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1900 - 1975

Alai, Red Poppies.
Before the Chinese invasion of Tibet, a chieftain’s son who is considered an idiot by his family uses his common sense to consolidate their wealth.

James Ballard, Empire of the Sun.
A young English boy in Shanghai is taken to a Japanese POW camp, where he grows up quickly under harsh and brutal circumstances.

Lauren Belfer, City of Light.
In 1901 Buffalo, a woman worries about her goddaughter whose father is trying to harness the hydroelectric power of Niagara Falls.

Melvyn Bragg, The Soldier’s Return.
A British soldier returns from the Burma campaign and has a difficult time readjusting to family and village life.

Carrie Brown, The Hatbox Baby.
A premature baby brought to an incubator exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair touches three lives.

Tracy Chevalier, Falling Angels.
The actions of a woman who is dissatisfied with her role as a wife and mother have a profound effect on her daughter and a neighbor girl.

Susan Choi, American Woman.
In this novel based on the Patty Hearst kidnapping, a young woman who gets involved with the radical underground finds herself running errands for an heiress and two other fugitives.

Sijie Dai, Balzac & the Little Chinese Seamstress.
Two boys sent to a reeducation camp discover a cache of Western classics translated into Chinese.

Jill Dawson, Fred & Edie.
A love triangle turns deadly, resulting in a spectacular public trial at a time of momentous change in women’s rights.

Carola Dunn, Murder on the Flying Scotsman. Mystery
In 1923, journalist Daisy Dalrymple finds a dead man on a train to Scotland. Part of a series.

Louisa Ermelino, The Sisters Mallone.
Italian sisters who grew up in Hell’s Kitchen take matters into their own hands when their younger sibling’s husband goes astray.

Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong.
After a doomed affair with a married French lady, an Englishman returns to France as an officer in the trenches of World War I.

Ken Follett, Code to Zero.
Just before the launch of America’s first satellite, a man wakes up in a train station dressed like a bum with no memory of who he is.

Esther Freud, Summer at Gaglow.
A Jewish family summers at their retreat outside Berlin in 1914, but their world begins to disintegrate as World War I progresses.

Carlos Fuentes, The Years with Laura Diaz.
A woman seeks personal fulfillment as she experiences the changes and upheavals in Mexican society during the 20th century.

Alan Furst, Kingdom of Shadows.
A Hungarian aristocrat becomes embroiled in espionage & intrigue as Europe moves toward war.

Ed Gorman, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? Mystery
After Khruschev visits Iowa, a suspected communist sympathizer turns up dead with a hammer and sickle painted on his forehead. Part of a series.

Graham Greene, The Quiet American.
As the French and the Vietminh struggle for control of Vietnam, an English journalist meets a newly arrived American with ideas of his own.

John Grisham, A Painted House.
A boy in rural Arkansas in the 1950s grows up fast one summer when his family’s cotton crop is threatened by floods and rivalry between the Mexicans and hill people hired as pickers.

Ursula Hegi, Stones from the River.
A town librarian in Germany who is set apart because of her small stature observes the rise of Nazism and its effect on the townspeople.

Joseph Kanon, The Good German.
A reporter returns to Berlin after the war to seek his lover-whose husband was a scientist for the Nazis-and gets involved in a murder and coverup.

Nora Okja Keller, Fox Girl.
After the Korean War, three young people long to come to America and start a new life.

Thomas Keneally, Schindler’s List.
Powerful novel based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved over 1,000 Jews from the gas chambers by employing and hiding them in his factory.

John Lanchester, Fragrant Harbor.
From the 1930s through World War II to the Chinese takeover, the lives of English and Chinese residents of Hong Kong intersect.

Gillian Linscott, Absent Friends. Mystery
When women are at last allowed to stand for Parliament, Nell Bray becomes a candidate and funds her campaign by investigating the death of another candidate. Part of a series.

Bette Bao Lord, Spring Moon.
A girl from a prominent family grows to woman-hood during a time of great change in China.

Andre Makine, Dreams of My Russian Summers.
A Soviet boy visits his grandmother in her Siberian village and listens to stories of her past, when she came to Russia from France as a Red Cross nurse during World War I.

Elizabeth McCracken, Niagara Falls All Over Again.
In their 30-year partnership, a comedy team triumphs in vaudeville, film, radio, and TV, until one of them commits a desperate act of betrayal.

Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance.
Five people of different backgrounds find their lives becoming intertwined during the turbulent days of India’s State of Internal Emergency of the 1970s.

Ryu Murakami, 69.
A teenager in Japan who wants to be on top of pop culture gets involved in protests and a rock festival.

Sena Jeter Naslund, Four Spirits.
A diverse group of people become involved in the Civil Rights movement in 1960s Birmingham after the deaths of four little girls in a church bombing.

Jamie O’Neill, At Swim, Two Boys.
Two boys who make a pact to swim to an island in Dublin Bay become involved in the Easter Rising of 1916 and fall in love with each other.

Julie Otsuka, When the Emperor Was Divine.
Two Japanese-American children and their mother are taken to an internment camp in Utah after their father is arrested on suspicion of conspiracy.

Elizabeth Peters, The Golden One. Mystery
While archeologists Amelia & Emerson chase tomb robbers in Luxor, their son Ramses is sent on an intelligence mission to Gaza. Part of a series.

Piers Paul Read, Alice in Exile.
An Englishwoman whose fiance breaks off their engagement decides to become a governess for a noble family in Russia on the eve of the Revolution.

Paul Scott, The Jewel in the Crown.
In a time of upheaval against British rule in India, an Englishwoman falls in love with an Indian man but they are parted when he’s accused of a terrible crime. First in the Raj Quartet.

Jody Shields, The Fig Eater.
In 1910 Vienna, a police inspector and his wife pursue separate investigations into the murder of a young woman named Dora.

Daniel Silva, The Unlikely Spy.
A British professor is asked to find a ruthless German spy to prevent the Nazis from learning of the planned D-Day invasion.

Paullina Simons, The Bronze Horseman.
During the siege of Leningrad, a woman falls in love with a Red Army officer, but war, rivalry, and secrets threaten to tear them apart.

Martin Cruz Smith, December 6.
A man who runs a nightclub in Tokyo has one chance to escape before the war breaks out but he has trouble extricating himself from his life there.

Charles Todd, A Test of Wills. Mystery
A shell-shocked veteran of World War I returns to duty at Scotland Yard and takes a murder case where the prime suspect is a decorated war hero. First in a series.

Gail Tsukiyama, Women of the Silk.
A Chinese girl’s family sends her to work in a silk factory, where she and another girl join forces to fight for better working conditions.

Jonathan Wilson, A Palestine Affair.
In British-occupied Palestine, an artist and his wife are witnesses to the death of a prominent Jew whose murder is blamed on an Arab boy.

Oswald Wynd, The Ginger Tree.
A Scottish woman travels to China to marry a military attache but scandalizes the British community by having an affair with a Japanese nobleman who takes her to his country.