Showing titles in Biographical Fiction

Lever les yeux vers les étoiles. Aussi, à défaut de pouvoir les approcher, dans un monde où le métier d'astronaute est réservé aux hommes, elle est devenue astrophysicienne. Mais le jour où elle apprend que la NASA recrute des scientifiques, consciente des sacrifices qui s'annoncent, elle saisit sa chance. Ce matin de décembre 1984, quand Joan arrive au centre de contrôle à Houston, elle s'attend à vivre une journée comme les autres.

This novel provides a fascinating look into life in late 14th-century England, the women and men Chaucer loves, the intrigues of the Richardian court, and what compels someone who holds some of the most important jobs in the English bureaucracy to spend his nights writing poetry that is still being read and studied 600 years after his death.

Elizabeth, queen of England, has taken on the mighty Spanish Armada and, in a stunning sea battle, vanquished it. But her troubles are far from over. Just across the western channel, her colony Ireland is embroiled in seething rebellion, with the island's fierce, untamed clan chieftains and their "wild Irish" followers refusing to bow to their English oppressors. Grace O'Malley—notorious pirate, gunrunner, and "Mother of the Irish Rebellion"—is at the heart of the conflict.

Set against the sprawling backdrop of 1930s Australia, Anna May Shahan is a wild child raised on a lush farm by the sea, always barefoot and playing in her neighbor’s secret garden. Her Aboriginal nanny teaches her the ways of the land, and she grows up to be a quirky, eccentric, and sweet woman. But she is not without her demons, as she struggles with bizarre behaviors and a haunting, dark side. Soon after marriage, Anna inherits Sugar Alexandria, her family’s sheep station, and she and her Irish husband James lead a simple, hardworking life.

Before Jane Austen, there was Fanny Burney. In the 1780s, she was England’s most celebrated female author, having achieved extraordinary success with two hit novels. She went on to become a royal servant, marry an exile from the French Revolution and undergo a gruelling mastectomy without the aid of anaesthetic – all events chronicled in her diaries, which were published posthumously to great acclaim. Contained here are dramatisations of her first and most famous novel, and her remarkable journals and letters.

"Come for the banter, stay for the intrigue, and enjoy this fascinating tale of the American Revolution.”—Christian Science Monitor A riveting reimagining of the young woman who almost ended the American Revolution. Philadelphia in the 1770s. Peggy Shippen longs for the war she’s living...

Marie Sklodowska, 25, is studying science at the Sorbonne—one of the only universities in the world that has begun to admit women. A thousand miles from her native Poland, with no money and the odds stacked against any woman daring to pursue a career in such a rigorous field, Marie throws herself into her studies. She’s certain that to succeed in a man’s world, she will have to go it alone.

Thirteenth-century Bohemia is a dangerous place for a girl, especially one as odd as Mouse, born with unnatural senses and an uncanny intellect. Some call her a witch. Others call her an angel. Even Mouse doesn't know who - or what - she is. But she means to find out. When young King Ottakar shows up at the Abbey wounded by a traitor's arrow, Mouse breaks church law to save him and then agrees to accompany him back to Prague as his personal healer.

2,300 years ago an unbeaten army of the West invaded the homeland of a fierce Eastern tribal foe. This is one soldier’s story . . . The bestselling novelist of ancient warfare returns with a riveting historical novel that re-creates Alexander the Great’s invasion of the Afghan kingdoms in...

Alle meine Mütter erzählt von dieser besonderen, oft lebenslang komplexen Beziehung und ihren Facetten, erzählt davon, welche Mütter wir selbst zu sein versuchen, wie wir scheitern, zweifeln, stolpern, welche Ängste uns begleiten, was uns bindet und prägt, aber auch, was uns abhält, was es heißt, ungewollt Mutter oder nicht Mutter zu sein, ein Kind anzunehmen, zu verlieren oder nicht loslassen zu können. Eine feinfühlige Erkundung der wohl prägendsten Beziehung unseres Lebens, der zu unseren Müttern. Ein bewegend aufrichtiger Roman. Dieses Hörbuch geht alle an.

