18 books like The Razor's Edge
Brideshead Revisited
The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Brideshead Revisited looks back to the golden age before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder's infatuation with the Marchmains and the rapidly-disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted first by Sebastian at Oxford, then by his doomed Catholic family, in particular his remote sister, Julia, Charles…
Shares: Upper class
The Remains of the Day
In 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.
Shares: History
Maisie Dobbs
Maisie Dobbs isn’t just any young housemaid. Through her own natural intelligence—and the patronage of her benevolent employers—she works her way into college at Cambridge. When World War I breaks out, Maisie goes to the front as a nurse. It is there that she learns that coincidences are meaningful and the truth elusive. After the War, Maisie sets up on her own as a private investigator. But her…
Shares: Veterans, World War I, World War, History
Among the Mad
It’s Christmas Eve 1931. On the way to see a client, Maisie Dobbs witnesses a man commit suicide on a busy London street. The following day, the prime minister’s office receives a letter threatening a massive loss of life if certain demands are not met—and the writer mentions Maisie by name. After being questioned and cleared by Detective Chief Superintendent Robert MacFarlane of Scotland Yard’s…
Shares: Veterans, World War I, World War
The appetite of tyranny
The mere facts of the story are about the present European conflagration, includes other short works and essays.
Shares: World War I, World War
In Secret
The case in question concerned a letter in a yellow envelope, which was dumped along with other incoming mail upon one of the many long tables where hundreds of women and scores of men sat opening and reading thousands of letters for the Bureau of P. C. - whatever that may mean.
Shares: World War I, World War
Those Across the River
Moving to rural Georgia, a failed academic plans to write a history of his family's old plantation and the horrors that occurred there but instead discovers a sense of unspoken dread among the townspeople and a long-standing debt of blood.
Shares: Veterans, World War I, World War
The dark forest
John Durward and John Trenchard are two Englishmen who join a company of Russian doctors, nurses, and orderlies working on the Russian side of the Eastern Front at the height of World War I. Durward, the primary narrator, is a detached and seemingly-objective observer of events; his friend Trenchard is a dreamy, clumsy, and naive man whose fiancee, Marie Ivanova, is serving alongside him as a…
Shares: World War I, World War
Rothstein
Rothstein is a Germanic-language (German, Yiddish) surname of several possible origins: toponymic surname from a place with the same name near Merseburg; from a Germanic personal name, Hrodstein (hrod- (Hróð-), "fame", "glory",Oscar Kuhns, "Studies in Pennsylvania German Family Names", in: Americana Germanica Quarterly, vol.4, 1902, https://books.google.com/books?id=VAELAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA306 p.306]…
Shares: Nineteen twenties, History
Back Passage
Mitch is a handsome, insatiable 22-year-old hunk who never lets a clue stand in the way of a steamy encounter, whether it's with the local constabulary, the house secretary, or his school chum and fellow athlete Boy Morgan, who becomes his Watson. When Reg Walworth is found dead in a cabinet, Sir James Eagle has his servant Weeks immediately arrested as the killer. But Mitch's observant eye pegs…
Shares: Upper class, Americans
The Burning Shore
'Smith will take you on an exciting, taut and thrilling journey you will never forget' - Sun'With Wilbur Smith the action is never further than the turn of a page' - Independent'No one does adventure quite like Smith' - Daily Mirror LOVE IN A TIME OF WAR. HOPE IN A TIME OF CRISIS. One of the greatest fighter pilots of the Great War, Michael Courtney, is saved by the French noblewoman Centaine…
Shares: World War I, World War
Hot Springs
"In the summer of 1946, the most wide-open town in America is Hot Springs, Arkansas, a city of ancient, legendary corruption. While the pilgirms take the cure in the mineral-rich 142-degree water that bubbles from the earth, the brothels and casinos are the true source of the town's prosperity. It is run by an English-born gangster named Owney Maddox, who represents the New York syndicate and…
Shares: Veterans, World War
Heartbreak House
Published in 1919, Heartbreak House is an examination of the failings of the European leisure classes before World War I—failings that author George Bernard Shaw blamed for the war, and that he predicted would quickly lead to another, longer war. The play is set in an English country house, where representatives of every type of English society have gathered at the home of the seemingly-mad…
Shares: Upper class, World War
Enormous Room
"Edward Estlin Cummings (1894-1962), famously known as E. E. Cummings, was an American poet, essayist, painter, author, and playwright. His body of work encompasses 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous paintings and drawings. He is remembered as an unsurpassed voice of 20th century poetry, as well as one of the most popular, even today.…
Shares: World War I, Americans, World War
To the Last Man
Jeff Shaara has enthralled readers with his New York Times bestselling novels set during the Civil War and the American Revolution. Now the acclaimed author turns to World War I, bringing to life the sweeping, emotional story of the war that devastated a generation and established America as a world power.Spring 1916: the horror of a stalemate on Europe's western front. France and Great Britain…
Shares: World War I, Americans, World War
The Great War
An anthology of stories inspired by objects from the First World War. It is a collection of stories by bestselling authors, each inspired by a different object from the First World War. Each object illuminates an aspect of life during the war, and each story reminds us of the millions of individual lives that were changed forever by the fighting.
Shares: World War I, World War, History
Gravity's Rainbow
Winner of the National Book Award"The most profound and accomplished American novel since the end of World War II." —The New Republic“A screaming comes across the sky. . .” A few months after the Germans’ secret V-2 rocket bombs begin falling on London, British Intelligence discovers that a map of the city pinpointing the sexual conquests of one Lieutenant Tyrone Slothrop, U.S. Army, corresponds…
Shares: Americans, World War, History
Live by Night
Joe Coughlin is nineteen when he meets Emma Gould. A smalltime thief in 1920s Boston, his task is to tie her up while his accomplices loot the bank she works in. But Joe falls in love with Emma - and his life changes forever. That meeting is the beginning of Joe's journey to becoming one of the most feared and respected gangsters. It is a journey beset by violence, double-crossing, drama and…
Shares: Nineteen twenties, History