What are some really good historicals you’ve read? Alltime favorites and new ones alike.
The historical book discussion is doing so well…recommend your favorites…
by CJ | Aug 16, 2010 | Journal | 123 comments
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As mentioned by many others, Cadfael and the Benjamin January books. I don’t know why I was so shocked to realize that the children of parents who had been born slaves would actually own slaves themselves, and not think anything of it.
On the YA side: Scott O’Dell. Who can forget Island of the Blue Dolphin? Of course, I do not know how historically accurate those books were.
I also read many many stories about children (surprisingly, almost always girls) who had been kidnapped and raised by Native Americans. There was one really sad one about Cynthia Parker where the girl (now woman) is finally “rescued” by people who expect her to be grateful when hearing about the death of her husband, and never really gets over being “rescued”.
And some which I like, but don’t know exactly how to classify: The People books by Kathleen O’Neal Gear and Michael Gear. These are books about the Native Americans at various times in history. Both Gears are archeologists, he’s an anthropologist as well, they raise bison, and write very good books. The main issue that some people have with them is that the spirit world is a very real force in the books, and some people say that that automatically makes the books un-realistic and fantastical. I’m not sure… the spirits do not tend to do much direct intervention, generally just prophesize, so you can just as easily assume that the character thinks it’s spirits but it’s just drugs or psychosis.
I do like this quote from their website: “After hearing about Fremont pithouses, gaming balls, pinion caches, and archaic housepits, he [Tor editor Michael Seidman] asked what it would take for Michael and Kathleen to collaborate on a novel that chronicled the migration of humans into North America, followed different characters across time, incorporated the origins of different Native language groups, and ended with the arrival of the Europeans in the Fifteenth Century.
Could the Gears do that in say, six hundred and fifty pages?
Sure. It breaks down to over two hundred years per page, includes the origins of hundreds of languages, and incredible climatic and environmental change; but – the Gear’s maintained – as long as Tor didn’t mind if the novel read like the phone book, no problem.”
I am reading Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey series for the first right now. I started off with Gaudy Night since it came recommended to me and the bookstore had it (not on Kindle…grrr). Loving it so far. I’m really enjoying the look at academics of the time and it doesn’t hurt that Harriet is easy to relate to if you are over educated and single. A little bit of book therapy I think. 🙂 I wanted to go back to start with the first book Harriet Vane shows up in but of course the bookstore doesn’t have it and none of them are on Kindle. They did have the book that comes after Gaudy Night so I bought that…and the title was a big, freak’n relationship spoiler. *sigh* I guess 80 year old information is too much to expect to remain unspoiled for, but it was right in the title and I had been doing so well until then making my sister look into book info on wiki so I wouldn’t have to even read the synopsis. The more I like something the more I resist spoilers usually.
I’m currently reading “Presumption of Death” published after Dorothy Sayers’ death and set during WWII in the countryside. It is mostly Harriet because Peter is overseas on Government business.
I should have said, it is not by Sayers herself, but is from her notes.
I’ll probably get around to reading all of them, even the ones Harriet isn’t in. I tend to do that when I latch on to a particular author.
Michael Wood! not fiction, but I would watch ANYTHING he did! LOL! most recent documentaries – one on Beowulf, and “Christina, the life of a medieval woman” absolutely riveting.
not mentioned here – but what do you all think of Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M Auel et al – of course, these are not and could not be (pre?)historically accurate, and much of their thinking is out dated, but they make a great read.
and Dorothy Sayers – fascinating character – worth reading her biography http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dorothy-L-Sayers-Careless-Rage-Life/dp/0745922414/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282025985&sr=1-1 really rather more interesting than Harriet in fact …
PS maybe it’s this biography I read – http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dorothy-L-Sayers-Life-Soul/dp/0312097875/ref=pd_cp_b_3
and you should just read all her books from the beginning, and you will get a wonderful opening up of the two characters …. very cheaply available as second hand paperbacks here, don’t know about the states …
Reading them in order would probably have been the best move, but the person who recommended them to me picked Gaudy Night because she knew I’d fall for that one and stores typically carry it. I am not sure if I would have latched on to the earlier stories without Harriet. I’m predictable. 🙂 I have allergies so I try to avoid used books unless they are out of print. Looks like I’ll have to buy the paper kind over on Amazon or something. If they were on Kindle I would have impulse purchased the lot by now.
