Political Historical Fiction

1915. Deux hommes que tout sépare vont se rencontrer sur les champs de bataille. Lorenzo, jeune et brillant officier de l'armée italienne, et Nino le Sicilien, qui s'enrôle pour échapper à la prison après avoir commis un crime d'honneur. La guerre va faire d'eux des compagnons d'armes, des frères, avant que le règne de Mussolini ne les transforme en ennemis.

Chi se non Paolo Poli poteva calarsi nei panni di Don Abbondio e della Monaca di Monza, dando una voce inconfondibile a ciascuno dei memorabili personaggi manzoniani e tirandoci dentro nelle vicende umane e storiche del grande romanzo? Il libro di tutti e per tutti, in una lettura che è un vero spettacolo!

In 1975, Gary Ruckler attends classes at Moscow State University as part of the first American Fulbright program in the USSR. Here he befriends Anna, her boyfriend Zaza, and their enigmatic friend Aslan. When Aslan mysteriously disappears into the mountains of Kazbegi, Georgia, Gary is swept up in events beyond his understanding and control. Fifteen years later, Tamar and Giorgi struggle through the “lost” decade of the 1990s in Tbilisi. Through three civil wars, a refugee crisis, and near-total societal collapse, the pair come of age in the underground arts scene.

Et si les francs-maçons détenaient le secret de la fin des Temps ? Le Signe tant attendu est arrivé sous la forme d'une dangereuse image. Le commissaire franc-maçon Antoine Marcas a retrouvé cette ébauche du tableau des Bergers d'Arcadie dont le décryptage par un initié pourrait conduire à la fin des Temps. Manipulé par ses propres frères, poursuivi par des fondamentalistes, Marcas devra s'engager dans une lutte manichéenne et ancestrale.

On a humid afternoon in 1933, American Jessie Lesage steps off a boat from Paris and onto the shores of Vietnam. Accompanying her French husband Victor, an heir to the Michelin rubber fortune, she’s certain that their new life is full of promise, for while the rest of the world is sinking into economic depression, Indochine is gold for the Michelins. Jessie knows that the vast plantations near Saigon are the key to the family’s prosperity, and though they have recently been marred in scandal, she needs them to succeed for her husband’s sake.

1313. En Terre Sainte, une compagnie de brigands attaque une cité isolée. Leur chef, Roncelin de Fos, parvient à s'emparer de la ville, sans se douter qu'elle intéresse fortement deux personnages clés : le Grand maître des Templiers et le légat du Pape. Roncelin prend la fuite avant d'être récupéré par le Temple. Pour payer sa dette, il devra retrouver le seul rabbin capable de décrypter le message que les Templiers ont découvert dans les souterrains du Temple de Salomon.

Spring, 1312. Edward II of England is absorbed with his favourite, Peter Gaveston, while his young wife, Isabella, is about to give birth. Isabella's father, the ruthless Philip of France, dreams of a grandson wearing the Crown of the Confessor and starts to meddle—even if that means murder. Amaury de Craon, Philip's Master of Secrets, is despatched to carry out his deadly deeds and Edward II summons Sir Hugh Corbett, Keeper of the Secret Seal, to intercept. Both master spies lodge at the Benedictine abbey of St Michael's in the forest of Ashdown.

Septembre 1938. Hitler est prêt à déclarer la guerre. Le premier ministre du Royaume-Uni, Chamberlain, fera tout pour conserver la paix. Tout se jouera dans une ville : Munich. Tandis que l'avion de Chamberlain survole la manche, Hitler quitte le sud de Berlin en train. Tous deux se dirigent vers Munich. De leur côté, deux jeunes hommes entament le même voyage : Hugh Legat, secrétaire privé de Chamberlain, et Paul Hartmann, diplomate allemand et membre de la résistance au nazisme.

In this "ingenious" novel ( New York Times) by "one of Europe's most original and remarkable writers" ( Los Angeles Times), a proofreader's deliberate slip opens the door to romance-and confounds the facts of Portugal's past.

It is the spring of 1945. And Repp, the master sniper, is about to carry out his final mission – even as Germany’s enemies overrun it, even while a tired, disorganized team of American and British agents tries everything in its power to stop him. Because for Repp, this is the job at which he cannot fail. For this time, he possesses the ultimate killing tool. And with it, he will commit the ultimate crime.

