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Darkness and Day

10 best books like Darkness and Day (Ivy Compton-Burnett): Two Serious Ladies, Sarah Churchill Duchess of Marlborough: The Queen's Favourite, A House-Boat on the Styx, Frederick the Great: King of Prussia, Jane Austen and Food, Old Herbaceous: A Novel of the Garden, The Orchard on Fire, In Youth Is Pleasure, The Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore Netherworld of Filmmaker Andy Milligan, Girl Gone Missing

Two Serious Ladies
AuthorJane Bowles
ISBN0720611792
Eccentric, adventurous Christina Goering Meets the anxious but equally enterprising Mrs. Copperfield at a party.

Two serious ladies who want to live outside of themselves, they go in search of salvation: Mrs. Copperfield visits Panama with her husband, where she finds solace among the...
Sarah Churchill Duchess of Marlborough: The Queen's Favourite
AuthorOphelia Field
ISBN0312314663
A brilliant new biographer presents an unforgettable portrait of Sarah Churchill, first Duchess of Marlborough (1660-1744), the glamorous and controversial founder of the Spencer-Churchill dynasty that produced both Winston Churchill and Lady Diana Spencer.

Tied to Queen Anne by an...
A House-Boat on the Styx
AuthorJohn Kendrick Bangs
The premise of the book is that everyone who's ever died (up to the time of its publication) has gone to Styx, the river that circles the underworld. The book begins with the ferryman Charon being startled & annoyed by the arrival of a houseboat on the Styx. At first afraid that the boat will put him out...
Frederick the Great: King of Prussia
AuthorDavid Fraser
ISBN0880642610
A spellbinding biography of Prussia's soldier-king who changed the face of Europe. Frederick II, King of Prussia, was a legendary ruler, artistic patron, man of letters, lawgiver, and commander -- in David Fraser's words, "one of the most extraordinary men ever to sit on a throne or command an army."...
Jane Austen and Food
AuthorMaggie Lane
ISBN1852851244
What was the significance of the pyramid of fruit which confronted Elizabeth Bennet at Pemberley? Or of the cold beef eaten by Willoughby on his journey of repentance to see Marianne? Why is it so appropriate that the scene of Emma's disgrace should be a picnic, and how do the different styles of housekeeping...
Old Herbaceous: A Novel of the Garden
AuthorReginald Arkell
ISBN0812967380
Back in print after fifty years

Old Herbaceous is a classic British novel of the garden, with a title character as outsized and unforgettable as P. G. Wodehouse’s immortal butler, Jeeves. Born at the dusk of the Victorian era, Bert Pinnegar, an awkward orphan child with one leg a tad longer...
The Orchard on Fire
AuthorShena Mackay
ISBN0749394064
When Percy and Betty Harlency abandon their seedy Streatham pub, for the Copper Kettle Tearoom in Kent, life for their daughter April changes dramatically. She is befriended by the wonderfully dangerous Ruby, whose red hair and brutal home life emphasise her love of fire, and by the immaculately dressed...
In Youth Is Pleasure
AuthorDenton Welch
ISBN1904634176
Against the backdrop of an English country hotel in a languid pre-war summer, Denton Welch's alter ego, Orvil Pym, examines his early life and formative experiences with a Proustian intensity. An adolescent voyeur, Orvil takes pleasure in the microscopic observation of his relatives and fellow...
The Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore Netherworld of Filmmaker Andy Milligan
AuthorJimmy McDonough
ISBN1556524951
I was at Skylight Books here in L.A. a few days ago, and I saw, taped to a shelf, a sign that recommended this book. You must know the kind of sign I mean: it was written by an employee. All indie bookstores nowadays seem to have these signs: "Miranda recommends Room!" (I look around. Without a name tag to identify...
Girl Gone Missing
AuthorJ.M. Gregson
Chepstow Castle, Gloucestershire.

A woman makes a gruesome discovery whilst out walking her dog.

The body of a teenage girl has been washed up on the banks of the River Wye, after weeks spent decomposing in the water.

But this is no suicide.

Bruising to the throat...
The Kaiser: War Lord Of The Second Reich
AuthorAlan Warwick Palmer
He was, in the minds of many, the man responsible for the catastrophe that engulfed Europe in 1914.

Kaiser Wilhelm II, the cold, brutal ruler who represented the pride and swagger of Imperial Germany, and must take the bulk of the responsibility for the First World War.

