Fever - Mary Beth Keane

Mary Mallon, more popularly known as Typhoid Mary, was the first identified 'healthy' carrier of typhoid fever in America. Over her career as a cook, during the late 1800s and early 1900s, she infected 47 people with typhoid three of whom died. She was much maligned by the press of the day and forced, by health authorities to live in isolation on North Brother Island in the East River, New York. Mary Beth Keane's book gives Mary a voice and is a fascinating fictional account of her life.Continue

Started by Jane B in Historical yesterday.

Floundering by Romy Ash

Australian writers do bleak family realism well and this short novel is no exception. Short-listed for this years Miles Franklin, which will be announced next week, it's a story about dysfunctional parenting reminiscent of Tony Birch's Blood. Again we have a child narrator, which seems to be the trend with many Australian writers…Continue

Started by Merilyn in Australian Author on Saturday.

The Battle-Ground / by Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

This book is part of a new series by the University of Alabama Press that purports to be reprinting the “classics of Civil War fiction.”  The problem with that lofty goal is that there are very few works that rise to the level of “classics” beyond Andersonville and the Red Badge of Courage.  The Battle-Ground certainly falls short of classical stature, but it is an easy read from a bygone era; not the Civil War era, mind you, but America’s gilded age of 1902 when people began to look back at…Continue

Started by Kim Allen Scott in Adventure/War Jun 7.

Z:a Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler

What a perfect novel to read to coincide with the release of Baz Luhrman's new movie The Great Gatsby!The novel is a fictionalised biography based on the relationship of Zelda…Continue

Tags: Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Jazz Age, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Biography

Started by Lindach in Fiction A-Z (General) May 20.