@Sweetbo: Look at Mobileread.com for odds and ends of Sayers. I’m not sure of the copyright issues, however.
Someone over there is offering Sayers ebooks, but I think they are Canadian. Here in the States there is still a copyright over her books. I have a hair trigger when it comes to guilt so I think I’ll just have to stick with searching for printed copies. Even though it is outrageous there are no legal ebooks here. 🙁 Like I said, if I could get it on my Kindle I would have bought the whole lot all at once.
A book I would never have read without the PBS (probably Masterpiece Theater) version is To Serve Them All My Days, by Delderfield. I had assumed it was written around 1950 (takes place 1919-1939) but actually it was published in ’72 so I guess it’s “historical.” I’m glad I saw the TV version, but I prefer the book.
Another window into the recent past (England between the World Wars) is the absolutely wonderful set of children’s books by Arthur Ransome, the Swallows and Amazons books. I would recommend them to everyone!
Oh, historical fiction?
I will always love The Persian Boy by Mary Renault. Some of her other work is very good, too — The Last of the Wine? — but The Persian Boy remains with me.
I read more nonfiction history than fiction, though. I, too, have a fondness for Michael Wood just because he makes everything so fun to read and can start me looking deeper into material. I read a lot of Michael Grant (the historian) for Ancient History, and Francis and Joseph Gies for Middle Ages. Oh, and single books that are a joy to read in history: The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia, for those who don’t recognize the name!), and Disraeli, a Picture of the Victorian Age by Andre Maurois (translated by Hamis Miles). The last is the kind of biography that reads like fiction. Gorgeous work.
Right now I’m reading Euripides. Actually, I’m slowing working through the Britannica Great Books series, so I’m reading a lot of things.
There are too many, really, to name. And not many in actual fiction, so I’ll stop here!
Harold Lamb, some fictional set in exotic places, some popularizations of historical
figures, most of them connected to a part of the world that was as strange as the
back side of the moon to most of his readers. Alexandros of Macedon, Tamerlane, Babur
the Tiger, the hashishin, Temujin, Peter the Great, Iron Men and Saints, The Flame of
Islam cover the Crusades.
Jose Rizal, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. The author was executed for his
expose of the Spanish government.
The Thousand Hour Day covers the fall of Poland in 1939.
Once an Eagle follows an american army officer and his career through about 40 years
of excitements.
Thomas Carlyle is worth reading. Likewise Gibbon.
The Heike Story which covers the Hei-Gen wars in Japan was a great read. Somebody
made off with my copy though.
While not exactly classed as fiction, Herodotus, Suetonius, Thucydides, Procopius,
and Sagas like the Burnt Njal are worth a look.
Thomas Wolfe Electric Kool Aid Acid test and the Right Stuff…GRIN These are
supposed to be history, but are about as totally accurate as Hunter Thompson
on the Angels.
I liked Mika Waltari, the Egyptian and the Etruscan when I was a teen.
I went to school with the MacGregors, the MacArthurs, the Stewarts and we even
had a Wallace. Stevenson, Kipling, Scott and Baroness Orcszy.
I think Dumas is probably one of the best, too bad the French couldn’t find
a black man to play him in their new movie about him…GRIN
Oh, I have to put in a word for Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series, beginning with “Master and Commander”. Well researched and wonderful use of language, the characters are superbly drawn.
Also Colleen McCullough’s “Masters of Rome” series, beginning with “The First Man in Rome”. Taken together they tell the story of the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of Empire. Brilliant storytelling. I’d love to hear CJ’s opinion of her history, but it certainly feels right.
Oh, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom! I should re-read that one. I remember Lawrence taking part in the story-telling after a feast, and building the suspense, and building… building…building… and then having some perfectly banal ordinary thing happening. The sheiks, after a long pause, pretty much rolled on the floor laughing at the way he had caught them.
For an interesting perspective on Afghanistan read Caravans by James Michener. It’s not one of his huge, time span novels like Hawaii, but gives a human face to the country.
I loved Mary Stewart’s King Arthur books. The characters feel like real people who gave rise to myth.
Mary Renault’s books convinced me that I would never have wanted to be a woman in ancient Greece.
