History through fiction

What's a time period that you'd like to know more about/read more books about? Conversely, what's a time period that you feel you know about mainly through reading fiction?

Personally, I've never been a huge history buff, except when it comes in the form of fiction - probably never had anyone who could bring it alive the way a good novel can. Currently, I'd like to read more about the Dark Ages in Europe, particularly if it's not strictly about the royalty of the time. Any suggestions?

Hi ~ I love historical fiction, but I've read some pretty good histories too, though the histories I like best are based on what society is up to, like a regular person's everyday life. Two of my favorite periods is the dark ages and the early middle ages, and a favorite novelist who writes about that time period is Sharon Kay Penman, though most of her novels have to do with royalty. A history on medieval times that I found particularly good was Year 1000: What Life Was like at the Turn of the First Millennium: An Englishman's World by Robert Lacey. I also liked Barbara Tuchman's history on the plague in the 14th century ~ A Distant Mirror. One I've heard about & want to read is A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind & the Renaissance - Portrait of an Age by William Manchester. Hope this helps! If I remember any more really good ones, I'll post again.

A World Lit Only by Fire is excellent, Storeetllr. Well written and engaging. It's not fiction, though. I'm going to check out that Year 1000 book as well, sounds great to me!

I didnt like Year 1000 at all.
If I may quote from my own review:

"Short and chaotic. Half of the book doesnt even talk about "what life was like" but about politics, the Church and the Monarchy. The half that does is very ambiguous and is filled more with the authors' impressions and musings than facts."

A World Lit Only by Fire sounds good. I'll keep an eye for it.

***

For me historical fiction was always a way to develop enough interest in a place or a time period to allow me to read it's real history with interest. Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome seriously ignited a huge interest in Rome and I ended up reading 800 pages long academic histories of it. :) And that's only the beginning.

Hanno wrote: For me historical fiction was always a way to develop enough interest in a place or a time period to allow me to read it's real history with interest.

Historical fiction has always been the launching pad for me to delve into a period, person or place that piqued my interest to learn more. I still have a fondness for historical fiction, but have found myself becoming a bit critical when an author takes liberty with history. Must remind myself -- it's only fiction.

Great Maria by Cecelia Holland set in 11th century Italy is a good choice.

I've never been interested in Historical Fiction (even though I work for a state historical & museum agency), but I've always been a book-lover and just yesterday I picked up old paperback editions of Northwest Passage by Kenneth Roberts, and two Mary Renault novels of ancient Rome/Greece, The King Must Die and The Bull From the Sea. They're the old, smaller Pocket editions with the gold spine.Thought I would give them a try.

All Mary Renault's historical books are about ancient Greece, not Rome. They are also wonderful.

I like both history and historical fiction. Sometimes thats a problem, because you can see the flaws and mistakes. My favorite period is ancient history, though I like the medieval times too.

If I read a good book that is about something I don't know then it will often make me look for a history that deals with the time, place, or culture.

The Cornerstone and The World is Not Enough by Zoe Oldenbourg are excellent books. One is a sequel to the other; can't remember which came first. For that matter, anything by this extremely accomplished author will be worthwhile. Hope you enjoy them.

Although I've studied history at university level, I feel like most of the history I know well I know through reading fiction! Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen - Regency; Philippa Gregory - Tudor; Laura Ingalls Wilder* and Rose Wilder Lane - homesteading America; Thomas Keneally - the First Fleet, and so on. In most cases I've been spurred by novels into reading non-fiction works on the same period, so I have a collection of history books that complement novels - The Fatal Shore accompanies Keneally's The Playmaker, for instance.

* Yes, fiction. :)

I learned most of what I know about English history (particularly Scottish) from fiction -- Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series and Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles.

I learned most of what I know about English history (particularly Scottish) from fiction

Ack! Don't let a Scot hear you say that! While they're histories are intertwined, Scots history is significant different than English history. It's like learning American history from the Native Americans -- quite a different perspective. *g*

I could not get into Dunnett's Lymond chronicles, no matter how hard I tried and how many friends who share my taste in book raved over them. I think it was the archaic language in the first book (with no translations) that drove me bonkers.

English!=Scottish, Scottish!=English. The two countries remain separate for several purposes. The banner word that covers both, since we became legally intertwined, is British.

(The American/Native American parallel has a number of differences, although broadly it works; it's more like "French history from a German perspective" on some matters.)

