church, where Sportcoat served as a deacon, the Italian mobsters in the area, and Sportcoat himself.
As the plot develops, it becomes apparent how unexpectedly the lives of the characters—caught in the turbulent whirl of 1960s New York—overlap. When the truth finally comes out, McBride demonstrates that not all secrets are intended to be kept a secret, that facing change fearlessly is the best way to advance, and that the roots of love are found in compassion and hope.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“God was forever generous with His gifts: hope, love, truth, and the belief in the indestructability of the good in all people.”
“Nothing in this world happens unless white folks says it happens. The lies they tell each other sound better to them than the truth does when it comes out of our mouths.”
“A man who doesn’t trust cannot be trusted”
“You ain’t got to worry about your skin.” “I do worries about my skin. It covers my body.”
“A man ain’t got to stand in church every Sunday to do God’s work.”
Lalita Tademy follows four generations of strong, motivated black women as they fight against injustice to reunite their family and build success on their own terms, starting with her great-great-great-great grandmother, a slave possessed by a Creole family. They are women whose lives began as slaves, who survived the Civil War, and who now must contend with the paradoxes of liberation, Jim Crow, and the South prior to the Civil Rights Movement. Tademy paints a magnificent image of rural Louisiana and the tenacious spirit of one legendary family as she peels back decades of racial and cultural views.
Suzette, Elisabeth’s youngest daughter, is the first to experience the promise—and heartbreak—of freedom. Elisabeth carries a noble legacy and the burden of bondage. Emily, Philomene’s passionate daughter, works to ensure her children’s just due and maintain their dignity and future. Philomene, Suzette’s strong-willed daughter, utilizes a drive born of tragedy to rejoin her family and achieve unheard-of economic independence. Cane River reveals a chapter of American history that has never been seen in such searing and personal depth. It is meticulously researched and masterfully written.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“You can’t tell how heavy somebody else’s load is just from looking. The Lord doesn’t give us more than we can carry”
“Reaching too deep into something not meant for you is full of pain. Figure out what you can have and work on that”
“Sometimes while you wait for what you think is better,” Philomene said, “what is good enough slips away.”
“This was the face of slavery. To have nothing, and still have something more to lose.”
“There is nothing more satisfying than having plans.”
It is now World War II. Irish-born Michael O’Shaunessey now resides in Nazi Germany with his parents. Michael is a member of the Hitler Youth, much like the other guys in his school. But Michael is hiding something. He is a spy, as are his parents. Michael abhors all that the Nazis represent. But he participates in the gruesome games and book burnings of the Hitler Youth while acting the part so he might learn insider information.
Things become much more problematic when Michael learns about Projekt 1065, a covert Nazi war mission. At all costs, he must demonstrate his allegiance to the Hitler Youth, even if it means jeopardizing everything he values. Include his own existence. Alan Gratz, the renowned author of Prisoner B-3087, has written a heart-pounding book. Known author Alan Gratz (Prisoner B-3087) has written a heart-pounding tale about conquering anxieties and defending what is most important.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“I had managed to scare even the monsters, and when you can scare monsters, you can be sure you’ve become one yourself.”
“Michael, it’s terrible to say so, but sometimes you have to weigh the cost of one man’s life against the value of an entire operation.”
“we’d stood up to Hitler and the Nazis with the rest of the Allies.”
“None of the boys were studying for the math test we had today, because none of them cared.”
“A girl from the Bund Deutscher Mädel, the girls’ version of the Hitler Youth, came and collected him.”
Abigail Rook, a recent immigrant to New Fiddleham, New England, in 1892, encounters R. F. Jackaby, a paranormal investigator with a sharp eye for the extraordinary—including the capacity to see ghostly beings. Abigail is the ideal candidate to serve as Jackaby’s assistant because she has a knack for spotting unremarkable but crucial information. A serial killer is on the run, and Abigail finds herself in the middle of a riveting investigation on her first day. The police, with the exception of a lovely young investigator named Charlie Cane, are persuaded it’s a typical bad guy, but Jackaby is positive it’s an alien monster. William Ritter’s debut book, which features a paranormal detective as seen from the eyes of his ambitious and bright sidekick in a tale bursting with cheeky comedy and spice of the macabre, is like Doctor Who meets Sherlock.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“That the battles are usually in her head does not lessen the bravery of it. The hardest ones always are.”
“I have ceased concerning myself with how things look to others, Abigail Rook. I suggest you do the same. In my experience, others are generally wrong.”
“This world is full of dragon-slayers. What we need are a few more people who aren’t too proud to listen to a few fish.”