That should be…..I would never have wanted to have been a woman in ancient Greece.
Being a woman in Sparta was pretty good. They held all property, ran the households—husbands could not live at home until after age 30, and mostly ate and socialized with their unit, rarely at home. They had to send their male children away after age 10, but they came back for visits after they were through training. The women also had their own military and physical training, for home defense (which they never needed, in all the history of the state) and they pretty much did as they pleased, running the houses, the farms (as supervisors, not as farmers). Divorce and adultery were not allowed: the men’s clubs enforced good behavior. And the only thieves about were the 10 year old male children who were on their own to survive by stealth for a few years: one imagines fond mothers set out suppers that were easy to steal for the youngest boys.
Nobody has yet mentioned “The Trilogy” by Henryk Sienkiewicz. Start with With Fire and Sword. This is high adventure and military conflict in 17th Century Poland. If you like this there are several more in the same vein. Quo Vadis, set in Roman times, is a good read, too.
So many excellent suggestions! I remember loving Mary Renault’s work, but I haven’t read it in quite a while. And clearly, I have much more to catch up on!
Recently I’ve been impressed with the work of Jo Graham, who writes historical fantasy (historical with a touch of magic: maybe the gods *are* listening!). She started with “Black Ships”, set in ancient (really ancient) Greece; “Hand of Isis” (Cleopatra in Ptolemaic Egypt,told by a handmaid of Cleopatra); and “Stealing Fire” the story of Alexandrian soldier Lydias of Miletus.
Philosopher77 said: [quote]I also read many many stories about children (surprisingly, almost always girls) who had been kidnapped and raised by Native Americans. There was one really sad one about Cynthia Parker where the girl (now woman) is finally “rescued” by people who expect her to be grateful when hearing about the death of her husband, and never really gets over being “rescued”. [/quote]
That makes me want to find a book or two about Cynthia Parker and Quanah Parker. I’ve heard bits of the story over the years, but not the whole of it. — She and Quanah and relatives were very real people from Texas history, and a sad comment on how little whites and Indians understood each other’s different, varied cultures, beliefs, folkways.
I don’t know if there’s any particular reason why it was typically girls taken, rather than boys, though I believe boys might also be taken and adopted or made to work, depending on the mood of the raider.
This also reminds me to read a biography of Sam Houston, which (the book) I believe was called “The Raven,” after the name he was given while living among the Cherokee.
Both my mother and father loved history. I was also lucky to have a really neat 7th grade history teacher, who had just moved here and was a fairly new teacher. She loved teaching our Texas History course, and the textbook was good. Whoever wrote that textbook, by the way, liked languages, because they had phonetics for pronouncing the Spanish names properly. This coincided with my very first language class. — I’d never considered that the two might’ve been related, but looking back, I think it was synergy / serendipity at work. — My jr. high foreign language teacher was Miss McAdams; I can’t recall my 7th grade Texas history teacher’s name. Both were great teachers, and Miss McAdams plus my high school language teacher, Miss Seegar, deserve a huge amount of credit for firing the imagination of a kid with language talent. — No idea where they are now.
Hmm, going to see if a couple of those books are available, used or ebook. (I have the Sam Houston bio, just have to locate the box, but I’ll look for it as an ebook, for convenience.)
It might not actually be that there were more girls captured, but just that I, as a girl, preferred those books over ones with the boys. I do remember that the book I read didn’t sugar-coat the history. Cynthia was around 9 when she was captured, and had an advantageous name (Cynthia apparently sounds close to the Cherokee for “Little Stay Awhile”), but she was captured with her older female cousin, while at the cousin’s wedding. The cousin was considered too old to be adopted, and got to live the life of a war captive (i.e., sex slave and general drudge). The difference in the two girls’ lives was interesting to read about, although they did mention that some of what happened to the cousin wasn’t actually acceptable under Cherokee social norms, and that if she had appealed to an older woman (I’m thinking either the guy’s wife or mother, but it’s been a while), they would have stopped some of it. Especially the bit about the baby… the cousin had, not surprisingly, gotten pregnant with her owner’s kid, and he took the baby and tied a rope to it and threw it into a cactus patch and pulled it out until it was dead. That was apparently really not acceptable behavior.
