検索キーワード： 20世紀

Eleni has been coming to Crete her entire life, swapping her English home for cherished sun-baked summers with her grandfather in his idyllic shoreside villa. When she arrives in 1936, she believes the long, hot weeks ahead will be no different to so many that have gone before. But someone else is visiting the island that year too: a young German man called Otto. And so begins a summer of innocence lost, and love discovered; one that is finite, but not the end.

Tuscany, 1943. Stranded in war-ravaged Italy, Beatrice’s dream of an escapist year teaching English is shattered. Granted shelter at the Villa delle Colombe, she seeks refuge in Francesca and Edoardo’s beautiful walled garden, hidden from the outside world, with an elaborate cypress maze at its heart. But Beatrice is not the only one seeking an escape here. Francesca has brought children to the safety of the house, as well as other adults, all of them seeking sanctuary on the estate with its mysterious maze.

Early Light offers three very different aspects of Osamu Dazai's genius: the title story relates his misadventures as a drinker and a family man in the terrible fire bombings of Tokyo at the end of WWII. Having lost their own home, he and his wife flee with a new baby boy and their little girl to relatives in Kofu, only to be bombed out anew.

Set in a luxurious grand hotel just outside Lisbon, at the height of the Second World War, Estoril is a delightful and poignant novel about exile, divided loyalties, fear and survival. The hotel's guests include spies, fallen kings, refugees from the Balkans, Nazis, American diplomats and stateless Jews. The Portuguese secret police broodingly observe the visitors, terrified that their country's neutrality will be compromised. The novel seamlessly fuses the stories of its invented characters with appearances by historical figures.

With the coming of the Olympic Games to Berlin, a false air of civility has taken over as the government extends a welcome to the world. But below the surface, the police state remains, and hundreds of so-called “undesirables” are rounded up and held in a newly constructed concentration camp in the city. In desperation, one of the prisoners reaches out to the Ritter family, and Maureen and her band of subversives will undertake a mission of mercy that could see them all end up as victims of the dreaded Gestapo.

Eine mutige junge Frau auf der Suche nach einem Stück Heimat. Eine Liebe, die nicht sein kann. Eine Hoffnung, die niemals stirbt. 1939: Die junge Mercedes muss mit ihrer Familie vor den Kämpfen des Spanischen Bürgerkriegs aus Barcelona fliehen, doch nur sie kommt im Internierungslager an. Dort lernt sie den charismatischen Agustí kennen und lieben, aber nach viel zu kurzer Zeit verlieren sie sich unter tragischen Umständen aus den Augen. Entschlossen kämpft sich Mercedes allein durch die harten Jahre der Nachkriegszeit, immer auf der Suche nach einem Stück Heimat, ihrer Familie und Agustí.

There were so many terrifying stories about the Jews. People called them useless vermin, filthy, dangerous. Before I met Abram, I was afraid of them, too. But I am about to tell you a very different story—a forbidden story. My love for Abram defied all reason...as well as German law. Tonight our son giggles with excitement as he blows out the candles on his birthday cake. But our safety is nothing but an illusion. As his candles burn out, a window shatters outside. The room shudders as the synagogue down the street is engulfed in flames.

Scarred—physically and emotionally—by the brutal warfare at Dunkirk, Jack Pembroke decides to leave his home in England to join his father, Admiral Pembroke, in the South African Cape. A fledgling naval force is preparing to fight the coming onslaught of German raiders, and Jack is soon thrust back into action when he is appointed commander of a minesweeping flotilla. Unknown to Jack, a Nazi commerce raider has left Germany for the Cape intending to wreak havoc on Allied shipping.

Hamburg, 1942. Seventeen-year-old Anna knows she can never tell her proud parents the truth about where she is going. She must hide the fact that she is pregnant, that the father of her unborn child is dead, and that she is on her way to a special maternity home, where her baby will be given to a perfect family. She tells herself that this is the best solution. She doesn’t expect to feel the rush of love for her beautiful baby boy in the white blanket or the devastation when he is snatched from her, never to be seen again.

On the eve of the return of the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong to China in 1997, young Ophelia asks her peculiar great-aunt Violet about the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II, the disappearance of her uncle Raymond, and whether her grandmother, Emily, was a murderer. Emily’s marriage—three times—to her father’s mortal enemy causes a stir among three very different Hong Kong Chinese families. But the bickering around the scandal of Emily’s marriage is violently disrupted by the Japanese Imperial Army’s invasion of Hong Kong on Christmas Day, 1941.

