Ok dopers, I am currently in a book drought. I’m all caught up on new stuff by my “regular” authors. I’ve been enjoying some historical fiction lately and would love to hear some suggestions for something in that genre. I’ve been reading C.S. Harris (Sebastian St. Cyr books) and Abir Mukherjee most recently. But I’ve also enjoyed the Pillars of the Earth books and The Alienest, etc. So the historical period can be about anything. Thanks!
Have you read Bernard Cornwell? One of my favorite authors. I recently re-read his book Stonehenge, which imagines the circumstances under which the titular monument was built, thousands of years ago.
Quite some time ago, I read Barabbas by Pär Lagerkvist. It’s a fictional story of the life of the man released instead of Jesus. Another one I found quite interesting, but sadly cannot find any more information on it is titled Deseret. It’s about the settling of Utah and of course conflicts with polygamists and those against them.
I’m currently re-reading The Virginians by William Makepeace Thackeray. It’s about a set of twin brothers born in pre-revolution Virginia who grow up, meeting lots of famous 18th-century people (George Washington, James Wolfe, Samuel Johnson, etc.), and they end up fighting on opposite sides of the Revolutionary War. I like it, but the treatment of Black people is pretty cringe-worthy (perhaps not surprising for a book written in 1859).
Technically it’s a sequel to the book Henry Esmond which is a similar “young man meets famous people” book set in the early 1700s.
Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks, a novel about the life of John Brown. Enormously long, but one of the great novels of the second half of the 20th century, squeaking in at 1998.
I’ve been rereading Hammond Innes “adventure novels”. The history is fascinating, especially where it’s changed since the books were written.
About to finish “The Doomed Oasis” (well, I read the book decades ago, but I’m finishing a BBC Radio full-cast production of it). Written in 1960, the politics are so dated: the British trying to hang onto bits of their empire, even in the middle of the desert that has been home to the bedouins for ages.
Anyhow, Innes is great at taking an innocent protagonist and dropping them into a situation where politics and Nature are way too much for them.
The Strode Venturer is my favorite book of his so far, and the setting is also remote (an undiscovered atoll south of the Maldives, being hidden from the British until the locals can claim its riches). And Nature-With-A-Capital-N is an atogonist as well.
Have you read James Michener’s historical fiction works? Poland, Centennial, Hawaii, Chesapeake and others all fascinated me.
If you liked Stonehenge, you may also like Sarum, by Edward Rutherferd, which takes a long (Michener-style) look at the area around the monument over history.
A book I recently enjoyed was “The Relic Master” by Christopher Buckley, who took some time off from skewering US politics with a tale about how the Reformation affects the market for religious artifacts. Typically comic, with some interesting history and politics woven in.
It’s been decades since I read any Michener, but I remember loving his books and powering through maybe a dozen of them at one point. He had a real talent for weaving fiction and history together.
Yes. I am currently reading his Iberia, which is more of a memoir but still fascinating. I have been to Spain three times so I can relate to much of it. I read part of Alaska, and loved it until it got into recent history (1700s). He’s very good but I am looking for more of a plot-driven book.
If you haven’t read George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman series, now is the time to start.
Absolutely. These books are a glorious mixture of adventure and humour, with a likeable anti-hero - all backed up by solid historical research.
I also confidently recommend C.S. Forester’s Hornblower series about the career of an English sailor in Napoleonic times. One reviewer wrote “You can almost feel the spray of seawater over the bows of the ships.”