The cousin had the difficulty of finally being ransomed by her husband, only to find out that he’d gotten remarried while she was in captivity. We never hear about how she did back in white society, but I have to think that there wouldn’t be a whole lot of social acceptance for a white woman who had been (in the view of society at that time, not my opinion) an Indian’s whore.
You won’t find too many books about Cynthia and Quanah together, since she was rescued while he was still relatively young, and never saw him after that.
Aha, that book is:
# Author: Marquis James
# Title: The Raven: A Biography of Sam Houston.
# Publisher: University of Texas Press (1988)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0292770405
# ISBN-13: 978-0292770409
There is a 2003 edition by another publisher, but it is out of stock, three times the cost, and has an uninspired cover.
I found no ebook edition, so the paperback it is.
Re the Sam Houston book — it is just possible these folks http://www.shsu.edu/~smm_www/ might have it in their gift shop.
Have you ever driven north from Houston on I-45 at night and seen the monumental statue of Mr. Sam looming, all white-lit, taller than the pine trees at the side af the road?
At the beginning of the 20th Century, when people finally realized that we had about made the bison extinct, President Teddy Roosevelt and some conservationist contributers arranged to set up a protected herd at the Wichita Mountains National Forest, which later became the first National Wildlife Refuge. 15 of the best of the buffalo at the Bronx Zoo (!!?!) traveled by train to Oklahoma and were released there, where they have thrived. Chief Quanah Parker was among those gathered at the station to see the return of the buffalo to the plains. http : / / w ww.fws.gov/southwest/refuges/oklahoma/Wichitamountains/bisonhist.html (take out the 5 extra spaces.)
Well, all my favorites have been mentioned, usually several times, so I’ll name a few of the more obscure books. First, there is the Viking saga “The Long Ships” by Frans G. Bengtsson. While not terribly good history, it is good entertainment and does give a glimpse into life as it was in Scandinavia around 1000 A.D.; and it gives you a good notion of what constituted good, clean fun to your abverage Viking.
Second, I’d like to mention Francis van Wyck Mason, who wrote a number of historical novels. I’ve read only two of them, one a War of Independence tale, and the other which I still own, called “Our valiant Few”. It’s set in Charleston, S.C., in 1862/63, and revolves around the efforts of an intrepid journalist to uncover corruption, profiteering, and intrigues surrounding the blockade runner community, before the background of the naval actions around Charleston, including the operational history of the Hunley submarine which culminated in the sinking of USS Housatonic. The naval action, at least, seems well researched.
The Boston Globe just ran a (very positive) review of a new translation of The Long Ships. I have an old translation my dad gave me.
Oh, that reminds me of some more of my favorites, which my library has unfortunately gotten rid of (too few circulations). Elswyth Thane’s “Wiliamsburg” series, following several families from 1770 through 1945.
* Dawn’s Early Light
* Yankee Stranger
* Ever After
* The Light Heart
* Kissing Kin
* This Was Tomorrow
* Homing
Sigrid Undsett is pretty much forgotten today but she won the Nobel Prize for Literature in the mid 1920′. She was Norwegan and is best known for her novels set in 13th-14th century Norway. As I recall, they are not easy reading but give an almost haunting view of medieval Norwegian life. Kristen Lavransdatter is a trilogy and The Master of Hestviken is a tetralogy. I don’t think they are currently in print but seem to be available on Amazon
One more that I recommend every time a teen boy comes in complaining that there isn’t anything he wants to read: The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara. It’s a Pulitzer prizewinner about the 4 days of the Battle of Gettysburg (the epic movie Gettysburg was made from it) and it shows both sides sympathetically. You really feel sorry for Longstreet, who was trying to carry out some untenable orders effectively, and knew it.
I read the first Francis Crawford of Lymond (Dorothy Dunnet) while living in Edinburgh at the edge of the old town (I was attending the University), so I could actually walk many of the places she wrote about. Wow, that was something! Utter connection with history.
Katherine by Anya Seton (John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster by his first wife and Katherine Swynford). Absolute bestest historical novel I’ve ever read, and I’ve read some. After that, all Cecelia Holland’s historicals. Also, one by Anne Rice: Cry to Heaven showed up as I was researching castrati for a novel I’m still nomming on (long gestation period). I’ll have to peruse these comments later for more suggestions. 🙂