Lake Bluff Library Adult Reading Lists

Voices From Chernobyl is the first book to present personal accounts of what happened on April 26, 1986, when the worst nuclear reactor accident in history contaminated as much as three quarters of Europe. Svetlana Alexievich--a journalist who now suffers from an immune deficiency developed while researching this book--interviewed hundreds of people affected by the meltdown. Their narratives form a crucial document revealing how the government masked the event with deception and denial. (Description from catalog)

This spellbinding story of love, loss and self-discovery follows a young girl named Zorka as she comes of age in Prague, Wisconsin and then Boston amidst a backdrop of clothing logos, MTV, computer coders and other outcast youth. (Description from NoveList.)

A young doctor and nurse fall in love while navigating the brutal realities of World War I at an underequipped and understaffed field hospital in the Carpathian Mountains. (Description from NoveList)

Documents the remarkable true story of an ill-fated Polish resistance fighter's infiltration of Auschwitz to sabotage the camp from within, chronicling his daring escape to smuggle evidence of murderous Nazi activities to Allied forces. (Description from NoveList)

Investigating the thefts of the seven Arma Christi relics from their international sanctuaries, former Justice Department agent Cotton Malone learns that the relics are being demanded by a blackmailer in possession of incriminating evidence against the president of Poland. (Description from NoveList.)

When her neighbor turns up dead, and then other bodies turn up under strange circumstances, Janine, a recluse in a remote Polish village who prefers the company of animals over humans, inserts herself into the investigation, certain she knows whodunit. - description from Novelist

A mother who goes into hiding when Nazis begin arresting Jewish citizens in Poland considers an impossible choice while struggling to keep her 5-year-old daughter, a musical prodigy, from being overheard. (Description from NoveList.)

The extraordinary true story of America's forgotten invasion of Russia: one-thousand miles north of Moscow, five-thousand brave U.S. troops from Michigan fought the Red Army during the winter of 1918-1919 in brutal arctic conditions. (Description from catalog)

Draws on twenty years of research, recently declassified files, and interviews with survivors in an account of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster that also reveals how propaganda and secrets have created additional dangers.
(Description from catalog)

In 1929 Stalin launched his policy of agricultural collectivization--in effect a second Russian revolution--which forced millions of peasants off their land and onto collective farms. The result was a catastrophic famine, the most lethal in European history. At least five million people died between 1931 and 1933 in the USSR. But instead of sending relief the Soviet state made use of the catastrophe to rid itself of a political problem. In Red Famine, Anne Applebaum argues that more than three million of those dead were Ukrainians who perished not because they were accidental victims of a bad policy but because the state deliberately set out to kill them. (Description from catalog)

When her happy life in 1991 Croatia is shattered by civil war, ten-year-old Ana Juric is embroiled in a world of guerilla warfare and child soldiers before making a daring escape to America, where years later she struggles to hide her past. (Description from catalog)

Patroclus, an awkward young prince, follows Achilles into war, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they have learned, everything they hold dear. And that, before he is ready, he will be forced to surrender his friend to the hands of Fate. Set during the Trojan War. (Description from catalog)

An unprecedented look inside a ruthless and obscenely wealthy branch of the Italian Mafia and the electrifying story of the brave women who decided to fight back. (Description from catalog)

A prominent classicist explores ancient Rome and how its citizens adapted the notion of imperial rule, invented the concepts of citizenship and nation, and made laws about those traditionally overlooked in history, including women, slaves, and criminals. (Description from NoveList)

A New York documentary filmmaker, visiting his wife's small mountain community in the majestic Italian Dolomites, is challenged to unravel the truth about a decades-old triple murder in the wake of a devastating accident. (Description from catalog.)

The enduring bonds of sisterhood flourish in this heartwarming and dazzling Italian adventure, where a love that spans generations reveals the path to one woman's destiny, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Life List. (Description from catalog)

Presents the romance of the American film actress and Prince Rainier of Monaco that led to her giving up her movie career and becoming a world famous royal princess. (Description from NoveList)

A struggling perfumer who has forged an unlikely friendship with Grace Kelly against a backdrop of the latter's high-profile wedding considers what she is prepared to sacrifice when she falls in love with a British press photographer. (Description from NoveList.)

