Here are 100 books that The Railwayman's Wife fans have personally recommended if you like
The Railwayman's Wife.
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Historians write about dead people and historical fiction authors breathe new life into those people. Reading and writing historical fiction is my passion. I crave well-researched, authentic stories that introduce me to a different time, place, culture, or perspective. I want to witness extraordinary times and events in history through the eyes of ordinary people. This is what I look for in the books I read and what I strive for in the books I write.
When reading, I often mark passages and sentences I find especially evocative, powerful, insightful, or well-written. This novel is riddled with such marks. Freud does an exceptional job of creating a strong sense of time and place with elegant descriptions.
She explores the bonds between mothers and daughters, formed and broken, through three generations of women who all have a penchant for loving deeply flawed men. It’s a largely melancholy story and it stirred in me a wide range of painful emotions—heartache, disappointment, anger, frustration. Yet, the story contains moments of true beauty, as well, and ultimately concludes with a sense of brightness and redemption.
An unforgettable novel of mothers and daughters, wives and muses, secrets and outright lies
'Freud is a modern literary rarity: a born storyteller' THE TIMES
'Such a powerful book' RICHARD CURTIS
'Delivers an emotional punch that left me in tears' RACHEL JOYCE
'Utterly compelling' HANNAH ROTHSCHILD
'I couldn't love it more' POLLY SAMSON
'I loved this book' AMANDA CRAIG
'Completely, inspiringly wonderful' BARBARA TRAPIDO
'Breathtakingly beautiful' JULIET NICOLSON
AN EVENING STANDARD BOOK OF 2021
Rosaleen is still a teenager, in the early Sixties, when she meets the famous sculptor Felix Lichtman. Felix is dangerous, bohemian, everything she dreamed of in…
The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.
On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…
Historians write about dead people and historical fiction authors breathe new life into those people. Reading and writing historical fiction is my passion. I crave well-researched, authentic stories that introduce me to a different time, place, culture, or perspective. I want to witness extraordinary times and events in history through the eyes of ordinary people. This is what I look for in the books I read and what I strive for in the books I write.
This book provided me with a new perspective of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster that occurred when I was a teenager, as well as an inside view of the Soviet regime’s oppression during that time. The characters were real – hardworking, resilient, passionate, and imperfect.
This is not a thrilling page-turner or a happily-ever-after story. It’s a sad, terrifying, slow-burn of a book. It’s also beautiful, thought-provoking, and ultimately hopeful, with evocative prose and descriptive storytelling that haunted my thoughts long after I turned the final page. It remains on my bookshelf as one of my all-time favorites, awaiting a second read.
“Brilliantly imagined in its harrowing account of the Chernobyl disaster and exhilarating in its sweep, All That Is Solid Melts into Air is a debut to rattle all the windows and open up the ventricles of the heart. . . . The book is daring, exhilarating, generous and beautifully written.” — Colum McCann
A brilliant and gripping novel set against the tragedy of Chernobyl and the way in which the lives of its survivors were forever changed in its wake. Part historical epic, part love story, it recalls The English Patient in its mix of emotional intimacy and sweeping landscape.…
Historians write about dead people and historical fiction authors breathe new life into those people. Reading and writing historical fiction is my passion. I crave well-researched, authentic stories that introduce me to a different time, place, culture, or perspective. I want to witness extraordinary times and events in history through the eyes of ordinary people. This is what I look for in the books I read and what I strive for in the books I write.
This is really three novels in one—three distinct stories of three generations of strong women spanning the 20th century in South America—and I loved them all. While each woman lived in different times and found strength through different means, they shared the common bonds of womanhood and motherhood and of stories about small miracles passed down for generations.
De Robertis weaves an engaging saga with captivating, poetic prose that immerses the reader in a different time and place. I could taste the bitter mate tea, feel the humid air along the La Rambla river, and see the haze of cigarette smoke in a backroom bar. I return to it often, just to read a page or two, like returning for another sip from a fine wine.
On the first day of the year 1900, a small town deep in the Uruguayan countryside gathers to witness a miracle—the mysterious reappearance Pajarita, a lost infant who will grow up to begin a lineage of fiercely independent women. Her daughter, Eva, a stubborn beauty intent on becoming a poet, overcomes a shattering betrayal to embark on a most unconventional path. And Eva's daughter, Salomé, awakens to both her sensuality and political convictions amid the violent turmoil of the late 1960s.
The Invisible Mountain is a stunningexploration of the search for love and a poignant celebration of the fierce connection…
When Annie Thornton, midwife and apprentice witch, falls through time to a 15th-century Yorkshire village with her telepathic cat, Rosamund, she befriends Will and Jack, two soldiers returning from the French Wars. Mistress Meg, Annie’s ancestral aunt living in the 15th century, is…
Historians write about dead people and historical fiction authors breathe new life into those people. Reading and writing historical fiction is my passion. I crave well-researched, authentic stories that introduce me to a different time, place, culture, or perspective. I want to witness extraordinary times and events in history through the eyes of ordinary people. This is what I look for in the books I read and what I strive for in the books I write.