“I wondered which was sadder, leaving someone to cry after you were gone, or not having anyone who would miss you in the first place”
“Happiness is bliss – but ignorance is anesthetic, and in the face of what’s to come, that may be all we can hope for our ill-fated acquaintances.”
Why does Cassie’s family value the land so highly? The events of one traumatic year—the year of the night riders and the burnings, as well as the year a white girl publicly humiliates Cassie because she is black—are necessary to convince Cassie that the Logan family’s ability to live independently is essential. No matter how others may treat them, the Logans own something that no one can take away. It is the soil that provides the Logans with their strength and pride.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“There are things you can’t back down on, things you gotta take a stand on. But it’s up to you to decide what them things are. You have to demand respect in this world, ain’t nobody just gonna hand it to you. How you carry yourself, what you stand for–that’s how you gain respect. But, little one, ain’t nobody’s respect worth more than your own.”
“Baby, we have no choice of what color we’re born or who our parents are or whether we’re rich or poor. What we do have is some choice over what we make of our lives once we’re here.”
“You have to demand respect in this world, ain’t nobody just going to hand it to you. How you carry yourself, what you stand for– thats how you gain respect. but little one aint nobody’s respect worth more than your own”
“One word can sometimes be sharper than a thousand swords”
“There are things you can’t back down on, things you gotta take a stand on. But it’s up to you to decide what them things are.”
In his 1966 book Tai-Pan, James Clavell tells the story of American and European traders who settled in Hong Kong in 1842 after the First Opium War. The second volume of Clavell’s Asian Saga is this one.
The tale of Dirk Struan, the Tai-Pan of the most powerful trading corporation in the Far East, is told in the 1840s during the volatile times surrounding Hong Kong’s foundation. He is also a great manipulator of men, a pirate, and an opium smuggler. This is the tale of his struggle to make his dynasty and himself the uncontested rulers of the Orient.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“If you’re a sailor, best not know how to swim. Swimming only prolongs the inevitable—if the sea wants you and your time has come.”
“Gods are like people. They believe anything if you tell them right way.”
“I’ll thank you to remember that not so many years ago men were burned at the stake just for saying the earth went round the sun!”
“If you smile when you lose, then you win in life.”
“I’m saying that some men are saints. Some are happy being meek and humble and unambitious. Some men are born content to be second-best.”
Dinah is her name. Her existence is only briefly and violently hinted at in the Book of Genesis passages that are more familiar about her father, Jacob, and his twelve sons. This book describes the customs and conflicts of ancient womanhood—the red tent world—in Dinah’s words. The tale of her mothers, Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah, the four wives of Jacob, is where it all starts. They care about Dinah and send her presents that help her get by during her hardworking youth, call to midwifery, and move to a new country. Dinah’s story establishes a close connection to the past by drawing on a spectacular time of early history. The Red Tent is incredibly moving because it blends intricate storytelling with an important contribution to contemporary fiction: a fresh perspective on biblical women’s society.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“The painful things seemed like knots on a beautiful necklace, necessary for keeping the beads in place.”
“I wanted to cry, but I realized that I was too old for that. I would be a woman soon and I would have to learn how to live with a divided heart.”
“Of all life’s pleasures, only love owes no debt to death.”
“Death is no enemy, but the foundation of gratitude, sympathy, and art. Of all life’s pleasures, only love owes no debt to death.”
“If you want to understand any woman, you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully. ”
One unprecedented move is about to be taken by three regular women. Skeeter, who is twenty-two years old, graduated from Ole Miss and has since moved back home. Even though she may have a degree, it is 1962 in Mississippi, and Skeeter’s mother won’t be content until she has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would often seek comfort from the lady who reared her, her loving maid Constantine, but Constantine has vanished, and no one would tell Skeeter where she has fled.
Aibileen is a smart, regal black maid who is parenting her seventeenth child who is white. After losing her beloved son, who passed away while his superiors turned a blind eye, something inside of her changed. Despite knowing that both of their hearts might be crushed, she is dedicated to the young girl she tends after.
Kathryn Stockett invents three exceptional people with pitch-perfect voices, whose will to begin a campaign of their own transforms a community and the way in which mothers, daughters, carers, and friends see one another. The Help is a profoundly touching book that is full of poignancy, comedy, and hope. It is a timeless and enduring tale about the lines we follow and the ones we can’t control.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”
“All I’m saying is, kindness don’t have no boundaries.”
“Wasn’t that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I’d thought.”
“Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else.”
“Stuart needs “space” and “time,” as if this were physics and not a human relationship.”
Survive. at any price. Ten internment facilities. You are malnourished, tortured, and slaved in ten different locations. Nobody could ever imagine enduring that. But Yanek Gruener has deal with it.