H. F. M. Prescott's The Man on a Donkey is set in the first third of the 16th century in England and so may not quite qualify as a "Dark Ages" novel. But there are few better historical novels out there.

Also meant to mention Morality Play by Barry Unsworth set in the Dark Ages.

Historical fiction has always gotten me more interested in a particular period. Though I think I've delved the most into Georgian and Regency era England due to Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer. I know more about all aspects of life in that period than I do about any other period in history- which, granted, doesn't mean much :-) I'm also more recently learning more about the French Revolution due to Hilary Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety.

For me, fiction has always been a starting point for history. I suppose the two most important time periods would be Regency England/Napoleonic France by way of Master and Commander and the American Civil War through The Killer Angels.

santiago wrote:
I picked up old paperback editions of Northwest Passage by Kenneth Roberts, and two Mary Renault novels of ancient Rome/Greece, The King Must Die and The Bull From the Sea.

Mary Renault does a great job on ancient Greece. We used The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea as
"guidebooks" on our 1st trip to Greece. Standing at the appropriate spot, we'd re-read the account of events that happened there. Years later, friends were planning a trip and asked us if there would be enough to see to keep them busy for 2 days in Greece. LOL We handed them the books, and they changed it to 2 weeks. The Mask of Apollo is another of her best, involving the theatre, Plato's Academy & his candidate for
"Philosopher King," and much more.

If you are interested in the American Revolution, try
Rabble in Arms and Oliver Wiswell (the Loyalist side of the picture) by Kenneth Roberts. He also edited a non-fiction collection of the journals and diaries of some of the
participants in the events in
Rabble in Arms. The book is March to Quebec.

Happy reading!

One of the books I finished recently is Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross. It was interesting if a bit simplistic about a woman who loved learning, lived as a man and became a Pope. It was set in the dark ages, and there is controversy about whether she was real, or not.

So glad to hear the Kenneth Roberts' novels are still being read. I read all of my father's copies (a complete set) when I was 12 or 13 and did a 7th grade book reports on The Lively Lady and Boone Island. I suppose this is what I was reading when everyone else was reading the Lord of the Rings...

I will read historical fiction set in any time period, but I don't care as much for stories of military campaigns, politics and great leaders as much as I do for village life, ordinary people, social history. Martha Peake by Patrick McGrath, The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman, and The Secret River by Kate Grenville would be examples.

I agree that historical fiction has given me a greater interest in the reality of the people and society and history of what I read (is this right or wrong? I don't know, but I figure it's not ignorance at the least..)

Even though it is fiction, I think some of the historical fiction out there speaks a lot of truth about the personal lives that were in that time (SOME, not all historical fiction. I am aware that many are the author's warped ideas about what that time period signifies, or they make incongruences by putting characters with a totally different worldview and attitude in a setting where they're supposed to fit in)

But I appreciate the ones with a degree of accuracy about the people, culture, language. Then again, you can argue the other way and say that it is primarily fiction, giving liscense for incongruences. That's why it's a novel and not a textbook, I guess one can say.

I like A Fine Balance a lot--FyreFly98, I'd have to say that I've learned the most about modern Indian history and culture through authors like Mistry, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and Arundhati Roy
I dislike Memoirs of a Geisha

I think historical fiction is great to get a feeling for a period or topic -- since I'm moving to Texas, I just introduced myself to Texas history with Michener's Texas, for example. To get more in-depth in a period, I tend toward actual history books, but I still enjoy reading fiction set in periods I've studied (medieval Europe being the principal one).

Avaland, I agree with you that social history is more interesting than military or political history -- as are historical mysteries!

I really got into history through Jean Plaidy and her historical 'faction' books. The first one was The Young Elizabeth followed by the Young Mary Queen of Scots when I was 7. Then I started reading her adult books. I remember a friend of mine wasn't allowed to read her mother's Jean Plaidy's books on Lucrezia Borgia at the age of 14 - something I found really strange as I had read them at least a couple of years earlier. This lead me on to my first proper history book - Antonia Fraser's Mary Queen of Scots - the copy of which I still have and I had signed by the author about 4 years ago. She was thrilled to hear the story behind it and inscribed it to me 'now and then'.

Good historical fiction is a terrific way of introducing someone to history. I've just started to read Elizabeth Chadwick. The author I avoid is Phillipa Gregory - terrible writing and an over active imagination. Her Wideacre novels are so bad that they are a must read for anyone interested in comedy!!

