Secondhand Historical & Literary Fiction Bargain Book Box SP4242

Secondhand Historical & Literary Fiction Bargain Book Box SP4242

Eighteen novels, half hardback: Colm Tóibín’s The Master, Alan Hollinghurst’s The Sparsholt Affair, Philippa Gregory’s The White Queen, Sean Michaels’ Giller-winning Us Conductors, Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, Sharpe’s Fortress, Bridgerton book two, Fatal Throne, Gerald Seymour, Amanda Quick, Rinker Buck’s The Oregon Trail, Nuala O’Faolain’s memoir and more. Historical fiction with a literary spine.

1. Us Conductors — Sean Michaels — Leon Theremin, inventor of the instrument, in Jazz Age New York and then the Gulag, writing to the woman he loved. Won the Giller Prize; elegant and grippingly told, says the Sunday Times.
2. The Girl from Terezin — Hana Sternlicht — A WWII Holocaust survival true story: Terezin, Auschwitz and after, from the girl who lived it.
3. Eugene Onegin — Alexander Pushkin — The bored aristocrat, the girl who writes to him, the duel, and the ending where she refuses him. Russia’s founding novel, in verse, in Stanley Mitchell’s translation. Penguin Classics.
4. Fixing Shadows — Susan Barrett — Victorian London, a woman with a secret, and a house with too many rooms. Linguistically brilliant, says the Telegraph; Barrett’s gothic debut.
5. The White Queen — Philippa Gregory — Elizabeth Woodville, the commoner who married Edward IV and whose sons were the Princes in the Tower. The Cousins’ War book one and the basis for the BBC series.
6. Are You Somebody? — Nuala O’Faolain — The Irish Times columnist’s accidental memoir of growing up poor in Dublin, drinking, loving the wrong people and finding a voice at fifty. Glows with compassion, says Frank McCourt; a fine wine of a life. Extended edition.
7. A Wheel of Stars — Laura Gilmour Bennett — Medieval Languedoc, the Cathars and a present-day woman drawn into it. The historical novel of the decade, says She.
8. Bridgerton: The Viscount Who Loved Me — Julia Quinn — Anthony’s story: the eldest Bridgerton, the sister he shouldn’t want, and the pall mall game. The Netflix series two tie-in.
9. Seduction — Amanda Quick — A tawny-haired lass has her own reasons for a marriage of convenience: Regency romance with a scholar heroine and an earl who needs an heir. Quick’s first.
10. No Price Too High — Annie Wilkinson — An unforgettable tale of wartime love: a Yorkshire saga from the author of A Sovereign for a Song.
11. Sharpe’s Fortress — Bernard Cornwell — Richard Sharpe, newly an officer and hated for it, at the siege of Gawilghur in India, 1803. Book three chronologically, and the one with the climb up the cliff.
12. Home Run — Gerald Seymour — A drug courier, a customs officer and a run from Iran. Seymour’s 1989 thriller.
13. The Merchant’s Daughter — Rebecca Hardy — Desperate times lead to hasty vows: a Regency bargain and a candlelit window.
14. Fatal Throne — M.T. Anderson, Candace Fleming, Jennifer Donnelly, Deborah Hopkinson, Linda Sue Park, Lisa Ann Sandell & Stephanie Hemphill — The wives of Henry VIII tell all: each wife by a different YA author, and Henry’s rebuttal. A clever collaboration.
15. The Master — Colm Tóibín — Henry James from 1895 to 1899: the theatrical failure, the dead sister, the men he couldn’t love. Tóibín’s masterpiece, and the best novel about a novelist. Hardback.
16. The Sparsholt Affair — Alan Hollinghurst — Oxford 1940, a beautiful undergraduate, and the scandal that shadows his son sixty years later. From the Booker winner; hardback.
17. Dying Is Easier Than Loving — Ahmet Altan — The last of the Ottoman Quartet: Istanbul, 1914, and a war coming. From the Turkish novelist who wrote it in prison. Europa.
18. The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey — Rinker Buck — Two brothers drive a covered wagon two thousand miles across the Trail, with mules and a dog. Enchanting, says the Wall Street Journal; New York Times bestseller.