Yanek, a young Jewish boy in occupied Poland in the 1930s, is at the disposal of the Nazis. His possessions and the people he loves have been violently taken from him. Then Yanek himself is held captive, and the words PRISONER B-3087 are tattooed on his arm.
In the midst of World War II raging all around him, he is compelled to move from one nightmare concentration camp to another. He comes across an evil that he could never have predicted, yet he also notices unexpected glimmerings of hope amid the misery. He narrowly avoids death, only to have to face it once more shortly after.
Can Yanek endure the fear without losing faith in himself, his will, and—most importantly—his understanding of who he is at his core?
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Life is but a river. It has no beginning, no middle, no end. All we are, all we are worth, is what we do while we float upon it — how we treat our fellow man.”
“It was all a big joke. I could see that now. There was no rhyme or reason to whether we lived or died. One day it might be the man next to you at roll call who is torn apart by dogs. The next day it might be you who is shot through the head. You could play the game perfectly and still lose, so why bother playing at all?”
“And you wanted to escape,’ a man near me whispered to another man. ‘You wanted to run off into the woods and fight. But do you see? Do you see what the rest of them think about us? These people would sell you back to the Nazis for a sack of potatoes and then toast you at their dinner table.”
“It was easy to think the worst of humanity when all I saw was brutality and selfishness, and these people showed me there was still good in the world, even if I rarely saw it.”
“What were they thinking, those little German children? Did they see animals when they looked at us, or people? I wasn’t so sure myself anymore.”
The incredible story of Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII, and how she rose to become one of the most powerful women of her time is told in the movie Succession. 1444. By proxy, Henry VI marries Margaret of Anjou, a controversial decision that sparks national outrage. The newborn Margaret Beaufort also becomes a wealthy heiress following the passing of her father, the Earl of Somerset. She brings the Beaufort riches and a beneficial tie with her uncle, so everyone in court is vying to be her guardian. In the years that follow, Henry VI loses his mind, civil war breaks out, and families are set against one another. English rule in France also ends during this time.
Margaret Beaufort, who is barely out of childhood, marries twice by the time she is thirteen and gives birth to her lone child, the future King of England. The bloody, exciting history of the House of Lancaster’s downfall and the Tudor dynasty’s ascent is told in Succession.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“She thought of all the words that went unspoken in the world, throughout time: what happened to them, where did they go? What would happen if they were all spoken? How different would the world be then?”
― Livi Michael, Succession
Amor Towles made a name for himself as a master of intellectual fiction with Rules of Civility, his bestselling debut book, which brilliantly captured the ambiance and style of late 1930s Manhattan. In the words of NPR, “Towles writes with grace and energy about the social norms and manners of a civilization on the edge of tremendous change,” readers and critics were enthralled.
With the tale of Count Alexander Rostov, A Gentleman in Moscow transports us to a different gorgeously rendered era. The count is placed under house imprisonment in the Metropol, a luxurious hotel located across the street from the Kremlin, in 1922 after being found to be an unrepentant aristocracy by a Bolshevik tribunal.
Since Rostov has never employed a day in his life, he is forced to reside in an attic room as some of the most turbulent decades in Russian history take place outside the hotel. Rostov is an unflappable man of intelligence and wit. Unexpectedly, his more limited circumstances open a gateway to a vaster universe of emotional exploration for him.
This unique novel creates a spell as it describes the count’s attempt to comprehend what it means to be a man of purpose in greater detail. It is rife with humor, has a glittering cast of characters, and wonderfully described scenes after another.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“…what matters in life is not whether we receive a round of applause; what matters is whether we have the courage to venture forth despite the uncertainty of acclaim.”
“Fate would not have the reputation it has if it simply did what it seemed it would do.”
“For as it turns out, one can revisit the past quite pleasantly, as long as one does so expecting nearly every aspect of it to have changed.”
“If patience wasn’t so easily tested, then it would hardly be a virtue. . . ”
“Here, indeed, was a formidable sentence–one that was on intimate terms with a comma, and that held the period in healthy disregard.”
Hugh Glass is not terrified of death. He’s already done it once. The Rocky Mountains in 1823. The Rocky Mountain Fur Company’s trappers live a harsh frontier life. Hugh Glass, an accomplished frontiersman, and superb tracker is one of the company’s most valued men. However, when a scouting operation puts Glass in the path of a grizzly bear, he is badly wounded and is not likely to survive. Two men from the company are assigned to stay with him until his death. But, fearing an impending invasion, they ditch Glass, taking his beloved weapon and hatchet with them.
Glass is pushed to endure as he sees the men flee by one overpowering desire: vengeance. He embarks on a three-thousand-mile trip across the hard American frontier, seeking vengeance on the men who deceived him, with astonishing bravery and drive.
