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- The Acrobat, by Edward J. Delaney. If Hollywood ever had royalty, Cary Grant was it. With good looks, charisma, talent, and sophistication in unparalleled combination, the actor, who began his career as a circus performer, remains one of the United States’ most indelible screen idols.
- The Christie Affair, by Nina de Gramont. Like many of the characters she invented, Dame Agatha Christie was once the center of her own unhappy domestic intrigue.
- Sister Mother Warrior, by Vanessa Riley. On the surface, a historical novel depicting the role of women in the Haitian revolution would seem to have little in common with Viola Davis’s blockbuster The Woman King.
- Winter Work, by Dan Fesperman. This masterful novel blends espionage, domestic drama, and murder. The fall of the Berlin Wall marked the final coda to the Cold War and ushered in massive geopolitical and social change.
Sep 12, 2021 · Here, we've gathered a few of our favorite fiction books, inspired by real-life events. Travel from Shakespearean England to 1960s California to modern day New York with the help of the...
- The Good People by Hannah Kent. True story: In mid–19th century Ireland a woman called Anne Roche was tried for the murder of Michael Leahy, a young boy.
- Empress Orchid by Anchee Min. True story: Empress Dowager Cixi was a concubine who rose to power during the late Qing dynasty and ruled China for 47 years.
- Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart. True story: Constance Kopp was one of the first women to become a deputy sheriff in the USA. After becoming the victim to a crime herself (nothing grim, I promise) Constance joined forces with her sisters to bring the perpetrator to justice, and ended up with a job on the New Jersey police force.
- Beautiful Exiles by Meg Waite Clayton. True story: Legendary war reporter Martha Gellhorn fell in love with Ernest Hemingway while she was covering the Spanish Civil War in Madrid.
- The People in the Trees // Hanya Yanagihara. When writing her 2013 debut novel—about a brilliant researcher who unravels the secret of a jungle-dwelling tribe that seemingly possesses the key to immortality—Hanya Yanagihara drew on the story of real-life scientist Daniel Carleton Gajdusek.
- Moby-Dick // Herman Melville. When Herman Melville was writing Moby-Dick—in which an obsessed captain hunts a white whale that ultimately sinks his ship—he drew on two real-life whale tales.
- Intimacies // Katie Kitamura. Katie Kitamura’s 2021 novel Intimacies, about a translator working the trial of a dictator at The Hague, was inspired by the real-life trial of Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia.
- Bel Canto // Ann Patchett. In December 1996 and into 1997, author Ann Patchett watched, rapt, as a crisis unfolded in Peru: Terrorists with the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement entered the home of the Japanese ambassador in Peru while a party was in progress and took hundreds of people hostage; eventually, they released all but 72 people and hunkered down for months.
- Punching The Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam
- The Summer of Bitter and Sweet by Jen Ferguson
- The Blood Years by Elana K. Arnold
- One Last Shot by Kip Wilson
- From Dust, A Flame by Rebecca Podos
- Rust in The Root by Justina Ireland
- As Long as The Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh
- All These Bodies by Kendare Blake
- Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
- Like A Love Story by Abdi Nazemian
The story that I thought was my life didn’t start on the day I was born Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, because of a biased system he’s seen as disruptive and unmotivated. Then, one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. “Boys just being boys” turns out...
Lou has enough confusion in front of her this summer. She’ll be working in her family’s ice-cream shack with her newly ex-boyfriend—whose kisses never made her feel desire, only discomfort—and her former best friend, King, who is back in their Canadian prairie town after disappearing three years ago without a word. But when she gets a letter from h...
Frederieke Teitler and her older sister, Astra, live in a house, in a city, in a world divided. Their father ran out on them when Rieke was only six, leaving their mother a wreck and their grandfather as their only stable family. He’s done his best to provide for them and shield them from antisemitism, but now, seven years later, being a Jew has be...
The daughter of Polish Jewish immigrants, Gerta Pohorylle doesn’t quite fit in with her German classmates. While she’s away at boarding school, however, she becomes a master at reinventing herself as a vibrant, confident young woman. When she returns from school, she joins a group of young activists and is arrested for distributing anti-Nazi propag...
Hannah’s whole life has been spent in motion. Her mother has kept her and her brother, Gabe, on the road for as long as she can remember, leaving a trail of rental homes and faded relationships behind them. No roots, no family but one another, and no explanations. All that changes on Hannah’s seventeenth birthday when she wakes up transformed, a pa...
It is 1937, and Laura Ann Langston lives in an America divided—between those who work the mystical arts and those who do not. Ever since the Great Rust, a catastrophic event that blighted the arcane force called the Dynamism and threw America into disarray, the country has been rebuilding for a better future. And everyone knows the future is indust...
Salama Kassab was a pharmacy student when the cries for freedom broke out in Syria. She still had her parents and her big brother; she still had her home. She had a normal teenager’s life. Now Salama volunteers at a hospital in Homs, helping the wounded who flood through the doors daily. Secretly, though, she is desperate to find a way out of her b...
Summer 1958. A gruesome killer plagues the Midwest, leaving behind a trail of bodies completely drained of blood. Michael Jensen, an aspiring journalist whose father happens to be the town sheriff, never imagined that the Bloodless Murders would come to his backyard. Not until the night the Carlson family was found murdered in their home. Marie Cat...
Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people… In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal’s office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has...
It’s 1989 in New York City, and for three teens, the world is changing. Reza is an Iranian boy who has just moved to the city with his mother to live with his stepfather and stepbrother. He’s terrified that someone will guess the truth he can barely acknowledge about himself. Reza knows he’s gay, but all he knows of gay life are the media’s images ...
Sep 27, 2022 · Whether you're looking for a biopic, a serial killer mystery, a feel good tale of finding oneself, or a classic underdog story, these films take all of the facts and spin them into a drama that...
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We've rounded up 65 of the best movies based on true stories and real-life events. This list of true-story movies includes Oscar-winning films and actors. Crime dramas to lighthearted...