Alice is nursing an injured hand and a broken heart when she moves to the village of Churchwood at the start of WWII. She is desperate to be independent but worries that her injuries will make that impossible. Kate lives with her family on Brimbles Farm, where her father and brothers treat her no better than a servant. With no mother or sisters, and shunned by the locals, Kate longs for a friend of her own. Naomi is looked up to for owning the best house in the village. But privately, she carries the hurts of childlessness.

Nazi-occupied Holland, 1944. As soldiers patrol the streets, nursing student Ilse is only just surviving the terrible famine and increasingly violent German occupation. Though exhausted by her demanding work at a hospital far from home, she can’t help but notice Levi, a young man with dark eyes watching the world silently from the abandoned house next door. London, present day. When Anna’s father dies, he leaves her a ticket to Amsterdam, a bent silver sixpence on a delicate silver chain, and a note begging her to complete the journey he was never able to.

Operation Anglo, 31 August 1942. Beneath the waves, HMS Traveller closes in on the coast of Rhodes in the Eastern Mediterranean. Aboard, eight SBS commandos check their weapons and munitions as they prepare to infiltrate and sabotage two Axis bomber fields. That part of their mission will be a success... but only two of the eight commandos will make it back to the submarine. Ex-Black Watch Sgt Jim Hunter will be one of the lucky ones, but what he will face next will make Operation Anglo look like a cakewalk.

September, 1940. Three women of the Checquy, the secret organization tasked with protecting Britain from supernatural threats, stand in the sky above London and see German aircraft approach. Forbidden by law to interfere, all they can do is watch as their city is bombed. Until Pamela breaks all the rules and brings down a Nazi bomber with her bare hands. The three resolve to tell no one about it, but they soon learn that a crew member is missing from the downed bomber. Charred corpses are discovered in nearby houses and it becomes apparent that the women have unwittingly unleashed a monster.

In this sweeping story based on the true experiences of nurses dubbed "the Angels of Bataan," three women shift in and out of each other's lives through the darkest days of the war, buoyed by their unwavering friendship and distant dreams of liberation.

Our Street at War series takes an ordinary street during wartime and peeps inside at the lives of the residents - full nostalgia and compelling storylines, this series is must for fan of Elaine Everest, Nancy Revell and Ellie Dean.

Kathy Begley is an empty nester, the primary caretaker of her ailing mother, and the emotional support for her laid-off husband. She’s also returning to the office after two decades to work under a borderline inappropriate boss. Then a Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony invitation arrives, and she uncovers an unfathomable family secret: her mother, Peggy Mayfield, wasn’t just a tempestuous wife and mother. She was a Women Airforce Service Pilot.

Ostpreußen, 1944: Das junge Liebespaar Annie und Werner muss sich trennen, als er in Hitlers Volkssturm eingezogen wird. Während die SS Werner befiehlt, die Leichen erfrorener Flüchtlinge von den Straßen Königsbergs zu entfernen, entdeckt Annie, dass sie schwanger ist. Dazu häufen sich die Gerüchte über den Vormarsch der Roten Armee und damit auch die alarmierenden Berichte darüber, was diese mit Mädchen und Frauen macht. Schweren Herzens begeben sich Annie und ihre Mutter im Januar 1945 auf eine lebensgefährliche Reise nach Westen.

Gangland Queen Nell has the perfect life of crime as a top shoplifter by day and glamorous club owner by night. But a betrayal and botched robbery suddenly reverse her fortunes...and her old rival, Alice Diamond, is hell-bent on taking her down. After escaping a poverty-stricken childhood, nightclub dancer Zoe has more on her mind than settling scores for Alice. But the life of luxury Zoe craves comes at a terrible price. And when a vicious gang tightens its grip on Soho, all three women realise it pays to keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Die Brüder Karl und Paul Effinger brechen aus Süddeutschland nach Berlin auf, um Schrauben zu produzieren. Dort heiraten sie in die alteingesessene Familie Oppner ein, es gelingt der gesellschaftlicher Aufstieg. Doch spätestens nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg beginnen die bürgerlichen Gewissheiten zu bröckeln. Auch die prachtvollen Feste können nicht mehr über den sich immer brutaler äußernden Antisemitismus in der Gesellschaft hinwegtäuschen. Die Auflehnung der jungen Generation wirbelt die gutbürgerliche Familie zusätzlich durcheinander.