Literary Fiction War

La Grande Guerre est finie depuis sept ans quand Maurice Poudevigne, que tout le monde croyait mort, revient "au pays". En suivant pas à pas l'itinéraire de cet ouvrier agricole de son enfance à sa mort, Jean Anglade nous offre un bel hymne à la vie et à la culture paysanne du début du siècle dernier. Fataliste, Maurice Poudevigne ? Il aime les joies simples, vivre entre les siens, monter, chaque été, sur le plateau du Cézallier, faucher les foins comme son père puis son frère aîné l'ont fait avant lui, au point d'être jugé le meilleur du canton.

From Shanghai before and during the Second World War to US occupied Tokyo, and, finally, to the Middle East in the early 1970s, Ian Buruma's masterful novel about the intoxicating power of collective fantasy follows three star-struck men driven to extraordinary acts by their devotion to the same legendary woman. A beautiful Japanese girl born in Manchuria, Yamaguchi Yoshiko is known as Ri Koran in Japan, Li Xianglan in China, and Shirley Yamaguchi in the US, and her past is a closely guarded secret.

Germany, 1939. Two children watch as their parents become immersed in the puzzling mechanisms of power. Sieglinde lives in the affluent ignorance of middle-class Berlin, her father a censor who excises prohibited words from books. Erich is an only child living near Leipzig, tending beehives, aware that he is shadowed by strange, unanswered questions. Drawn together as Germany's hope for a glorious future begins to collapse, the children find temporary refuge in an abandoned theater amid the rubble of Berlin. Watching over them is the wish child, the enigmatic narrator of their story.

Sitting in a jail cell on the eve of his hanging, April 1, 1875, freedman Persimmon "Persy" Wilson wants nothing more than to leave some record of the truth - his truth. He may be guilty but not of what he stands accused: the kidnapping and rape of his former master's wife. In 1860 Persy had been sold to Sweetmore, a Louisiana sugar plantation, alongside a striking light-skinned house slave named Chloe. Their deep and instant connection fueled a love affair and inspired plans to escape their owner, Master Wilson, who claimed Chloe as his concubine.

In haunting and crystalline prose, The Train of Small Mercies follows six characters' intrepid search for hope among the debris of an American tragedy.In New York, a young black porter struggles through his first day on the job-a staggering assignment aboard Robert F. Kennedy's funeral train. In Pennsylvania, a woman creates a tangle of lies to sneak away from her disapproving husband and pay her respects to the slain senator, dragging her child with her.

Die Brüder Karl und Paul Effinger brechen aus Süddeutschland nach Berlin auf, um Schrauben zu produzieren. Dort heiraten sie in die alteingesessene Familie Oppner ein, es gelingt der gesellschaftlicher Aufstieg. Doch spätestens nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg beginnen die bürgerlichen Gewissheiten zu bröckeln. Auch die prachtvollen Feste können nicht mehr über den sich immer brutaler äußernden Antisemitismus in der Gesellschaft hinwegtäuschen. Die Auflehnung der jungen Generation wirbelt die gutbürgerliche Familie zusätzlich durcheinander.

Erica Tate wouldn't mind getting up in the morning if she enjoyed her children more. Until puberty struck, Jeffrey and Matilda were absolute darlings, but in the last year, they have become sullen, insufferable little monsters. Erica's husband, Brian, is so deeply immersed in university life--and the legs of a half-literate flower child named Wendy--that he either doesn't notice his wife's misery or simply doesn't care. Worst of all their pleasant little neighborhood is transforming into a subdivision.

The world seems an effervescent place of parties, jazz, and family happiness to Mary van der Linden. But the Eisenhower years are ending, and 1960 brings the presidential battle between two ambitious senators: John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. When an American newspaper reporter called Frank Renzo enters the van der Lindens' lives, they are forced to confront the terror of the Cold War that is the dark background of their carefree existence.

Richard Sharpe believes that his soldiering days are over, but his retirement is interrupted by a request from Donna Louisa Vivar for Sharpe to discover the truth about the disappearance of her husband, the Captain-General of Chile. Sharpe's quest takes him to St Helena and an encounter with Napoleon, and on to Chile where he soon finds himself caught up in the rebellion against Spanish rule and fighting alongside the flamboyant rebel admiral, Lord Thomas Cochrane.

On a windy night in 1937, a 17-year-old German naval sub-cadet is wandering along the seawall when he stumbles upon a gang of ruffians beating up a tramp, whose life he saves. The man is none other than spymaster Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the Abwehr, German military intelligence. Canaris adopts the young man and dubs him "Cesare" after the character in the silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari for his ability to break through any barrier as he eliminates the Abwehr's enemies.

