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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The Blue Max and The Blood Order, pretty good books about the adventures
of Bruno Stachel. The Movie version was pretty lame because they changed
the ending to tidy things up.
History for some reason lacks the tidy neat packagings everyone seems to
like in story versions.
Consider Socrates accused of corrupting Alcibiades. An examination of Al
would lead a rational person to conclude it wasn’t possible to make him
any worse than he was naturally. It makes a great story though.
A LITTLE OFF SUBJECT: Since we are discussing history, Google ‘Ship found under Ground Zero’. Many articles and some pretty good pics. Probably sunk when a landfill project was going on in Manhattan. Fascinating!
Thank you for reminding me about the Poldark series!
I fondly remember The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope (available from Project Gutenberg). And, though not strictly a “historical,” (it’s a time-travel story) Connie Willis’ To Say Nothing of the Dog seems to do a good job of capturing the feel of various time periods along with being very funny indeed.
sweetbo, I envy you reading the Peter Wimsey stories for the first time; they are all very, very good, with or without Harriet. Peter and Harriet were pretty obviously going to be an item…it’s how they get there that’s the fun part, and Busman’s Honeymoon is quite possibly my favorite.
Also very good are Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion stories.
Mitha, of course Connie Willis! And when I commented yesterday I hadn’t thought of Jessica Amanda Salmonson’s “Tomoe Gozen” series [out of print], for some non-western historical fantasy (I also note she’s done a couple of “spooky history of the Northwest” books, which I may dig up now that I’ve been there).
Mary Gentle’s “Secret Histories” of Ash also seem to have some excellent scholarship and “you are here” day to day aspects of Burgundian conflict among others(along with the requisite touches of magic – yes, you see a pattern here).
Robert Silverberg’s Gilgamesh the King is a favorite of mine. Not exactly historical, but brilliant. I certainly agree with the Brother Cadfael books, and Connie Willis, To Say Nothing of The Dog. Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle books are among the best books I have ever read.
I read “Wolf Hall” by Hilary Mantel this year and found it unputdownable! It won the Booker Prize here in the UK and no wonder; it is superb. It’s about Thomas Cromwell, his relationship with and work for Henry VIII when he wanted to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn, and I understand is the first of a two-part series. It had the wonderful effect, all too rare in a lot of novels, of taking me away from real life and into another world. Although the setting is 16th century England, it is written as if it is a modern political story and I think that is what made it so special. HIGHLY recommended!
I’d be surprised if mantel writes a sequel, although the book ends somewhat arbitrarily. she doesn’t usually write historical novels. very very interesting book, from Cromwell’s point of view, and making him sympathetic in spite of himself. agreed, should be in this list & I can’t think why I didn’t mention it!
I don’t think anyone has mentioned Talbot Mundy’s Tros of Samothrace saga. Much of Mundy’s work is borderline (and not-so-borderline) fantasy set in the (then) current world. The Tros saga is straight adventurer set in the time of Julius Caesar, who appears repeatedly as the hero’s’ antagonist.
Mundy is always a good read and seems to have been striving for historical accuracy. He supposedly withdrew the second book, Queen Cleopatra because he came to believe he had misrepresented the character of Cleopatra.
ooops surprise surprise – apologies due – “an Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel says she is working on a sequel to the critically acclaimed Wolf Hall.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Oxford Times, ahead of her appearance at the upcoming Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival, the author said her aim is to get people to change the way they think about Thomas Cromwell.
‘I am working on a sequel, in which I hope to look at some of his projects of social and economic reform, which were never put into practice,’ she explained.
‘He had some interesting ideas that dealt with things like employment, that would have changed England. Some of this will come as a bit of a surprise to people,’ Mantel added.”
should be good!
No apology necessary! Hope the sequel is as good as Wolf Hall and I’m looking forward to reading it even more now that I’ve seen from your post what she intends for it.
I first read the Hornblower series while stationed on my second ship. I thought they were the be-all and end-all in naval historical fiction. Then I picked up Alexander Kent’s “Bolitho” series, and I found him to be a much more believable officer. I’m sure that Forester didn’t mean to make Hornblower such a cold, insecure person, who would deny his own feelings to keep from appearing weak before his men. Bolitho has no such pretensions and shows his humanity throughout the series.
I read maybe 7 or 8 books of Patrick O’Brien’s “Jack Aubrey” series, and then it started to go stale on me. So, I’ve never finished it.
Did I miss anyone raving about Guy Gavriel Kays’ Sarantine Mosaic books – Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors? I went on a binge of reading about the Byzantine Empire on which these were based…. Shiny!
I thought of a couple more. Lydia Bailey and Oliver Wiswell, both my Kenneth Roberts.
If you like novels about the great age of sail, you will probably like the books by Frederick Marryat.
He was a British navy captain who saw almost continuous action at sea from 1806 to 1830, serving in the Napoleonic wars, the War of 1812, and a colonial expedition to Burma amongst others.
He later became a very successful author, and a personal friend of Charles Dickens.
He was was an enlightened and liberal-minded officer, and distinguished for bravery on several occasions, including single-handedly saving his ship as a young midshipman by going aloft in a hurricane to cut away the mainyard. He was refused a knighthood by King William IV because he had written a pamphlet strongly opposing the use of press gangs. But the French awarded him the Legion of Honour.
