Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

by Milan Kundera, Michael Henry Heim

In her most famous novel, The Mandarins, Simone de Beauvoir takes an unflinching look at Parisian intellectual society at the end of World War II. In fictionally relating the stories of those around her --Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Arthur Koestler, Nelson Algren --de Beauvoir dissects the emotional and philosophical currents of her time. At once an engrossing drama and an intriguing political tale, The... (more)

The Reader

by Bernhard Schlink, Carol Brown Janeway

Hailed for its coiled eroticism and the moral claims it makes upon the reader, this mesmerizing novel is a story of love and secrets, horror and compassion, unfolding against the haunted landscape of postwar Germany. When he falls ill on his way home from school, fifteen-year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his lover--then she inexplicably disappears. When... (more)

Merry Hall (Beverley Nichols Trilogy Book 1)

Merry Hall (Beverley Nichols Trilogy Book 1)

by Beverley Nichols

No more delightful garden-related books have ever been written than Nichols's accounts of the rescue and renovation of Merry Hall, a rundown Georgian mansion and its garden. No wittier, and sometimes wickedly satirical, writer than the urbane Mr. Nichols has ever observed the world of house and gardenor the characters who inhabit them.

The Welsh Girl

by Peter Ho Davies

From the acclaimed writer Peter Ho Davies comes an engrossing wartime love story set in the stunning landscape of North Wales during the final, harrowing months of World War II. Young Esther Evans has lived her whole life within the confines of her remote mountain village. The daughter of a fiercely nationalistic sheep farmer, Esther yearns for a taste of the wider world that reaches her only through broadcasts... (more)

The Street of a Thousand Blossoms

by Gail Tsukiyama

“Just remember,” Yoshio said quietly to his grandsons. “Every day of your lives, you must always be sure what you’re fighting for.” It is Tokyo in 1939. On the Street of a Thousand Blossoms, two orphaned brothers are growing up with their loving grandparents, who inspire them to dream of a future firmly rooted in tradition. The older boy, Hiroshi, shows unusual skill at the national obsession of sumo... (more)

Tearing the Silence. On Being German in AmericaUrsula Hegi

Tearing the Silence. On Being German in America

by Ursula Hegi

Miss Ophelia

by Mary Burnett Smith

Part coming-of-age story and part slice of life, this is a literary novel about African-Americans in the rural South. Set in rural Virginia during 1948, Miss Ophelia is a remarkable debut novel that explores the issues of abortion, illegitimacy, adultery, and skin color. Belly Anderson now in the autumn of her life, reminisces about the last summer of her childhood. A strong-willed and free-spirited... (more)