The Revenant is a fantastic story about obsession and the depths to which one man will go for vengeance. The epic new film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy is based on the novel.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“There are none so deaf as those that will not hear.”
“If he only made three miles a day, so be it. Better to have those three miles behind him than ahead.”
“Of course, it’s not simple. Who said it was simple? But you know what? Lots of loose ends don’t ever get tied up. Play the hand you’re dealt. Move on.”
“Though no law was written, there was a crude rule of law, adherence to a covenant that transcended their selfish interests. It was biblical in its depth, and its importance grew with each step into the wilderness. When the need arose, a man extended a helping hand to his friends, his partners, to strangers. In so doing, each knew that his own survival might one day depend upon the reaching grasp of another.”
“And if Glass believed in a god, surely it resided in this great western expanse. Not a physical presence, but an idea, something beyond man’s ability to comprehend, something larger.”
Ken Follett is renowned across the globe as the king of split-second suspense, yet his most cherished and successful book tells the beautiful story of a twelfth-century monk who is motivated to do the seemingly impossible: construct the greatest Gothic cathedral that has ever seen.
There is a mystery, quick-paced action, and intense romance—everything fans have come to expect from Follett. But what sets The Pillars of the Earth apart from other novels is the period—the eleventh century—the setting—feudal England—and the subject—the construction of a magnificent cathedral. Every feature of Middle Ages England has been faithfully recreated by Follett. It becomes routine to see the enormous forests, walled cities, castles, and monasteries.
The master storyteller entices the reader magnetically into the linked lives of his characters into their dreams, labors, and loves against this vividly envisioned and intricately interwoven backdrop, packed with the horrors of war and the rhythms of daily life: Tom, the master builder, Aliena, the stunningly attractive nobility, Philip, the prior of Kingsbridge, Jack, the stone artisan, and Ellen, the curse-casting forest creature round out the cast. Each individual, from the lowly stonemason to the regal ruler, is wonderfully portrayed. Follett spins a tale of betrayal, retaliation, and love around the building site that starts with an innocent man being publicly hanged and ends with a king being humiliated.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“The most expensive part of building is the mistakes.”
“She wanted to say ‘I love you like a thunderstorm, like a lion, like a helpless rage’…”
“The duck swallows the worm, the fox kills the duck, the men shoot the fox, and the devil hunts the men.”
“Hunger is the best seasoning.”
“Proportion is the heart of beauty.”
Esperanza believed she would always have servants, a luxurious home, and elegant clothes as she lived with her family on their property in Mexico. Esperanza and Mama are forced to move to California during the Great Depression and dwell in a camp for Mexican farm workers due to an unexpected tragedy. Esperanza is not prepared for the demanding work, financial hardships, or absence of acceptance she is currently dealing with. Esperanza must overcome her challenging circumstances when their new existence is endangered because both Mama’s and her own lives depend on it.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Wait for the fruit to fall into your hand.”
“I am poor, but I am rich. I have my children, I have a garden with roses, and I have my faith and the memories of those who have gone before me. What more is there?”
“Those with Spanish blood, who have the fairest complexions in the land, are the wealthiest.” Esperanza”
“Esperanza means hope in Spanish.”
“The rich take care of the rich and the poor take care of those who have less than they have.”
Two young people—the sensuous, fiercely independent Nadia and the sweet, restrained Saeed—meet in a nation that is on the verge of civil war. They start a covert relationship, but the upheaval shaking their city soon isolates them in an early intimacy. They start to hear rumblings about doors until it erupts, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts. These doors can transport individuals far away, but only at great risk and expense. Nadia and Saeed come to the conclusion that they are powerless to stop the violence as it intensifies. They locate a door and enter it, leaving their house and previous life behind.
Exit West portrays these characters as they leave behind their familiar past and enter an unfamiliar and unknown future while attempting to cling to one another, their history, and their very sense of themselves. It recounts a remarkable tale of love, devotion, and courage that is simultaneously entirely of our time and timeless. It is profoundly intimate and incredibly innovative.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“We are all migrants through time.”
“To love is to enter into the inevitability of one day not being able to protect what is most valuable to you.”
“when we migrate, we murder from our lives those we leave behind.”
“And so their memories took on potential, which is of course how our greatest nostalgias are born.”
“In this group, everyone was foreign, and so, in a sense, no one was.”
Marie de France, age 17, is sent to England to become the new prioress of a destitute abbey, with its nuns on the verge of starvation and plagued by illness. Marie de France was expelled from the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine because she was thought to be too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life.