An allegorical novel in three parts is set in the fictional High Mountains of 17th-century Portugal and beyond, where characters explore questions of loss and faith while on a quest, while tackling ghosts and in the contemporary world. (Description from NoveList)

Two Irish drug-smuggling partners reevaluate a career marked by violence, betrayal and exile during a nocturnal vigil in a sketchy Spanish ferry terminal where one of them would reconnect with an estranged daughter. (Description from NoveList.)

Young Inspector Unai López de Ayala, known as "Kraken," is charged with investigating a series of ritualistic murders. The murders are eerily similar to ones that rattled the citizens of Vitoria twenty years earlier. But back then, police were sure they had discovered the killer, a prestigious archaeologist who is currently in jail.
(Description from catalog)

A portrait of the only queen in the history of the Ottoman Empire traces how Roxelana, a Christian slave, was abducted and placed in the harem of Sultan Suleyman, who married her against all conventions before her talents as a diplomat and philanthropist rendered her an invaluable advisor to her husband. (Description from NoveList)

While climbing Mount Ararat in Turkey, an avalanche forces a couple to seek shelter inside a massive cave uncovered by the snow fall. The cave is actually an ancient, buried ship that they speculate is really Noah's Ark. But when a team of scholars, archaeologists, and filmmakers make it inside the ark for the first time, they discover an elaborate coffin in its recesses; the cadaver within is an ugly, misshapen thing with horns. Now a massive blizzard has them trapped in the cave thousands of meters up the side of a remote mountain... but the team is not alone. (Description from catalog)

In the moments after she has been murdered and left in a dumpster outside Istanbul, Tequila Leila enters a state of heightened awareness. Her heart has stopped beating but her brain is still active--for 10 minutes 38 seconds. While the Turkish sun rises and her friends sleep soundly nearby, she remembers her life--and the lives of others, outcasts like her. In Tequila Leila’s death, the secrets and wonders of modern Istanbul come to life, painted vividly by the captivating tales of how Leila came to know and be loved by her friends. As her epic journey to the afterlife comes to an end, it is her chosen family who brings her story to a buoyant and breathtaking conclusion. - description from Novelist

Gabriel Allon has slipped quietly into Venice for a much needed holiday with his wife and two young children. But when Pope Paul VII dies suddenly, Gabriel is summoned to Rome by the Holy Father's loyal private secretary, Archbishop Luigi Donati. A billion Catholic faithful have been told that the pope died of a heart attack. Donati, however, has two good reasons to suspect his master was murdered. The Swiss Guard who was standing watch outside the papal apartments the night of the pope's death is missing. So, too, is the letter the Holy Father was writing during the final hours of his life. A letter that was addressed to Gabriel. (Description from catalog.)

Along with his 16-year old son Fritz, Gustav Kleinmann, a Jewish upholsterer in Vienna, was sent to Buchenwald in Germany, where a new concentration camp was being built. Gustav kept his diary hidden throughout his six years in the death camps--even Fritz knew nothing of it. (Description from catalog)

Traces the story of the tragic romance and brutal assassination that led to World War I, exploring rumors of Serbian complicity, conspiracy, and official negligence that doomed the Archduke and his family. (Description from NoveList)

A young apprentice works secretly for the Austrian resistance in World War II and resolves to save the fiery daughter of his Jewish stamp engraver master, a story that is found decades later by a divorced descendant who investigates an unusual stamp on an old love letter. (Description from NoveList)

The New York Times best-selling author of The Traitor's Wife fictionalizes the little-known and tumultuous love story of "Sisi," the 19th-century Austro-Hungarian empress and captivating wife of Emperor Franz Joseph. (Description from catalog)

An illustrated account chronicles in detail events ranging from Napoleon's escape from Elba through Waterloo's three major battlefield events. (Description from catalog)