In the cold spring of 1936, Arthor Crandle, down-on-his luck and desperate for work, accepts a position in Providence, Rhode Island, as a live-in assistant for an unnamed shut-in. He arrives at the gloomy colonial-style house to discover that his strange employer is an author of disturbing, bizarre fiction. Health issues have confined him to his bedroom, where he is never to be disturbed. But the writer, who Crandle knows only as "Ech-Pi", refuses to meet him, communicating only by letters left on a table outside his room.

A Treacherous Paradise sees Henning Mankell turn his talents for writing gripping thrillers to a world where power and powerlessness meet and passion is a dangerous commodity. Hanna Lundmark escapes the brutal poverty of rural Sweden for a job as a cook onboard a steamship headed for Australia...

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge) has been described as an anti-novel. It is set in Paris in the period just before the First World War, but it presents a bleaker milieu than that described by Proust. The language is terse, the atmosphere painful, the images uncompromising. Rilke drew on the short period he spent in Paris in 1903 where, in contrast to the rural circumstances in which he had lived before, he found the underbelly of urban life distressing.

Brought to you by Penguin. The heartbreaking Japanese classic telling the story of two orphans fighting for survival at the end of World War Two, published in English for the first time In the dying days of the War, Seita and Setsuko must fend for themselves. Firebombs have obliterated their...

The film star M is one of the most recognizable faces of our time. Now, a writer has decided to pay close attention to M's life, in the hope of understanding who she really is. In this astonishing, explosive novel, Rachel Cusk hunts for the nature of truth without ever swerving away into self-deceptions. She investigates who we are, and pretend to be, at this late stage of modern life when we are hypnotized, more and more effectively, by the images we see everywhere.

Dall'Ungheria a Londra e ritorno, dal crollo della Cortina di ferro alla pandemia, passando per la seconda guerra del Golfo e l'ingresso nell'Unione Europea dei Paesi dell'ex blocco sovietico, la vita di István è la parabola di un uomo in balìa di forze che non è in grado di controllare. Tutto – i traumi e i lutti, i traguardi raggiunti e le potenziali soddisfazioni – lo lascia ugualmente impassibile, pronto a fronteggiare ogni accadimento, dal più fortunato al più tragico, con l'arma del suo laconico: «Okay».

Sixteen-year-old Catherine Seymour has always idolized her elder sister Jane. As a child was groomed to be queen, to marry her cousin King Edward, and since his death she has been determined to restore her family's claim to throne. After spending time at Queen Mary's court, Jane has now returned home to Hanworth Park to the delight of Catherine and their brother Ned. To their surprise, Jane brings with her Lady Catherine Grey, sister of Jane Grey, the ill-fated nine-day queen, and heiress to the throne after Princess Elizabeth.

In 1984, Detective Eric O'Malley investigated the bizarre deaths of a young couple, their bodies found naked by the side of a creek in Sydney's northern suburbs. Shortly before their demise, O'Malley learned, the pair had attended a swingers' party. The case was barely open before it was deemed an accident. But O'Malley knew it was murder. He just couldn't prove it. Thirty-five years later, O'Malley is found dead in his flat in what looks like a drug overdose. But his son James knows something's amiss. His dad was close to solving that case after all these years. And someone else knew it.

American-born Catherine knows little of her Croatian mother's early life. When Marijana dies of ovarian cancer, 22-year-old Catherine finds herself cut off from the past she never really knew. As Catherine searches for clues to her mother's elusive history, she discovers that Marijana was orphaned during WWII, nearly died as a teenager, and escaped from Communist Yugoslavia to Rome, and then South America. Through travel and memory, history and imagination, Catherine resurrects the relatives she's never known.

My character has been shaped by two opposing forces; the pressure to conform to social norms, and the pressure to be true to myself. To be honest with you, these forces have really torn me apart. They’ve pulled me one way and then the other. At times, they’ve left me questioning my whole entire existence. But please don’t think that I’m angry or morose. I’m not. Because through adversity comes knowledge. I’ve suffered, it’s true. But I’ve learnt from my pain. I’ve become a better person.