The Great Fire

The Great Fire is the winner of the 2003 National Book Award for Fiction. A great writer's sweeping story of men and women struggling to reclaim their lives in the aftermath of world conflict The Great Fire is Shirley Hazzard's first novel since The Transit of Venus, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1981. The conflagration of her title is the Second World War. In war-torn Asia and stricken Europe, men and women, still young but veterans of harsh experience, must reinvent their lives and expectations, and learn, from their past, to dream again. Some will fulfill their destinies, others will falter. At the center of the story, Aldred Leith, a brave and brilliant soldier, finds that survival and worldly achievement are not enough. Helen Driscoll, a young girl living in occupied Japan and tending her dying brother, falls in love, and in the process discovers herself. In the looming shadow of world enmities resumed, and of Asia's coming centrality in world affairs, a man and a woman seek to recover self-reliance, balance, and tenderness, struggling to reclaim their humanity.

The Great Fire of 1871 was one of most colossal disasters in American history. Overnight, the flourshing city of Chicago was transformed into a smoldering wasteland. The damage was so profound that few people believed the city could ever rise again.By weaving personal accounts of actual survivors together with the carefully researched history of Chicago and the disaster, Jim Murphy constructs a riveting narrative that recreates the event with drama and immediacy. And finally, he reveals how, even in a time of deepest dispair, the human spirit triumphed, as the people of Chicago found the courage and strength to build their city once again.

The Great Fire of London was the greatest catastrophe of its kind in Western Europe. Although detailed fire precautions and fire-fighting arrangements were in place, the fire raged for four days and destroyed 13,200 houses, 87 churches and 44 of the City of London's great livery halls. The 'great fire' of 1666 closely followed by the 'great plague' of 1665; as the antiquary Anthony Wood wrote left London 'much impoverished, discontented, afflicted, cast downe'. In this comprehensive account, Stephen Porter examines the background to 1666, events leading up to and during the fire, the proposals to rebuild the city and the progress of the five-year programme which followed. He places the fire firmly in context, revealing not only its destructive impact on London but also its implications for town planning, building styles and fire precautions both in the capital and provincial towns.

A National Book Award Finalist, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum's enchanting and inventive first novel is a groundbreaking, contemporary classic When a girl falls into a mysterious, impenetrable sleep, the borders between her provincial French village and the peculiar, beguiling realm of her dreams begin to disappear: A fat woman sprouts delicate wings and takes flight; a failed photographer stumbles into the role of pornographer; a beautiful young wife grows to resemble her husband's viol. Madeleine, the dreamer, travels in their midst, trying to make sense of her own metamorphosis. She leaves home, joins a gypsy circus, and falls into an unexpected triangle of desire and love. Embracing the earthy and the ethereal, the comical and the poignant, Madeleine Is Sleeping is part fairy tale, part coming-of-age story, and above all, an adventure in the discovery of art, sexuality, community, and the self.

A touching "riches to rags" story set during the second-worst disaster in the history of Atlantic Canada. Eleven-year-old Triffie is the middle daughter of a well-to-do merchant. Triffie knows nothing about what it means to be poor — until the disastrous fire of 1892 burns down most of St. John's, Newfoundland, leaving Triffie's family and 15,000 others homeless. The fire claimed everything but their underwear, Mother's best china . . . and Triffie's journal. With no other options, Triffie's family moves into a filthy warehouse while they attempt to rebuild their lives from the ground up. The aftermath of the fire teaches Triffie a lot about what it means to survive. More importantly, she comes face to face with her own prejudices, and begins to develop a much greater appreciation for how the less fortunate live.

The Great Fire of 1666 was one of the greatest catastrophes to befall London in its long history. While its impact on London and its built environment has been studied and documented, its impact on Londoners has been overlooked. This book makes full and systematic use of the wealth of manuscript sources that illustrate social, economic and cultural change in seventeenth-century London to examine the impact of the Fire in terms of how individuals and communities reacted and responded to it, and to put the response to the Fire in the context of existing trends in early modern England. The book also explores the broader effects of the Fire in the rest of the country, as well as how the Great Fire continued to be an important polemical tool into the eighteenth century.

"Part novel and part autobiography, The Great Fire of London originates in the author's determination to come to terms with the sudden death of his young wife Alix, whose absence haunts every page. Paralyzed by grief, and having failed to complete the novel he had wanted to write, Jacques Roubaud begins a book about that very failure. He submerges his love and his sorrow in meditations that range from despair to playfulness, taking slow and painful steps toward surviving his great loss."--BOOK JACKET.

This book explores the history of one of Florida's oldest, largest, and most famous families.