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Historical Fiction November 2020
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The book of science and antiquities
by Thomas Keneally
Australia, Prehistory: Shade lives with his second wife amid their clan on the shores of bountiful Lake Learned, in Australia's Outback. A peaceable man, he knows that when danger threatens, the Hero ancestors will call on him to kill, or sacrifice himself, to save his people.
Present: Shelby Apple, a documentary filmmaker, is researching the prehistoric remains of 'Learned Man,' believed to represent a link between Africa and ancient Australia. He tracks the controversies it provokes about who the continent's first inhabitants were and where Shade's bones belong.
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The Brothers of Auschwitz
by Malka Adler
Hungary, 1940s: Dov and Yitzhak live in a small village in the mountains, isolated both from the world and from the horrors of the war. But one day in 1944, everything changes. The Nazis storm the homes of the Jewish villagers and inform them they have one hour before the train will take them to Auschwitz.
Israel, 2000s: From the safety of their living rooms at home in Israel, the brothers finally break their silence and tell their story of how they found their way back to each other.
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Cuyahoga : a novel
by Pete Beatty
Ohio, 1837: Big Son, with his broad shoulders, shiny hair, and church-organ laugh, practically made Ohio City all by himself. In pursuit of a steady wage, our hero hits the (dirt) streets of Ohio City and Cleveland, the twin towns racing to become the first great metropolis of the West. Their rivalry reaches a boil, over the building of a bridge across the Cuyahoga River.
Resulting misadventures: narrated by Middle Son, also known as Meed, involve elderly terrorists, infrastructure collapse, steamboat races, wild pigs, and multiple ruined weddings.
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Dark tides : a novel
by Philippa Gregory
London, 1670: Wealthy, James Avery arrives at a warehouse owned by Alinor, hoping to find the lover he deserted twenty-one years before, and their child, his son and heir. Also that night, Livia arrives with a child, claiming to be the widow of Alinor's son Rob.
America: Alinor's brother Ned, newly arrived in faraway New England is trying to make a life between the worlds of the English newcomers and the American Indians as they move toward inevitable war. Alinor tells him that she knows her son is alive and the widow is an imposter.
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A tall history of sugar
by Curdella Forbes
Jamaica, 1950s-2010s: Moshe Fisher, born with mismatched eyes and pale skin that bruises easily, is found in a basket in the reeds. Arrienne is his protector at school. How Moshe and Arriene eventually wind up together is part of this unconventionally crafted story. The narrative: spans from Jamaica's independence from colonial rule and the moral force of 'King Sugar' and its legacies, to the era of what Forbes calls "the fall of empire," the era of Brexit and Donald Trump.
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The woman in the moonlight : a novel
by Patricia Morrisroe
Vienna, Austria, 1800: Countess Julie Guicciardi's life is about to change forever. The spirited eighteen-year-old is taking piano lessons with Ludwig van Beethoven, the most talented piano virtuoso in the musical capital of Europe. She is captivated by his volatile genius, while he is drawn to her curiosity and disarming candor. Between them, a unique romance.
Complications: Beethoven has a secret he's yet to share, and Julie is harboring a secret of her own, one so scandalous it could destroy their perfect love story. When Beethoven discovers the truth, he sets his emotions to music, composing a mournful opus that will become the Moonlight Sonata.
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Culture View - Native Americans |
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Brothers of the buffalo : a novel of the Red River War
by Joseph Bruchac
American West, 1874: The U.S. Army sent troops to subdue and move the Native Americans of the southern plains to reservations.
Two young men: Private Washington Vance Jr., an African-American calvaryman, and Wolf, a Cheyenne warrior, experience the brief and brutal Red River War, from opposite sides of the fight. Filled with action and suspense this is a tale of conflict and unlikely friendship in the Wild West.
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Canyon Dreams : A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation
by Michael Powell
Navajo Reservation, Arizona, Present: At Chinle High School basketball is passion, passed from grandparent to parent to child. Rez Ball is a sport for winters, where dark and cold descend fast, and there is little else to do but roam mesa tops, work, and wonder what the future holds. Fans drive thirty, fifty, even eighty miles to see the fast-paced and highly competitive matchups. A tribute to the role of sports: this story chronicles a season with the Chinle High School basketball team, sharing insights into their exhilarating wins, crushing losses and culture-shaped dreams.
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Killing Crazy Horse : the merciless Indian wars in America
by Bill O'Reilly
Native American Treatment, 1800s: descriptions of the continued conflict between the U.S. government and the native indigenous population, resulting from American expansion. This armed conflict between Native Americans and the newly formed United States would rage on for decades.
Included: President James Madison ordered the destruction of Shawnee warrior chief Tecumseh’s alliance of tribes in the Great Lakes region, General Andrew Jackson’s brutal battles with the Creek Nation, President James Monroe’s epic “sea to shining sea” policy, President Martin Van Buren’s cruel enforcement of a “treaty” that forced the Cherokee Nation out of their homelands along what would be called the Trail of Tears.
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The night watchman : a novel
by Louise Erdrich
Turtle Mountain Reservation, North Dakota, 1953: Thomas Wazhashk, the night watchman at a jewel bearing plant, is also a Chippewa Council member who is trying to understand the consequences of a new emancipation bill on its way to the floor of the United States Congress.
Other characters: Patrice and her beloved older sister, Vera, who moved to the big city of Minneapolis, a young Chippewa boxer Wood Mountain and his mother Juggie Blue, her niece and Patrice's best friend Valentine, and Stack Barnes, the white high school math teacher and boxing coach who is hopelessly in love with Patrice.
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There there
by Tommy Orange
Oakland, California, Present: grapples with the complex and painful history and identity of Native Americans.
Follows twelve characters: from Native communities, all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle's death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time.
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The Vengeance of Mothers: The Journals of Margaret Kelly & Molly McGill
by Jim Fergus
Cheyenne Nation, 1873-1876: Accounts of two women in the U.S. government's "Brides for Indians" program, which exchanged 1000 women for three hundred horses. These "brides" were mostly fallen women; women in prison, prostitutes, the occasional adventurer, or those incarcerated in asylums. No one expected this program to work. And the brides themselves thought of it simply as a chance at freedom. But many of them fell in love with their Cheyenne spouses and had children with them...and became Cheyenne themselves.
Explores: what happens to the bonds between wives and husbands, children and mothers, when society sees them as "unspeakable." What does it mean to be white, to be Cheyenne, and how far will these women go to avenge the ones they love? Continues the alternative-history of One Thousand White Women.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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