He wrote about 30 books. Some of his best are:
Frank Mildmay, or The Naval Officer (semi-autobiographical)
Mr. Midshipman Easy (notable for one of the major characters being a black ex-slave, who is depicted as being very capable, intelligent, resourceful, brave, and loyal)
Peter Simple
The King’s Own
Masterman Ready
The Children of the New Forest (historical novel set in the English Civil War)
For anyone interested in novels containing authentic, detailed eyewitness accounts of navy battles and shipboard life in the age of sail, by someone who actually lived through everything he wrote about, his novels are highly recommended. They are, of course, long out of copyright.
See
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/m#a627
They may start off a bit slowly for the modern reader, but you quickly get into them.
His account (in his book Peter Simple) of the process of ‘club-hauling’ a ship in a storm off a lee shore was made required reading in the British navy for the examination for lieutenant.
And Hanneke should note—one version of Frank Mildmay is in Dutch!
I’ve read all of those, yes 🙂 Most excellent! You can find them in a few other ebook formats as well at the Mobileread Forums.
Another true book about life on one of the last commercially-hauling big sailing ships is The last grain race by Eric Newby: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Grain_Race
The author is a newby sailor on a four-masted metal-hulled barque, sailing round-trip from England to Australia and back in 1938. No fictional great adventures but a look at the real hard life of a sailor on a tall ship.
@Wayspooled: do you happen to read Dutch? If so I can send you my Bjorndal paperbacks, as I just bought myself a secondhand hardcover last year.
To my sorrow, I do not. Thanks very much for offering though.
and I just ordered The Last Grain Race, thank you 🙂 Sounds great!
The Deceivers by Masters.
I found the concept of social control using religion to be
particularly bizarre. By the selective pruning of those who
travelled the ultimate effect would have minimized moving
about by the populace. You’d achieve not just a stratified
society fixed in caste but also fixed in place.
This is also something that had to have been long term planning
in infancy but I doubt anyone would come right out and present
it as a great idea they just had.
The King in Yellow by Chambers also has a variety of historical
elements mixed in with the bizarre.
Leon Uris is another writer worth reading, he tends to be partisan
but the things he writes encourage divisive attitudes. Exodus
(founding the new Israel), Trinity (Ireland multigenerational).
The historical Illuminatus trilogy by R A Wilson is also a good
set of books.
Thanks for the Marryat link, I just downloaded Mr.Midshipman Easy and Masterman Ready. Dad’s mentioned them a few times, but his boy’s books were lost so I’ve not read them yet, and it’s been ages since I read Children of the New Forest.
Another favorite, of a very different flavour, time and setting: the Laura Ingalls Wilder ‘Little House’ books: now I’ve thought of them I’m surprised no-one has mentioned those yet. And set in the same period and place, but more of a sad and exiting adventure (though based on a true incident) An Rutgers van der Loeff: Children on the Oregon trail.
She’s a Dutch YA writer who has written books set in several different countries and times, of which a few have been translated into English. http://www.amazon.com/Children-Oregon-Trail-Puffin-Books/dp/0140301720
There is a lot of historical fiction out there, some good some not. All of James Mitchner’s writing is based on history while the stories are all fiction, mostly good. A great story, James Clavel’s “Shogun”, is entirely based on the founding of the Tokagowa Shogunate. Leon Uris “Trinity”. The complete works of Dumas. In the novelized “True story” department I would recommend “The Man Who Never Was” and “The Eddie Chapman Story (AKA Triplecross)true WWII spy stories. And Frederick Forsyth’s “Day of The Jackal”. Pure thriller based on a actual assination attempt on Charles DeGualle. The movie versions of these are only soso and the remake of “Day of the Jackal” with Bruce Willis bears no resemblance to the original story.
Speaking of feudal Japan, Eiji Yoshikawa’s Miyamoto Musashi covers the same period as Shogun from a very different perspective. Unlike Clavel, Yoshikawa was writing from a Japanese audience, but the English translation is good enough not to interfere with enjoyment of the book.
Not an historical per se, but Adam Zamoyski’s account of Napoleon’s 1812 campaign is a very agreeable read.
I have it, but have not read it yet. (If I ever get caught up with my back load of books to read it will be a major miracle.) Another good read on the subject is straight history, Steven Trubell’s “Samurai, A military History”. It was out of print for a long time, but a revised edition came out a few years ago. I think it is still available.
Tyr, I believe I have borrowed a copy of that book a few times from the library. The library is my friend, has always been my friend since I was 4 or 5, and was fascinated by the books along the shelves. I still am!
I’m less than thrilled by the library system here (Calfornia).
I loved the Carnegie Grant library when I was a kid, fortunately
I never had enough money to buy more than a ton of books.
Gutenberg saved me though, the CDs and DVDs have made it that
I have enough to last a lifetime without having to build an
extension on the house. The text area at archive.org has been
the place for scanned materials, lots of obscure and forgotten
things hiding in the corners. One Caveat don’t bother with a
Google scan except as a last resort, they are mislabelled,
sloppily done, the illustrations are blurred or worse. If it
can be done wrong Google has a version done that way.
They need to change their motto to don’t be stupid.