But who was the...
Lady In Waiting
AuthorRosemary Sutcliff
ISBN0340011661
Handsome and gifted, Walter Ralegh was a star even in a court of brilliant men ruled by one of the greatest monarchs of all time, Elizabeth I.

Ralegh held position and power, and was loved by the Queen, but his dream was to conquer new lands for Elizabeth, to find El Dorado.

Bess Throckmorton...
Inspector Proby's Christmas
AuthorJohn Gano
Snow is falling in Hampton and the city's inhabitants are busy with festive preparations when a young woman is savagely murdered in the city's picturesque cathedral.

Then another young woman is murdered…and another…

Inspector Proby is assigned to the case.

As a seasoned...
Still Holding
AuthorBruce Wagner
ISBN0743243382
Bruce Wagner has been hailed for his powerful prose, his Swiftian satire, and the scalpel-sharp wit that has, in each of his novels, dissected and sometimes disemboweled Hollywood excess.
In his most ambitious book to date, Still Holding, Wagner immerses readers in post-September 11 Hollywood,...
Shades of Death: A Mystery
AuthorAline Templeton
ISBN0312290241
Deep in a Derbyshire cave, the skeleton of an eleven-year-old girl has lain undisturbed for eighteen years. As DS Tom Ward, in charge of the investigation, uncovers the layers of deception that span all those years, he finds himself dangerously connected to unexpected and devastating developments....
Serious Pleasures: the Life of Stephen Tennant
AuthorPhilip Hoare
ISBN0140165320
Excellent biography of one of England's great eccentrics. I was torn between fascination (an interesting and colourful character) and irritation (a life lived in a totally self absorbed way; talent wasted)
Tennant was born at Wilsford Manor, his family home in Wiltshire and he died there in 1987...
Sarah Morris Remembers
AuthorD.E. Stevenson
ISBN0006124054
With the help of her old diaries, Sarah Morris recounts her life story. The daughter of an English vicar, she begins by telling of her happy childhood with her brothers and sister in their country village. As a teenager, Sarah's brother brings home a friend - Charles, a charming Austrian to whom she quickly...
Nineteen Weeks: America, Britain, and the Fateful Summer of 1940
AuthorNorman Moss
ISBN0618492208
Nineteen Weeks is Norman Moss's riveting account of FDR, Churchill, and the extraordinary decisions made in 1940 that set the stage for America's interventionist role in world affairs. The weeks between May and September 1940 saw Hitler's stunning conquest of France, Britain's desperate struggle...
They Rang Up the Police
AuthorJoanna Cannan
There’s a new detective on the scene…

When murder strikes in the quiet English countryside only Inspector Guy Northeast of Scotland Yard sees the vital clue.

When Delia Cathcart and Major Willoughby disappear from their quiet English village one Saturday morning in July 1937,...
Betty: The Story of Betty MacDonald, Author of The Egg and I
AuthorAnne Wellman
The very first biography of American writer Betty MacDonald. Well educated and raised as a lady, Betty in 1927 married a man she barely knew. The newlyweds immediately started a chicken ranch in the remote American Northwest. Here Betty had to contend with a difficult husband, loneliness, pregnancy,...
Narrow Rooms
AuthorJames Purdy
A powerful story of love turned round, of passion and fierce discovery, of lives illuminated by flickering violence.

As Purdy spins the story of the extraordinary symbiotic relationship between four boys in a remote West Virginia mountain town, led by the seemingly hypnotic power of the...
The Secret Generations
AuthorJohn Gardner
May, 1910

The world is on the eve of a war set to ruin the lives of a whole generation.

The Railton family are intimately involved in the world of espionage, which will become so crucial to the conflict’s outcome.

With the death of General Sir William Railton, the family patriarch...
Shannon's Way
AuthorA.J. Cronin
ISBN1568495471
Shannon's Way is the sequel to "The Green Years" and I think it is best reading them back to back, although you could easily read them as stand alones if you can only get a hold of one or the other.

So Shannon has finally got his medical licence with all the extras that are important to a man wishing...
A Murderous Affair
AuthorJonathan Digby
The year is 1588.

The Spanish Armada has recently been defeated, and Queen Elizabeth rides in triumph through a celebrating London

But even in peace, the city has a deadly underbelly.

When the body of a Portuguese nobleman turns up on the banks of the Thames with a seal around...
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