"Moon Tiger," is fiction, yes, but. . . . In it Penelope Lively presents a kaleidoscopic view of the 20th century. The voice of the book is that of a dying journalist. Its first sentence, "I'm writing a history of the world," leads the nurse to ask the doctor, "Was she someone?" Indeed she was, and IS for 208 wonderful pages. Read it and revise your understanding of many historic events. Esta 1923

Hi FF, try researching some of Ceclia Holland's works...Great Maria & The Firedrake are good places to start. I suppose you've read Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff (another take on Arthur).

Two other authors I haven't seen mentioned here who've been wonderfully entertaining are Edith Pargeter and Norah Lofts. Edith Pargeter, by the way, was also the author of the well known Brother Cadfael series under her pseudonym Ellis Peters. I've enjoyed many books by both authors. Norah Lofts' books are absorbing and satisfying everytime. I think she should have lived another 50 or 60 years to keep my supplied. 'Course I'm just being selfish!

Oh, yes, Edith Pargeter is wonderful! I loved The Heaven Tree trilogy; after reading that, it was impossible for me to enjoy Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth. I also loved Pargeter's The Bloody Field by Shrewsbury about Hotspurs' "rebellion." Haven't read any of Norah Lofts, though ~ I'll have to remedy that soon!

You know, when I read the first of The Heaven Tree books I was so depressed I could barely sleep that night. This was many yeas ago...it was the one about the young stone mason, right? Until today I never even realized it was part of a trilogy. Missed that one! I loved Norah Loft's ability to jump from character to character and make each one's perspective authentic and engrossing.

Try Jack Whyte... the Camulod Chronicles; begins with The Skystone and will end with The Eagle (not yet published in the US. Whyte tells the of Arthurs ancestors, without the wizards and magic. He is great at researching a time period and making you feel as if you were there. He also just released The Knights of the Black and White a story of the Templars.

Love histrical fiction. I don't really care what the time period is; just whatever interests me at that moment. Although I usually have a few favorite authors and devour everything they're written. Right I'm going through a Margaret George phase.

Stopped into a used book store today and bought myself a belated Christmas present ~ a trilogy of historical novels by Sharon Kay Penman: The Reckoning; Here Be Dragons; and Falls the Shadow. *sigh* Life is good! :)

Just in case, Storeetllr, The Reckoning is the last book in the trilogy.

I loved Here be Dragons- one of my top reads for 2005! I didn't like Falls the Shadow quite as much, and the characters in The Reckoning seemed to me to be rehashes of the main characters in Here be Dragons. And the story of Wales overall during the period is really depressing.

All of which makes it sound like I don't like the books- but really, I definitely did!

I know what you mean, Aarti. I've read a few by her ~ my favorite is The Sunne in Splendour ~ and she certainly doesn't believe in "happily ever after." But not much in history ends well, even for the victors. Everyone eventually ends up dead. ;D

I love her books too. Besides the ones mentioned I also like the Henry and Eleanor series:

When Christ and His Saints Slept
Very good exploration of the Matilda and Stephen conflict
Time and Chance

Her Queen Eleanor mysteries - very light and fluffy, and not up to the same standard as her historical fiction.

The Queen's Man
Cruel as the Grave
Dragon's Lair
Prince of Darkness

Since joining this board, I have about three dozen books on my reading wish list and the list is getting longer by day. I love American history, I have Mayflower and 1776 to read right now and more on my list. I love anything by Jane Austen and that time period. I also love scottish history, ancient rome, and well, actually all of it. I just ordered a Diana Gabaldon Outlander and Dorothy Dunnett The Game of Kings. Believe it or not, have not read the Master and commander series but have checked out the library for them. Like I said, my list is getting longer by the day. Since we're overseas, our library doesn't have over half the books I want to read, so I'll have to buy them. Yeah!!! I feel bad for the movers!!

#32-34

I too am a great fan of Sharon Penman, though I agree that her murder mysteries are nowhere near as good as her straight historicals. My favourite so far is probably When Christ and His Saints Slept. I look forward to the third in the Henry/Eleanor trilogy The Devil's Brood, though I understand from her website that this won't be out until 2008, as she has suffered one or more debilitating illnesses that have sadly slowed her writing down.

I love all the Welsh trilogy too, though unfortunately I read the second one first, not realising it was part of a series.

Sunne in Splendour is also a fine novel, though I do not agree with her rather romantic view of Richard III.

I've read all but one of Sharon Kay Penman's historical fictions; I still have the last in the Welsh trilogy to go. The Sunne in Splendour is definitely my favorite. In terms of her portrayal of Richard III, I've never really read anything else involving him and she's made me very interested to see if I agree with her.