Draws on transcripts, letters and diaries to chronicle how an epidemic of murder in the late 1600s led to Nicolas de La Reynie's appointment as Paris's first police chief, the installation of lanterns that turned Paris into the City of Light and the investigations in the criminal underground that implicated Louis XIV's mistress. (Description from NoveList)

In 1939, curators at the Louvre nestled the world's most famous painting into a special red velvet-lined case and spirited her away to the Loire Valley. As the Germans neared Paris in 1940, the French raced to move the masterpieces again and again during the war. Throughout the German occupation, the Louvre's staff fought to keep the priceless treasures out of enemy hands, often risking their lives to protect the country's artistic heritage. This is their tale. (Description from catalog)

"France, 1984. Just outside a hotel in Bordeaux, Philippe chances upon a young man who bears a striking resemblance to his first love, Thomas. Their hidden affair during their last year of high school was carried on without ever acknowledging each other in the halls. Stealing steal time to meet in secret, Philippe and Thomas carry on a passionate, world-altering affair."

"One day in the City of Lights. One night in search of lost time. Paris between the wars teems with artists, writers, and musicians, a glittering crucible of genius. But amidst the dazzling creativity of the city's most famous citizens, four regular people are each searching for something they've lost... Told over the course of a single day in 1927, The Paris Hours takes four ordinary people whose stories, told together, are as extraordinary as the glorious city they inhabit"-- Provided by publisher.

Vanessa Yu never wanted to see people's fortunes-or misfortunes-in tea leaves. Ever since she can remember, Vanessa has been able to see people's fortunes at the bottoms of their teacups. To avoid blurting out fortunes, she converts to coffee, but somehow the fortunes escape and find a way to complicate her life and the lives of those around her.
(Description from catalog)

An award-winning political correspondent shares the long-secret story of her German grandmother, who endured the brutal Nazi regime and postwar years before the advancing Red Army separated her from the father of her baby. (Description from NoveList.)

A tale inspired by the first wife of Albert Einstein follows the experiences of Mitza Mari, a female physics student at an elite late-nineteenth-century school in Zurich, where she falls in love with a charismatic fellow student who eclipses her contributions to his theory of relativity. (Description from NoveList.)

"For fans of Meg Wolitzer and Maggie Shipstead: a sweeping debut novel following an American artist who returns to Germany--where she fell in love and had a child decades earlier--to confront her past at her former mother-in-law's funeral."

When a World War II physics professor with information vital to Allied forces is sent to a Nazi concentration camp, intelligence officer Nathan Blum is sent undercover to infiltrate Auschwitz and bring the professor to safety. (Description from NoveList.)

Forced to risk her life every day as a taster at Hitler's secret headquarters, Rosa and a growing sisterhood of involuntary women conscripts navigate Nazi fanatics, an SS guard's unwanted attentions, and the escalating war. (Description from catalog)

This stunning, edge-of-your seat memoir chronicles Astrid's terrifying experience working as a double agent, preserving her brother's trust just so that she could get enough information to put him away for life. Judas is the intimate account of Astrid's deeply personal betrayal, set against the backdrop of their haunting family history and the astonishing world of the criminal underground. (Description from catalog)

A captivating exploration of the little-known story of Rembrandt's formative years by a prize-winning biographer. (Description from catalog.)

After a global nuclear war begins, Jon Keller and a small group of survivors at a hotel in Switzerland try to maintain some semblance of civilization, only to discover the murdered body of a young girl in the hotel's water tanks. (Description from NoveList.)

Wild rabies runs rampant through the woods. The foxes are gaining ground, boldly making their way into the village. In Dichtersruhe, an insular yet charming haven stifled by Swiss mountains, these omens go unnoticed by all but the new parish priest. The residents have other things on their mind: Literature. Everyone's a writer - the nights are alive with reworked manuscripts. So when the devil turns up in a black car claiming to be a hotshot publisher, unsatisfied authorial desires are unleashed and the village's former harmony is shattered. (Description from catalog.)