I was most impressed by this author’s ability to show me the innermost thoughts, fears, hopes, and dreams of two main characters who lacked basic communication skills. Lynnie is developmentally disabled. Homan is deaf. Yet, each had a distinct voice and was a fully developed individual.
Their allegoric journeys spanned four decades, and I rooted for them from the opening page until I closed the book at the end. The author carried me along, back and forth, over and under, in an effortless braid of the two stories, introducing many colorful secondary characters along the way. While I had to suspend disbelief a bit to go along for the ride, it was well worth the trip.
It is 1968. Lynnie, a young white woman with a developmental disability, and Homan, an African American deaf man, are locked away in an institution, the School for the Incurable and Feebleminded, and have been left to languish, forgotten. Deeply in love, they escape, and find refuge in the farmhouse of Martha, a retired schoolteacher and widow. But the couple is not alone-Lynnie has just given birth to a baby girl.
When the authorities catch up to them that same night, Homan escapes into the darkness, and Lynnie is caught. But before she is forced back into the institution, she…
I was in my 40s before I began exploring the topic of the British Empire. It came after I realised it explained so much about me (my Sikh identity, the emigration of my parents, my education) and so much about my country (its politics, psychology, wealth…) and yet I knew very little. It turned out that millions of people feel the same way… and I hope I provide an accessible introduction and summary of the massive topic.
Approaching the subject not as an imperial historian but as a specialist on transport, Wolmar dismantles the lie at the heart of a thousand TV documentaries: that the British bestowed railways on India in an act of benevolence.
Every TV commissioner in Britain should be made to read this.
India was the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, an Empire that needed a rail network to facilitate its exploitation and reflect its ambition. But, by building India's railways, Britain radically changed the nation and unwittingly planted the seed of independence. As Indians were made to travel in poor conditions and were barred from the better paid railway jobs a stirring of resentment and nationalist sentiment grew.
The Indian Railways network remains one of the largest in the world, serving over 25 million passengers each day. In this expertly told history, Christian Wolmar reveals the full story, from…
Originally from Punta Gorda, Florida, I am an exiled Florida Man, living in Texas, and specialize in creative nonfiction. I love the absurd, the unusual, and enjoy finding ways to examine and teach history through unexpected topics and sometimes maligned or ridiculed things. My first book, for example, was on the infamous Yugo car. I then wrote a history of the ill-starred Sarajevo Olympics and the oh-for-twenty-six 1976-1977 Tampa Bay Bucs, and most recently a book on the wild heydays of Florida land development in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. I have a PhD in history from Indiana University Bloomington and have appeared on NPR’s "Weekend Edition," APM’s "Marketplace," and C-SPAN’S "Book TV."
Last Train to Paradise is acclaimed novelist Les Standiford's fast-paced and gripping true account of the extraordinary construction and spectacular demise of the Key West Railroad—one of the greatest engineering feats ever undertaken, destroyed in one fell swoop by the Labor Day hurricane of 1935. Brilliant and driven entrepreneur Henry Flagler's dream fulfilled, the Key West Railroad stood as a magnificent achievement for more than twenty-two years, heralded as "the Eighth Wonder of the World." Standiford brings the full force and fury of 1935's deadly Storm of the Century and its sweeping destruction of "the railroad that crossed an ocean" to terrifying life.
The fast-paced and gripping true account of the extraordinary construction and spectacular demise of the Key West Railroad—one of the greatest engineering feats ever undertaken, destroyed in one fell swoop by the strongest storm ever to hit U.S. shores.
In 1904, the brilliant and driven entrepreneur Henry Flagler, partner to John D. Rockefeller, dreamed of a railway connecting the island of Key West to the Florida mainland, crossing a staggering 153 miles of open ocean—an engineering challenge beyond even that of the Panama Canal. Many considered the project impossible, but build it they did. The railroad stood as a magnificent…
Chasing Light is a lyrical meditation on grief, memory, and the fragile beauty of everyday life. At its core, it is a story of resilience, forgiveness, and the transformational power of human connection. It sheds light on the overlooked realities of homelessness and addiction, while emphasizing the importance of compassion…
I took my first cross-country train ride with my mom when I was seven years old. That gave me the train bug. Since then, I’ve been across the United States three times via rail, across Europe, and all over northern India with my husband, too. I think train travel is a very special way to see a place. You’re going past backyards and back roads. You see the whole landscape, and you meet so many people you wouldn’t otherwise. I’ve never set out to write a “train book,” but trains play an important role in two of my three novels. I can’t get away from them, even in my imagination.
I read Monisha Rajesh’s earlier travel memoir, Around India in 80 Trains, while planning my own train journey in India. In this one, she circumvents the entire globe (technically more than once in terms of mileage). It’s the kind of book I wish I’d written myself because I would love to do a train journey like this! I love Rajesh’s descriptions of the places she passes through and the people she meets along the way, and of course, how it changes her to see the world through this lens.
