Others: Leaning positive Winner of the 2016 Costa Book of the Year and longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize. Sebastian Barry's sensational new novel set in mid-19th Century America. After signing up for the US army in the 1850s, aged barely seventeen, Thomas McNulty and his brother-in-arms, John Cole, fight in the Indian Wars and the Civil War.Having both fled terrible hardships, their days are now vivid and filled with wonder, despite the horrors they both see and are complicit in. Then when a young Indian girl crosses their path, the possibility of lasting happiness seems within reach, if only they can survive.
Genres: historical fiction
Lists: …
Hilary Mantel
2009 · 653 pages · 7 reviews
Others: MixedWolf Hall (2009) is a historical novel by English author Hilary Mantel, published by Fourth Estate, named after the Seymour family's seat of Wolfhall, or Wulfhall, in Wiltshire. Set in the period from 1500 to 1535, Wolf Hall is a sympathetic fictionalised biography documenting the rapid rise to power of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII through to the death of Sir Thomas More. The novel won both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2012, The Observer named it as one of "The 10 best historical novels". The book is the first in a trilogy; the sequel Bring Up the Bodies was published in 2012. The last book in the trilogy is The Mirror and the Light (2020), which covers the last four years of Cromwell's life.
What made the match, strongest first
George Gissing
1891 · 520 pages · 1 review
Others: Positive"New Grub Street portrays the intrigues and hardships of the publishing world in late Victorian England. In a materialistic, class-conscious society that rewards commercial savvy over artistic achievement, authors and scholars struggle to earn a living without compromising their standards. "Even as the novel chills us with its still-recognizable portrayal of the crass and vulgar world of literary endeavor," writes Francine Prose in her Introduction, "its very existence provides eloquent, encouraging proof of the fact that a powerful, honest writer can transcend the constraints of commerce."" "This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the text of the 1891 first edition."--Jacket.
What made the match, strongest first
Andrew Miller
2018 · 432 pages · 3 reviews
Others: PositiveOne rain-swept February night in 1809, an unconscious man is carried into a house in Somerset. He is Captain John Lacroix, home from Britain's disastrous campaign against Napoleon's forces in Spain. Gradually Lacroix recovers his health, but not his peace of mind - he cannot talk about the war or face the memory of what happened in a village on the gruelling retreat to Corunna. After the command comes to return to his regiment, he sets out instead for the Hebrides, with the vague intent of reviving his musical interests and collecting local folksongs. Lacroix sails north incognito, unaware that he has far worse to fear than being dragged back to the army: a vicious English corporal and a Spanish officer are on his trail, with orders to kill. The haven he finds on a remote island with a family of free-thinkers and the sister he falls for are not safe, at all.--Provided by publisher.
What made the match, strongest first
Elizabeth Macneal
2019 · 368 pages · 1 review
Others: Positive"In 1850s London, the Great Exhibition is being erected in Hyde Park and, among the crowd watching the dazzling spectacle, two people meet by happenstance. For Iris, an arrestingly attractive aspiring artist, it is a brief and forgettable moment but for Silas, a curiosity collector enchanted by all things strange and beautiful, the meeting marks a new beginning. When Iris is asked to model for Pre-Raphaelite artist Louis Frost, she agrees on the condition that he will also teach her to paint. Suddenly, her world begins to expand beyond her wildest dreams--but she has no idea that evil is waiting in the shadows. Silas has only thought of one thing since that chance meeting, and his obsession is darkening by the day." --Amazon.com.
What made the match, strongest first
George MacDonald Fraser
1969 · 293 pages · 1 review
Others: NegativeFraser’s comic novel, written as an autobiographical account, tells the story of Harry Flashman, the bully from Tom Brown’s Schooldays, in his own words. Beginning with his expulsion from Rugby School Flashman goes on to join Lord Cardigan’s Light Dragoons and despite his best efforts to avoid any fighting inadvertently becomes a national hero due to some unlikely exploits in the Anglo-Afghan War.
What made the match, strongest first
Kazuo Ishiguro
1989 · 245 pages · 7 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveIn the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the countryside and into his past . . .A contemporary classic, The Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro's beautiful and haunting evocation of life between the wars in a Great English House, of lost causes and lost love.
What made the match, strongest first
MixedIt's incredibly bloody at times incredibly beautiful and it's it's a remarkable landscape of History really. The thing that holds me back with this book you know rather than putting it into the upper tear would be that there's a distinct lack of emotional connection with the main characters.
Loved itit is a brilliant book so well written so engaging beautifully moving like the love story in here it's just so lovely and yet I love this a lot