"Wiesenstein" ist die Geschichte eines irrend-liebenden Genies und einer untergehenden und sich doch dagegenstemmenden Welt. Ein überwältigender Roman. Der alte Mann, eine Berühmtheit, Nobelpreisträger, verlässt mit seiner Frau das Sanatorium, wo beide Erholung gesucht haben, und wird mit militärischem Begleitschutz zum Zug gebracht. Doch es ist März 1945, das Sanatorium Dr. Weidner liegt im eben zerstörten Dresden und der Zug fährt nach Osten. Gerhart und Margarete Hauptmann nämlich wollen nirgendwo anders hin als nach Schlesien, in ihre Villa "Wiesenstein", ein prächtiges Anwesen im Riesengebirge.

Worms, Anfang der 1920er-Jahre. Peter Bender, ehemals Fliegerleutnant des Deutschen Heeres, macht sich als Gründer einer neuen Religionsgemeinschaft und mit der Proklamation der sogenannten Hohlwelt-Theorie einen Namen: Die Menschheit, so diese Theorie, lebe nicht auf, sondern in einer Kugel, außerhalb derselben existiere nichts. Benders Gemeinde bleibt überschaubar, dennoch wird er wegen der Verbreitung aufwieglerischer und gotteslästerlicher Flugschriften zu einer mehrmonatigen Kerkerhaft verurteilt.

Paris, 1921. Lorsque Valentine se marie avec l'héritier de la prestigieuse maison de fourreurs, la Maison Fontenoy, elle est loin de se douter de la vie qui l'attend. Malgré l’amour que lui porte son mari André et la naissance de ses deux enfants - Camille et Maxence -, Valentine s'enfonce dans un profond ennui et la frustration la gagne peu à peu. Lassée par ce quotidien et ce rôle d'épouse et de mère qui ne la comble pas, elle décide de partir pour assouvir ses aspirations.

Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity. But his survival instincts are put to the ultimate test when he and four other grunts are given a deadly mission: venture into the perilous No Man’s Land to euthanize a wounded comrade. What they find amid the ruined battlefield, however, is not a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire.

Bold, professional, and determined, Richard Sharpe embarks on a desperate mission. He must recover the treasure, vital to the success of the war, now hidden behind enemy lines.

Once upon a time in an enormous forest lived a woodcutter and his wife. The woodcutter is very poor and a war rages around them, making it difficult for them to put food on the table. Yet every night, his wife prays for a child. A Jewish father rides on a train holding twin babies. His wife no longer has enough milk to feed both children. In hopes of saving them both, he wraps his daughter in a shawl and throws her into the forest. While foraging for food, the wife finds a baby wrapped in a shawl. Although she knows harboring this baby could lead to her death, she takes the child home.

It is 1943. Two huge German guns in the grim, impregnable fortress on a huge beautiful island off the coast of Turkey are having a devastating impact on Allied shipping and preventing the evacuation of hard-pressed British troops from the nearby island of Kheros. The Germans are poised to overrun and unless the guns can be put out of action within a matter of days, a thousand men will die. All previous attempts to attack the fortress of Navarone have failed.

Anden verdenskrig raser. I "Det skal vi huske dem" følger vi to arbejderfamilier i henholdsvis Tyskland og Danmark, der på hver sin måde forsøger at kæmpe mod nazistyret, og hvor konsekvenserne af deres indsatser er meget forskellige. Ved bogens afslutning er krigen også ved at få sin, men det der er tilbage af tilværelsen, hverdagen og Tyskland synes at være en ugenopbyggelig ruin. Hvordan skal de komme tilbage til livet? Ditte Cederstrand (1915-1984) var dansk forfatter.

Im Frühjahr 1945 soll ein dreijähriger Junge vom KZ Buchenwald nach Auschwitz überführt werden. Das würde den Tod des Jungen bedeuten. Daher nehmen einige KZ-Häftlinge das Kind unter ihre Obhut. Gegen alle Vernunft verstecken zwei Häftlinge das Kind, obwohl sie damit die Vorbereitungen des illegalen Lagerkomitees für einen Aufstand gefährden. Das Überleben des Jungen wird zum Sinnbild für den Überlebenswillen der Häftlinge. Der Roman entstand frei nach Motiven einer wahren Begebenheit.

On vacation with his girlfriend, Ingeborg, the German war games champion Udo Berger returns to a small town on the Costa Brava where he spent the summers of his childhood. Soon they meet another vacationing German couple, Charly and Hanna, who introduce them to a band of locals—the Wolf, the Lamb, and El Quemado—and to the darker side of life in a resort town. Late one night, Charly disappears without a trace, and Udo's well-ordered life is thrown into upheaval; while Ingeborg and Hanna return to their lives in Germany, he refuses to leave the hotel.