With her solitary and erratic sisters, Marie finds focus and affection after initially being overwhelmed by the intensity of her new life. In this test, Marie gradually replaces her longing for her family, her native land, and the passions of her childhood with something new to her: love for her sisters and a firm belief in her own supernatural visions.
Marie, who was the last in a long line of female fighters and crusaders to be born, is determined to set the women she now leads and defends on a daring new route. Will Marie’s vision alone be a sufficient defense in a world that is corroding and altering in horrifying ways and that cannot accept her existence?
A captivating depiction of blazing desire, irrational faith, and a woman whose history both moves through and around, Matrix brings together currents of violence, sensuality, and religious ecstasy. It is a film that is equally attuned to the sacred and the profane. The first book by Lauren Groff since Fates and Furies, the new book explores the unbridled potential of feminine creativity in a corrupted society.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Nothing is all stark and clear any longer, nothing stands in opposition. Good and evil live together; dark and light. Contradictions can be true at once. The world holds a great and pulsing terror at its center. The world is ecstatic in its very deeps.”
― Lauren Groff, Matrix
“Aging is a constant loss; all the things considered essential in youth prove with time that they are not. Skins are shed, and left at the roadside for the new young to pick up and carry on.”
― Lauren Groff, Matrix
“Animals are closer to god, of course; this is because animals have no need of god.”
― Lauren Groff, Matrix
“Open your hands and let your life go. It has never been yours to do with what you will.”
― Lauren Groff, Matrix
“Women act counter to all the laws of submission when they remove themselves from availability.”
― Lauren Groff, Matrix
Marie-Laure, whose father works at the Museum of Natural History, resides in Paris close by. When Marie-Laure is twelve years old, the Nazis have taken over Paris, and her father and daughter leave for Saint-Malo, a walled city where Marie-great Laure’s uncle lives alone in a tall home by the sea. They may be transporting the most priceless and hazardous treasure in the museum.
Orphan Werner Pfennig grows up in a mining village in Germany with his younger sister, fascinated by a rudimentary radio they discover that transmits news and tales from locations they have never visited or imagined. Werner gains proficiency in creating and maintaining these essential new tools and is hired to use his skill to find the resistance. Doerr skillfully illustrates the ways people attempt to be kind to one another in spite of all circumstances by weaving together the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner.
The breathtakingly beautiful, immediately successful New York Times bestseller by Anthony Doerr tells the story of a blind French girl and a German boy who cross paths in occupied France as they both struggle to survive the destruction of World War II.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.”
“Don’t you want to be alive before you die?”
“But it is not bravery; I have no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don’t you do the same?”
“So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?”
“All your life you wait, and then it finally comes, and are you ready?”
When all is lost, what endures are our tales. How will we survive the end of everything? In order to depict a vision of surviving against all odds, Cloud Cuckoo Land draws together an extraordinary ensemble of dreamers and outsiders from the past, present, and future.
Constantinople, 1453: On opposing sides of a city wall, a cursed child who loves animals and an orphaned seamstress risk all to defend the people they care about.
Idaho, 2020: An idealistic, poor child seeks vengeance on a world that is disintegrating around him. Can he carry it out when a kind old guy stands in the way of his plans?
Unknown, In the Future:
Konstance is the last hope for humanity as her small community is in danger. She must seek the oldest tales of all for direction in order to move forward. These stories, which are connected by a single ancient text, weave together to create a tapestry of comfort and resiliency as well as a celebration of storytelling. Anthony Doerr’s latest book, like its predecessor All the Light We Cannot See, is a story of profound human connection and optimism.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“But books, like people, die. They die in fires or floods or in the mouths of worms or at the whims of tyrants. If they are not safeguarded, they go out of the world. And when a book goes out of the world, the memory dies a second death.”
“Each morning comes along and you assume it will be similar enough to the previous one—that you will be safe, that your family will be alive, that you will be together, that life will remain mostly as it was. Then a moment arrives and everything changes.”
“Sometimes the things we think are lost are only hidden, waiting to be rediscovered.”
“WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE IS BETTER THAN WHAT YOU SO DESPERATELY SEEK”
“we are all beautiful even as we are all part of the problem, and that to be a part of the problem is to be human”
Two women—an unconventional American socialite looking for her cousin in 1947 and a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I—are brought together in a captivating new historical novel by national bestselling author Kate Quinn. The story is one of bravery and redemption.
1947. American college student Charlie St. Clair is unmarried, pregnant, and on the verge of being expelled from her extremely proper family in the turbulent years following World War II. She also has a fervent wish that her beloved cousin Rose, who vanished during the war in Nazi-occupied France, is still alive. Charlie, who is determined to learn what happened to the cousin she adores like a sister, escapes her parents’ control and travels to London after they send her to Europe to have her “small problem” resolved.