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELLER AWARD FOR BEST TRAVEL BOOK
SHORTLISTED FOR THE STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD
'Monisha Rajesh has chosen one of the best ways of seeing the world. Never too fast, never too slow, her journey does what trains do best. Getting to the heart of things. Prepare for a very fine ride' Michael Palin
From the cloud-skimming heights of Tibet's Qinghai railway to silk-sheeted splendour on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, Around the World in 80 Trains is a celebration of the glory of train travel and a witty and irreverent look at the…
Rajendra B. Aklekar (born 1974) is an Indian journalist with over 25 years of experience and author of best-selling books on India’s railway history and heritage. He is also the biographer of India’s legendary railway engineer Dr. E Sreedharan. With museology from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharasj Vastu Sangrahalaya (formerly the Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai, Aklekar is also a Google-certified Digital Marketer. Aklekar, associated with the Indian Railway Fans’ Club Association, Indian Steam Railway Society, Rail Enthusiasts Society, has contributed significantly while setting up the Rail Heritage Gallery at the UNESCO-listed Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus station, formerly Victoria Terminus building, Bombay, and documentation of heritage relics of India’s first railway.
This is another book on the same subject written by an eminent historian and economist. I am recommending this book because of the clear and categorical historical decade-wise demarcations since the inception of railways in India since the 1830s. The 20th century is summarised in one entire chapter, bringing a contemporary context. One of the best parts of the book is a timeline of the government policies and committees on Indian Railways in a tabular form that gives a quick summary of how the organization progressed in its different forms, including the seamless transfer from old colonial railways to national railways adding the current reforms and policies. Another key feature of the book is that it gives a timeline of the various railway companies and railway lines spread across India.
I am also proud to mention that the book liberally quotes my first book when it mentions India’s railway…
The fascinating story of the network that made modern India The railways brought modernity to India. Its vast network connected the far corners of the subcontinent, making travel, communication and commerce simpler than ever before. Even more importantly, the railways played a large part in the making of the nation: by connecting historically and geographically disparate regions and people, it forever changed the way Indians lived and thought, and eventually made a national identity possible. This engagingly written, anecdotally told history captures the immense power of a business behemoth as well as the romance of train travel; tracing the growth…
I'm an American writer who lives in Switzerland, in the vineyards outside Geneva, but I grew up in the 1960s riding night trains around the United States in the company of my father, who loved trains and rode them for his work. From the soaring columns of New York’s Pennsylvania Station, we took trains to Chicago, Wyoming, Denver, Albuquerque, New Orleans, and beyond. In my adult writing life, I've taken trains across Russia, China, India, Australia, the Middle East, Japan, and just about every corner of Europe. Once, I rode all the trains in East Africa between Nairobi and Johannesburg, during which excursion the Tazara Expresswas three days late into Kapiri Mposhi, Tanzania.
Sadly, much of Mr. Frimbo’s train world no longer exists, at least in the United States, but this book—a collection of delightful essays from train journeys—is a fitting legacy to a departed rail network. Whitaker was a copyeditor at TheNew Yorker. Later he traveled with Tony Hiss, also at The New Yorker, and the two have preserved in print the quirkiness and greatness of what were America’s passenger trains, from the Twentieth Century Limited to long-forgotten branch lines.
International in scope, this series of non-fiction trade paperbacks offers books that explore the lives, customs and thoughts of peoples and cultures around the world.
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman
by
Alexis Krasilovsky,
Kate from Jules et Jim meets I Love Dick.
A young woman filmmaker’s journey of self-discovery, set against a backdrop of the sexual liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. In Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman, we follow Ana Fried as she faces the ultimate…
I’ve spent most of my career teaching and writing about French history. In the 1990s, it became belatedly clear to me and other French historians that France shouldn’t be understood purely as a European nation-state. It was an empire whose imperial ambitions encompassed North America, the Caribbean, Africa, Indochina, and India. By the twentieth century, and especially after 1945, large numbers of people from those colonial places had emigrated to mainland France, claiming to belong to that country and asserting the right to live there. Their presence produced a great deal of political strife, which I wanted to study by looking at France’s colonial past.
JP Daughton tells the horrifying story of the Congo-Océan railroad, a massive, ill-conceived construction project (1921-34) whose French overseers doomed some 20,000 African workers to die. This story, revealing as it does France’s imperial hubris and callous disregard of human suffering, should have been told a long time ago. But it has been buried by bureaucrats, overlooked by historians, and made invisible to those who chose not to see. We owe Daughton a great debt for bringing it to light and for masterfully adding a new chapter to the tragic history of Central Africa under European colonial rule.
The Congo-Ocean railroad stretches across the Republic of Congo from Brazzaville to the Atlantic port of Pointe-Noir. It was completed in 1934, when Equatorial Africa was a French colony, and it stands as one of the deadliest construction projects in history. Colonial workers were subjects of an ostensibly democratic nation whose motto read "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," but liberal ideals were savaged by a cruelly indifferent administrative state.
African workers were forcibly conscripted and separated from their families, and subjected to hellish conditions as they hacked their way through dense tropical foliage-a "forest of no joy"; excavated by hand thousands of…
