Book reviews & excerpts from exceptional books set mainly in the 1940s and 1950s.
1940s & '50s
Recommended books found: 337
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1940s & '50s is a members-only category, so your results have been limited to 12 books.
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We Must Not Think of Ourselves
by Lauren Grodstein
Hardcover: Nov 2023
Paperback: Oct 2024
A heart-wrenching story of love and defiance set in the Warsaw Ghetto, based on the actual archives kept by those determined to have their stories survive World War II
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Roman Year: A Memoir
by Andre Aciman
Hardcover: Oct 2024
The author of Call Me by Your Name returns with a deeply romantic memoir of his time in Rome while on the cusp of adulthood.
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The Blood Years
by Elana K. Arnold
Hardcover: Oct 2023
Paperback: Oct 2024
From Michael L. Printz honoree & National Book Award finalist Elana K. Arnold comes the harrowing story of a young girl's struggle to survive the Holocaust in Romania.
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The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi
by Wright Thompson
Hardcover: Sep 2024
A shocking and revelatory account of the murder of Emmett Till that lays bare how forces from around the world converged on the Mississippi Delta in the long lead-up to the crime, and how the truth was erased for so long.
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The Reformatory: A Novel
by Tananarive Due
Hardcover: Oct 2023
Paperback: Sep 2024
A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he's sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.
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Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II
by Lena S. Andrews
Hardcover: Aug 2023
Paperback: Aug 2024
A groundbreaking new history of the role of American servicewomen in WWII, illuminating their forgotten yet essential contributions to the Allies' victory.
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The Golden Gate: A Novel
by Amy Chua
Hardcover: Sep 2023
Paperback: Aug 2024
Amy Chua's debut novel, The Golden Gate, is a sweeping, evocative, and compelling historical thriller that paints a vibrant portrait of a California buffeted by the turbulent crosswinds of a world at war and a society about to undergo massive change.
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Promise: A Novel
by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
Hardcover: Jul 2023
Paperback: Aug 2024
Two Black sisters growing up in small-town New England fight to protect their home, their bodies, and their dreams as the Civil Rights Movement sweeps the nation in this "magical, magnificent novel" (Marlon James) from "a startlingly fresh voice" (...
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The Most
by Jessica Anthony
Paperback: Jul 2024
From "one of our most thrilling and singular innovators on the page" (Laura Van Den Berg), a tightly wound, consuming tale about a 1950s American housewife who decides to get into the pool in her family's apartment complex one morning and won't come ...
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The Caretaker: A Novel
by Ron Rash
Hardcover: Sep 2023
Paperback: Jul 2024
Told against the backdrop of the Korean War as a small Appalachian town sends its sons to battle, The Caretaker by award-winning author Ron Rash ("One of the great American authors at work today" —The New York Times) is a breathtaking love ...
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The Briar Club: A Novel
by Kate Quinn
Hardcover: Jul 2024
The New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond Eye and The Rose Code returns with a haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, DC, boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.
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Age 16
by Rosena Fung
Hardcover: Jul 2024
A powerful coming-of-age graphic novel about how mothers and daughters pass down—and rebel against—standards of size, gender, race, beauty, and worth.
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