
Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.
An American author known for his beautifully written and emotionally resonant novels, often exploring themes of memory, resilience, and the impact of historical events on individual lives. His Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, All the Light We Cannot See, weaves together the stories of a blind French girl and a young German soldier during World War II with lyrical prose and profound human connection. Doerr's evocative storytelling has earned him critical acclaim and a wide readership.

by George Eliot
George Eliot’s Middlemarch is a deeply layered novel exploring the lives of residents in a fictional English town during the early 19th century. It centers on Dorothea Brooke, an idealistic woman seeking intellectual and spiritual fulfillment, and Tertius Lydgate, a reform-minded doctor. The novel examines marriage, ambition, politics, and the limitations of social convention. Renowned for its psychological realism and philosophical depth, Middlemarch is often hailed as one of the greatest English novels, offering a rich portrait of provincial life and moral complexity.

by Lauren Groff
Set in 12th-century France, Matrix follows Marie de France, cast out of the royal court and sent to live in a poverty-stricken abbey. There, she transforms the convent into a thriving, autonomous community of women, wielding spiritual and political power in a male-dominated world. Groff reimagines history with lyrical prose, exploring themes of female agency, mysticism, faith, and queerness. Inspired by a real medieval poet, this is a visionary and feminist novel about creation, leadership, and devotion, both sacred and secular. Matrix is a powerful meditation on the lives women build when the world tries to shut them out.

Set before and during the Nigerian Civil War, this novel follows three interconnected lives—a professor’s mistress, a houseboy, and a British writer—amid national upheaval. Through love, betrayal, and survival, Adichie weaves a deeply human portrait of identity, loyalty, and the cost of independence. Half of a Yellow Sun is a powerful historical narrative that illuminates both personal and political conflict with grace and urgency.

Series: The Wolf Hall Trilogy (#1)
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?