Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl. Each Tuesday is assigned a topic.
This weeks topic: Books With Nationalities In The Title
This one was hard as I haven’t read many books that would fit this topic. I have only read one book that fits. So the majority of this list is books on my TBR that have nationalities in their title.
Title: Angels in America Part One: Millennium Approaches
Author: Tony Kushner
Published: May 1, 1993
Genre: Play, Fantasy, LGBT
Series: Angels in America
Synopsis:
Angels in America is a play in two parts by American playwright Tony Kushner.
The play is a complex, often metaphorical, and at times symbolic examination of AIDS and homosexuality in America in the 1980s. Certain major and minor characters are supernatural beings (angels) or deceased persons (ghosts). The play contains multiple roles for several of the actors. Initially and primarily focusing on a gay couple in Manhattan, the play also has several other storylines, some of which occasionally intersect.
I first read this part of the play in University. It was required reading for one of my English Literature courses. I don’t remember much about it as that was a little over a decade ago. It is on my re-read list so eventually I will re-read it. I do remember that I enjoyed it and it is well worth reading.
Title: The Arabian Nights
Adapted by: Andrew Lang
Published: September 5, 2017 (This Edition)
Genre: Fiction, Fantasy, Mythology
Synopsis:
The vengeful King Schahriar agrees to stave off the execution of Queen Scheherazade until she finishes a particularly compelling story. Her plan? Bleed one tale into another. Through fanciful histories, romances, tragedies, comedies, poems, riddles, and songs, Scheherazade prolongs her life by holding the king’s rapt attention.
With origins in Persian and Eastern Indian folklore, the stories of The Arabian Nights have been reworked, reshaped, revised, collected, and supplemented throughout the centuries by various authors and scholars – and are continually redefined by the modern translations of the Western world.
I’ve always had a facination with folklore and stories like these. I haven’t read any version of these stories before. Within the next year or so I am hoping to read this one.
Title: The Dutch House
Author: Ann Patchett
Published: September 24, 2019
Genre: Historical Fiction
Synopsis:
At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.
The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakeable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.
Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.
This book has such an interesting premise, I’m not sure why I haven’t read it yet.
Title: Mexican Gothic
Author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Published: June 30, 2020
Genre: Historical Fiction, Horror, Mystery
Synopsis:
An isolated mansion. A chillingly charismatic aristocrat. And a brave socialite drawn to expose their treacherous secrets… From the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow comes “a terrifying twist on classic gothic horror” (Kirkus Reviews) set in glamorous 1950s Mexico.
After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find – her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region.
Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: she’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.
Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.
And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.
This is the exact type of horror/thriller story I love and yet it’s been sitting on my TBR for years now.
Title: American Gods
Author: Neil Gaiman
Published: June 19, 2001
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction, Mythology
Synopsis:
Days before his release from prison, Shadow’s wife, Laura, dies in a mysterious car crash. Numbly, he makes his way back home. On the plane, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America.
Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.
Scary, gripping and deeply unsettling, American Gods takes a long, hard look into the soul of America. You’ll be surprised by what – and who – it finds there…
The premise of this book is interesting. Years ago I made a plan to read everything Neil Gaiman has published, because I do enjoy his writing.
Title: Japanese Gothic
Author: Kylie Lee Baker
Published: April 14, 2026
Genre: Horror, Historical Fiction
Synopsis:
In this lyrical, wildly inventive horror novel interwoven with Japanese mythology, two people living centuries apart discover a door between their worlds.
October, 2026: Lee Turner doesn’t remember how or why he killed his college roommate. The details are blurred and bloody. All he knows is he has to flee New York and go to the one place that might offer refuge—his father’s new home in Japan, a house hidden by sword ferns and wild ginger. But something is terribly wrong with the house: no animals will come near it, the bedroom window isn’t always a window, and a woman with a sword appears in the yard when night falls.
October, 1877: Sen is a young samurai in exile, hiding from the imperial soldiers in a house behind the sword ferns. A monster came home from war wearing her father’s face, but Sen would do anything to please him, even turn her sword on her own mother. She knows the soldiers will soon slaughter her whole family when she sees a terrible omen: a young foreign man who appears outside her window.
One of these people is a ghost, and one of these stories is a lie.
Something is hiding beneath the house of sword ferns, and Lee and Sen will soon wish they never unburied it.
This one came out this year, but i’m looking forward to acquiring a copy either physically or digitally.
Title: American Dirt
Author: Jeanine Cummins
Published: January 21, 2020
Genre: Historical Fiction, Thriller
Synopsis:
También de este lado hay sueños. On this side, too, there are dreams.
Lydia Quixano Pérez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable.
Even though she knows they’ll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. And then one day a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with a few books he would like to buy—two of them her favorites. Javier is erudite. He is charming. And, unbeknownst to Lydia, he is the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.
Forced to flee, Lydia and eight-year-old Luca soon find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence. Instantly transformed into migrants, Lydia and Luca ride la bestia—trains that make their way north toward the United States, which is the only place Javier’s reach doesn’t extend. As they join the countless people trying to reach el norte, Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to?
I remember hearing about this one a lot. It definitely sounds interesting but has been on my TBR for quite some time.
Title: The German Midwife
Author: Mandy Robotham
Published: December 14, 2018
Genre: Historical Fiction
Synopsis:
Germany, 1944.
A prisoner in the camps, Anke Hoff is doing what she can to keep her pregnant campmates and their newborns alive.
But when Anke’s work is noticed, she is chosen for a task more dangerous than she could ever have imagined. Eva Braun is pregnant with the Führer’s child, and Anke is assigned as her midwife.
Before long, Anke is faced with an impossible choice. Does she serve the Reich she loathes and keep the baby alive? Or does she sacrifice an innocent child for the good of a broken world?
An unforgettable tale of courage, betrayal and survival in the hardest of circumstances, perfect for readers of The Tattooist of Auschwitz and The Alice Network.
This book had been in my recommendations after all of the Historical Fiction novels I read several years ago. It also gained a lot of popularity.
Title: The English Patient
Author: Michael Ondaatje
Published: September 1, 1992 (originally),
December 22, 2010 (this edition)
Genre: Historical Fiction
Synopsis:
With ravishing beauty and unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje’s Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burned man who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal,and rescue illuminates this book like flashes of heat lightening.
I’d heard of this one through the movie that was made, which I haven’t watched yet either. At some point I will hopefully read this one.
Title: American Psycho
Author: Bret Easton Ellis
Published: March 6, 1991 (originally),
May 28, 2010 (this edition)
Genre: Fiction, Horror, Thriller
Synopsis:
Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.
I remember when the movie based on this book came out and while I haven’t watched it, I didn’t realize at the time it was based on a book. So hopefully this one too I’ll at somepoint read.
Thanks for reading!
Have you read any of these?
Did any of these make your list as well?
Leave a comment below and let me know!
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