1915. Eve Gardiner is eager to fight against the Germans a year into the Great War and unanticipatedly gets her opportunity when she is hired to operate as a spy. She is sent into enemy-occupied France where she receives training from the captivating Lili, alias Alice, the “queen of spies,” who oversees a vast network of covert agents directly in front of the enemy’s eyes. Thirty years later, Eve spends her days alone and intoxicated in her dilapidated London home, plagued by the treachery that eventually tore the Alice Network apart. Up until a young American enters, speaking a name Eve hasn’t heard in years, setting them both on a quest to discover the truth—wherever it may lead.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“What did it matter if something scared you when it simply had to be done?”
― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network
“Hope was such a painful thing, far more painful than rage.”
― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network
“There are two kinds of flowers when it comes to women,” Eve said. “The kind that sits safely in a beautiful vase, or the kind that survive in any conditions . . . even in evil. Lili was the latter. Which are you?”
― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network
“Poetry is like passion–it should not be merely pretty; it should overwhelm and bruise.”
― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network
“Fleurs du mal,” Eve heard herself saying, and shivered. “What?” “Baudelaire. We are not flowers to be plucked and shielded, Captain. We are flowers who flourish in evil.”
― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network
A noisy young family comes in next door, upending the lonely life of a gruff but lovable father. I’m Ove. He’s a curmudgeon, the kind of person who accuses those he doesn’t like of breaking in through his bedroom window. He has short temper, rigid routines, and strong morals. People refer to Ove as the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter simply because he doesn’t always have a smile on his face?
There is a story and grief hidden beneath the gruff appearance. So when a chatty young couple and their two chatty young girls move in next door one November morning and unintentionally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it serves as the prelude to a funny and endearing story of unkempt cats, a surprising friendship, and the age-old skill of backing a U-Haul. All of which will fundamentally alter one grumpy old man and a neighborhood residents’ group.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was color. All the color he had.”
“We always think there’s enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like ‘if’.”
“She just smiled, said that she loved books more than anything, and started telling him excitedly what each of the ones in her lap was about. And Ove realised that he wanted to hear her talking about the things she loved for the rest of his life.”
“Ove had never been asked how he lived before he met her. But if anyone had asked him, he would have answered that he didn’t.”
“Men are what they are because of what they do. Not what they say.”
1940. Three very different women respond to the summons to the enigmatic country estate Bletchley Park, where the brightest minds in Britain learn to decipher German military codes, as England gets ready to fight the Nazis. Osla is a vivacious debutante who has it all—beauty, money, and the handsome Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses—but she is driven to prove that she is more than just a society girl. To that goal, she uses her fluent German to translate enemy secrets. Mab, a conceited self-made woman who was raised in poverty in East London, works the famed code-breaking machines while hiding her scars and looking for a husband who will benefit her social standing.
Meliara must learn a whole new method of fighting if she is to survive—with wit, words, and covert alliances. At least in war, she knew who she could rely on. She can no longer put her trust in anyone.
Both Osla and Mab see potential in local village spinster Beth, whose shyness hides a tremendous ability with puzzles, and Beth soon spread her wings as one of the Park’s few female cryptanalysts. However, conflict, loss, and the unbearable pressure of secret will separate the three.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“If he doesn’t love me in a boiler suit, he’s not worth dressing up for in the first place.”
“Are not there little chapters in everybody’s life, Beth had read in Vanity Fair only that morning, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of history?”
“Every night, tell yourself what you told me. How you’re a patriot, not a traitor. How you’re the hero of this story, not the villain.” Beth smiled. “Then remember that you got an innocent woman locked in a madhouse to save your own skin, and ask yourself: how goddamned heroic is that?”
“These have knelled your fall and ruin, but your ears were far away,’” Beth quoted one of Dilly’s irreverent verses. “‘English lassies rustling papers through the sodden Bletchley day .”
“No one should tell their mother more than one-third of anything they get up to.”
Molly Gray is unique compared to other people. She has trouble interacting with others and frequently misinterprets their intentions. Molly’s grandmother used to translate the world for her, codifying everything into clear guidelines that she could follow.
Since Gran passed away a few months ago, Molly, age 25, has had to deal with the difficulties of life on her own. Whatever the case, she enthusiastically dives into her work as a hotel maid. She is the perfect candidate for the job because of her distinctive personality, obsession with cleanliness, and understanding of the right protocol. She enjoys putting on her polished uniform every morning, filling her cart with tiny soaps and bottles, and making sure the guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel are immaculate.
