Items25The creator’s order
  1. 1Brooklyn (2009)Brooklyn (2009) 7.2/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2009Eilis's move from early-1950s Ireland to New York is made real through a boarding house, shop work, classes and the effort of learning how to speak to people. Her growing attachment to Brooklyn does not dissolve what she owes or wants from home. Tóibín is especially good at choices that look…0
  2. 2Small island (2004)Small island (2004) 9.2/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2004Hortense and Gilbert come from Jamaica to a London that has taught them to expect recognition and then withholds it. Their landlady and her husband have stories of their own, and the four voices expose how differently the same encounter can be understood. Set around 1948, this funny, painful novel…0
  3. 3Pachinko (2017)Pachinko (2017) 8.1/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2017Sunja's move from Korea to Japan in 1933 begins a life whose work and compromises extend into later generations. Food stalls, businesses, schooling and the limits of citizenship make belonging something negotiated repeatedly. A generous, highly readable family sweep for someone who wants to stay…0
  4. 4Shanghai girls (2009)Shanghai girls (2009) 7.6/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2009Pearl and May leave 1930s Shanghai for arranged marriages in Los Angeles, where family obligations and immigration restrictions reshape their closeness. See spends substantial time on the business of living after arrival: work, neighbourhood ties, status and what can safely be said. A strong choice…0
  5. 5The Book of Negroes (2007)The Book of Negroes (2007) 8.7/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2007Aminata's life moves from West Africa through enslavement in America, evacuation to Nova Scotia and a later journey to Sierra Leone. Her skills, language and determination to recover family ties hold together an immense geographical sweep. This is a fictional life, not a recovered memoir. Its title…0
  6. 6The final passage (1985)The final passage (1985)Published 1 Jan 1985Leila leaves a Caribbean island with her family and discovers how little the word England explains about a rented room or a damaged marriage. In this 1950s setting, finding somewhere to live is inseparable from deciding whose company can be relied upon. Phillips's compact novel is a sharp…0
  7. 7A History of Burning (2023)A History of Burning (2023) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2023The family route runs from labour on an East African railway to Uganda, then into forced dispersal under Idi Amin and onward into exile. Oza makes each new home carry earlier bargains, languages and silences into the next generation. Choose it for a broad historical journey held together by the…0
  8. 8The World and All That It Holds (2023)The World and All That It Holds (2023) 10.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2023Rafael Pinto's life is pulled from a Sarajevo pharmacy in 1914 through war and displacement as far as Shanghai. His love for Osman, and the words and memories attached to it, becomes something portable when countries and households cannot be kept. Hemon's long journey is sensual, linguistically…0
  9. 9The Book of Salt (2003)The Book of Salt (2003) 5.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2003Bình cooks for Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in 1930s Paris, while memories of colonial Vietnam and years at sea interrupt the apparent stability of employment. The famous household stays at the edge of a servant's private life. Truong imagines the cook's story rather than presenting a…0
  10. 10The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna (2019)The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna (2019) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2019Moving from Calabria to Connecticut changes the setting of Stella’s life without automatically changing who is allowed to control it. Grames follows a long span of survival, work and sisterhood, making the immigrant household a place of protection and coercion at once. A substantial family novel…0