Taking Charge brings you into the room with an American political legend, still hated and revered a quarter century after his death. We hear Lyndon Johnson as he schemes and blusters, rewards and punishes, and reveals a bedrock core of unshakable political beliefs.

At the center of Jonathan Lethem’s superb new novel stand two extraordinary women. Rose Zimmer, the aptly nicknamed Red Queen of Sunnyside, Queens, is an unreconstructed Communist and mercurial tyrant who terrorizes her neighborhood and her family with the ferocity of her personality and the absolutism of her beliefs. Her brilliant and willful daughter, Miriam, is equally passionate in her activism, but flees Rose’s suffocating influence and embraces the Age of Aquarius counterculture of Greenwich Village. Both women cast spells that entrance or enchain the men in their lives....

1943, Seattle. While raging war reshapes the landscape of Europe, its impact is felt thousands of miles away too. Before the war, Nora Kinney was one of countless housewives and mothers in her comfortable Capitol Hill neighborhood. Now, with her doctor husband stationed in North Africa, Nora feels compelled to do more than tend her victory garden or help with scrap metal drives . . .

Britannia, 45 AD: Vespasian's brother, Sabinus, is captured by druids. The druids want to offer a potent sacrifice to their gods – not just one Roman Legate, but two. They know that Vespasian will come after his brother and they plan to sacrifice the siblings on midsummer's day. Vespasian must strive to save his brother whilst completing the conquest of the south-west of the haunted isle, before he is drawn inexorably back to Rome and the heart of Imperial politics.

In 1931, young English-born missionary Jakob Kellner brings all the crusading passion of his untried Christian faith to a China racked by famine and bloody civil war. He burns to save the world's largest nation from Communism. But when he is swept along on the cold, unforgiving Long March, Jakob becomes entangled with Mei-ling, a beautiful and fervent revolutionary. Soon, powerful new emotions challenge and reshape his faith—and entrap him forever in the vast country's tortured destiny.

On 5th June 1984, the Indian army began its attack on the complex at Amritsar, which houses the two most sacred shrines. Generals who had pledged to use minimum force and on no account to violate the shrines were not prepared for the fierce and adept resistance they encountered. Having suffered severe casualties, the infantry were driven back, and as a last resort - with approval from Delhi - tanks were ordered in....

Meurtres en Alabama. Birmingham, Alabama, 1963. Le corps sans vie d'une fillette noire est retrouvé. La police s'en préoccupe de loin. Mais voilà que d'autres petites filles noires disparaissent... Bud Larkin, détective privé bougon, alcoolique et raciste, accepte d'enquêter pour le père de la première victime. Adela Cobb, femme de ménage noire, jeune veuve et mère de famille, s'interroge : "Les petites filles, ça disparaît pas comme ça..." Deux êtres que tout oppose. A priori.

Beautiful, educated Svetlana Petrova defied her stifling aristocratic family to join a revolution promising freedom. Now, released after years of imprisonment, she discovers her socialist party vying for power against the dictatorial Bolsheviks and her beloved uncle, a champion of her cause, was murdered by a mysterious assassin named Orlova. Her signature? Blinding her victims before she kills them. Svetlana resolves to avenge his death by destroying this vicious opponent, even as she longs to reunite with the daughter she has not seen in years.

The Shape of the Ruins is a masterly story of conspiracy, political obsession, and literary investigation. When a man is arrested at a museum for attempting to steal the bullet-ridden suit of a murdered Colombian politician, few notice. But soon this thwarted theft takes on greater meaning as it becomes a thread in a widening web of popular fixations with conspiracy theories, assassinations, and historical secrets; and it haunts those who feel that only they know the real truth behind these killings.

"Une journée d'Ivan Denissovitch", c'est celle du bagnard Ivan Denissovitch Choukhov, condamné à dix ans de camp de travail pour avoir été fait prisonnier au cours de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Le récit nous montre sa journée depuis le coup sur le rail suspendu dans la cour qui marque le lever, jusqu'au court répit du soir et au coucher, en passant par les longues procédures de comptage, la peur des fouilles, les bousculades au réfectoire, les travaux de maçonnerie par un froid terrible dans l'hiver kazakhe, les menues chances et malchances de la journée.