The day Molly visits the opulent and infamous Charles Black’s apartment, however, her tidy life is upended when she discovers it in a chaotic state and Mr. Black dead in his bed. Before Molly realizes what’s occurring, the police have her as their top suspect due to her peculiar behavior. She soon finds herself entangled in a web of lies that she is unable to escape from. Luckily for Molly, she teams up with pals she didn’t even know she had in order to look for information about what actually happened to Mr. Black. However, will they be able to identify the real culprit before it’s too late? The Maid examines what it means to be identical to everyone else and yet very different—and illustrates that all riddles may be solved through connecting to the human heart. It is a Clue-like locked-room mystery and a delightful voyage of the soul.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
― Nita Prose, The Maid
“That’s the trouble with pain. It’s as contagious as a disease. It spreads from the person who first endured it to those who love them most. Truth isn’t always the highest ideal’ sometimes it must be sacrificed to stop the spread of pain to those you love.”
― Nita Prose, The Maid
“I’ll never understand it—why people find the truth more shocking than lies.”
― Nita Prose, The Maid
“My truth is not the same as yours because we don’t experience life in the same way.”
― Nita Prose, The Maid
“It’s easier than you’d ever think—existing in plain sight while remaining largely invisible. That’s what I’ve learned from being a maid.”
― Nita Prose, The Maid
Elizabeth Zott, a chemist, is not your typical woman. In actuality, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to acknowledge the lack of a typical woman. However, her all-male Hastings Research Institute staff has a very unscientific perspective on equality because it is the early 1960s. Except for Calvin Evans, the misanthropic, bright, and Nobel Prize nominee who falls in love with her mind of all things. Results of true chemistry.
But life is unpredictable, just like science. Because of this, Elizabeth Zott discovers herself to be a single mother and the unwilling star of Supper at Six, one of America’s most popular cookery programs, a few years later. Elizabeth’s novel method of cooking—combining a tablespoon of acetic acid with a dash of sodium chloride—proves to be ground-breaking. But not everyone is pleased as her fan base expands. Elizabeth Zott isn’t simply teaching women how to cook, it turns out. She is daring them to alter the current situation.
Lessons in Chemistry is as unique and lively as its main character and is laugh-out-loud humorous, astutely observant, and filled with a sparkling ensemble of supporting characters.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Because while musical prodigies are always celebrated, early readers aren’t. And that’s because early readers are only good at something others will eventually be good at, too. So being first isn’t special – it’s just annoying.”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry
“Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun,”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry
“Courage is the root of change—and change is what we’re chemically designed to do.”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry
“On the other hand, wasn’t that the very definitely of life? Constant adaptations brought about by a series of never-ending mistakes?”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry
“Imagine if all men took women seriously. Education would change. The workforce would revolutionize. Marriage counsellors would go out of business. Do you see my point?”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry
Texas, 1934. The Great Plains are in a drought, and millions of people are jobless. As crops fail, water runs out, and dust threatens to bury everyone, farmers are fighting to maintain their land and their means of subsistence. The Dust Bowl era, one of the worst parts of the Great Depression, has descended with a vengeance.
Elsa Martinelli, like so many of her neighbors, is forced to choose between fighting for the land she loves and moving to California in quest of a better life in this uncertain and frightening period. A generation will be defined by the heroism and sacrifice of one unbreakable woman, whose book The Four Winds is an unforgettable portrayal of America and the American Dream.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“A warrior believes in an end she can’t see and fights for it. A warrior never gives up. A warrior fights for those weaker than herself. It sounds like motherhood to me.”
“Courage is fear you ignore.”
“It wasn’t the fear that mattered in life. It was the choices made when you were afraid. You were brave because of your fear, not in spite of it.”
“Love is what remains when everything else is gone.”
“Books had always been her solace; novels gave her the space to be bold, brave, beautiful, if only in her own imagination.”
An emotional comedy about a crime that never happened, a would-be bank robber who vanishes into thin air, and eight incredibly anxious strangers who discover they have more in common than they ever imagined comes from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove and “writer of astonishing depth” (The Washington Times).
Viewing an apartment is often not a life-or-death experience, but this open house does turn into one when a failed bank robber storms in and kidnaps everyone inside. The eight strangers gradually start to open up to one another as the pressure builds and divulge long-kept secrets. The whimsical story of Anxious People serves up memorable insights into the human condition and is a friendly reminder to be kind to all the anxious people we come across every day. It is rich with Fredrik Backman’s “pitch-perfect dialogue and an unparalleled humanistic approach” (Shelf Awareness).
Best Quotes from this Book:
“They say that a person’s personality is the sum of their experiences. But that isn’t true, at least not entirely, because if our past was all that defined us, we’d never be able to put up with ourselves. We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we’re more than the mistakes we made yesterday. That we are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows.”
“That’s the power of literature, you know, it can act like little love letters between two people who can only explain their feelings by pointing at other people’s.”
“Some people accept that they will never be free of their anxiety, they just learn to carry it. She tried to be one of them. She told herself that was why you should always be nice to other people, even idiots, because you never know how heavy their burden is.”
“We don’t have a plan, we just do our best to get through the day, because there’ll be another one coming along tomorrow.”
“We give those we love nicknames, because love requires a word that belongs to us alone.”
At the conclusion of World War II, Cyril Conroy builds a massive real estate empire by a combination of good fortune and a single wise investment, lifting his family out of extreme poverty. The Dutch House, an opulent house outside of Philadelphia, is his first order of business. The house, which was intended to be a present for his wife, causes everyone he loves to fall apart.
Danny, Cyril’s kid, tells the tale as he and Maeve, their older sister, who is superbly sarcastic and confident, are banished from the home where they were raised by their stepmother. The two affluent brothers discover they can only rely on one another when they are thrust back into the misery their parents had managed to escape. Both their lives are saved and their futures are derailed by this unbreakable tie between them.
The Dutch House is a sad fairy tale about two intelligent people who are unable to get past their past, taking place over a period of five decades. Even though they appear to be successful, Danny and Maeve are only fully at ease when they are together. They continually resort back to the well-worn narrative of what they have lost with wit and passion throughout their lives. However, the bond between an indulgent brother and his ever-protective sister is eventually put to the test when they are finally forced to face the people who abandoned them.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“We had made a fetish out of our misfortune, fallen in love with it.”
“Do you think it’s possible to ever see the past as it actually was?”
“Fluffy always said there was no greater luxury for a woman than to have a window over the sink.”
“Thinking about the past impeded my efforts to be decent in the present.”
“We were all so young, you know. We were still our best selves.”
Fernando Pessoa was a multi-author. His prolific work was attributed to a variety of different parallel personas, each with its own biography, ideology, and horoscope. The remarkable pages that makeup Pessoa’s posthumous masterpiece, The Book of Disquiet, were among the unfinished and unpublished writings he left behind in his trunk when he passed away in 1935. George Steiner once said that the book “gives to Lisbon the haunting spell of Joyce’s Dublin or Kafka’s Prague.” The “autobiography” of Bernardo Soares, one of Pessoa’s multiple identities, was finally published for the first time some fifty years after his death in this extraordinary collection of condensed, aphoristic paragraphs. The Book of Disquiet, one of the best works of the 20th century, is a compelling translation by Richard Zenith that is equal parts private journal, prose poetry, and descriptive story.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
“My past is everything I failed to be.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
“My soul is impatient with itself, as with a bothersome child; its restlessness keeps growing and is forever the same. Everything interests me, but nothing holds me. I attend to everything, dreaming all the while. […]. I’m two, and both keep their distance — Siamese twins that aren’t attached.”
― Fernando Pessoa , The Book of Disquiet
“I’d woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
“There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes where life is not painful.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
From her vantage point inside the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with exceptional observational skills, keeps a close eye on the actions of those coming in to browse and people walking by on the street outside. While Klara is still certain that a client will soon select her, she is cautioned not to place too much faith in human promises as it becomes possible that her circumstances could change for good.
In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro examines the fast-evolving modern world through the perspective of a memorable narrator to delve into a central query: what is love?
Best Quotes from this Book:
“There was something very special, but it wasn’t inside Josie. It was inside those who loved her.”
“Perhaps all humans are lonely. At least potentially.”
“They fought as though the most important thing was to damage each other as much as possible.”
“At the same time, what was becoming clear to me was the extent to which humans, in their wish to escape loneliness, made maneuvers that were very complex and hard to fathom, and I saw it was possible that the consequences of Morgan’s Falls had at no stage been within my control.”
“So I know just how much it matters to you that people who love one another are brought together, even after many years.”
Night, a terrifying first-person account of the crimes committed during the Holocaust by Elie Wiesel, is translated by Marion Wiesel and published in Penguin Modern Classics with a foreword by Elie Wiesel.
Elie Wiesel was deported as a kid to the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald after being born into a Jewish ghetto in Hungary. This is his narrative of that catastrophe, including the ever-increasing atrocities he faced, the death of his family, and his battle for survival in a society that had stripped him of his humanity, respect, and faith. Night is one of the most intimate, touching, and straightforward descriptions of the Holocaust, simply describing the sad slaughter of a people from the viewpoint of a survivor.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.”
“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”
“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed….Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.”
“I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.”
“For in the end, it is all about memory, its sources and its magnitude, and, of course, its consequences.”