I really enjoy Edward Rutherford's large historical sagas as well - great for a brief picture of all of one place's history. This does include the middle ages, as fyrefly98 requested.

I avoid Philippa Gregory now; ever since I learned more about Tudor history, her novels have made me cringe.

Historical fiction has really spurred my interest in history itself. I always liked it, but never realized I would like to study it until I started to! I'm hoping to become a professor in medieval history now, and that never would have happened without these novels paving the way.

If you want to read something else about Richard III that isn't actual history, you might enjoy Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. She writes British mysteries, but this is very different - a literary mystery that many consider a classic (I know I do). It's the first sympathetic thing I ever read about the much-maligned king, and I've been fascinated with him and how history is written ever since.

Historical novels in the Early Middle Ages:

Ruan and The Fourteenth of October, both by Bryher
Bryher's books are all short, spare novels, very powerful and well written.

Henry Treece wrote a number of novels set in late Roman and post Roman Britain. I read them as a teenager (I'm now 62), when I would have read anything of that sort, but not since, so I can't speak to their quality.

King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett is thought by many to be her best book. She did an enormous amount of research and has identified Macbeth with Thorfinn of Orkney. Very fine.

Late Roman period, but both very fine:

The Conquered by Naomi Mitchison (better or as good, I think, than her "better" known work The Corn King and the Spring Queen)

Eagle in the Snow - Wallace Breem - I'm not a fan of military novels, but this spare novel of a Roman General, formerly posted in collapsing Roman Britain, and now in charge of the hopeless task of holding back the barbarian hordes massed with their families on the far side of the Rhine, is unforgettable in its power and authenticity.

Kristin Lavransdatter - The Nobel prize winning novel set in 14th century Norway. The one book that would go with me to the proverbial desert island. (The Nunnally translation is better and more accessible than the old Archer)

Not fiction, but very good on the last years of Anglo-Saxon England :

1066, the Year of Three Battles by Frank McLynn

Harold II, The Doomed Saxon King by Peter Rex

re: the Sharon Kay Penman discussion:
I've recently finished When Christ and His Saints Slept and while it was interesting and thrilling at times, I found myself getting a little mired in the sieges and betrayals. Should I keep going with Time and Chance or backtrack to the Welsh trilogy? I always see such raves about The Sunne in Splendour and Here Be Dragons...

homeschoolmom, I hope you love Outlander! It really is amazing, and you do actually learn quite a bit.

Message 22: ipsographic

I just saw your message here. Did you enjoy Michener's Texas? It's in my library, but I haven't read it yet. I'm a bit shy of Michener after reading a couple books that were just ok.

Like you, I moved to Texas, then started looking for things to read about it. One book I fell in love with is John Graves Goodbye to River, a personal narrative with powerful drops of history added in. I felt it gave me a nice feel for the region, much better than a straight forward history can give... it's not historical fiction, so I'm off topic a bit here

There are a few periods that I know pretty much entirely through fiction....

I'm a big fan of Bernard Cornwell - admittedly, some of his series (his Arthur books especially) are probably more fantasy, but my impression of life in those times, and battles, comes entirely from his books. Slightly later, The Last Kingdom (and sequels) are about the saxons, and the viking invasion of England. Similarly, his Grail Quest series taught me (potentially incorrectly!) a lot about the Hundred Years War, and the prominence and importance of the English longbow-men. My only knowledge of the US Civil War comes from his Starbuck Chronicles (apart from what I learnt watching Glory...).

Other authors I've learnt from include Conn Iggulden (his Emperor series, about the life of Julius Caesar), Manda Scott (who wrote about Boudica) and Patrick O'Brian (Master and Commander, about the British Navy in the early 19th century)

And one other author that I forgot.... James Clavell. His Asian Saga books, about Japan (Shogun (17th century), Gai-Jin (19th century)), Hong Kong (Tai-Pan (the founding), Noble House (modern day)), Iran (Whirlwind (1970s/1980s - just before the Iranian Embassy Siege)) and Japanese prisoner-of-war camps (King Rat) have provided pretty much the entirety of my knowledge in these areas.

fyrefly98, You'd probably like Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett, though I think it is set in the late middle ages.

http://www.ken-follett.com/bibliography/pillars.html

Funny, now that I think about it most fiction set at that time is about royalty, isn't it.

#37:

For an overview of the Richard III controversy, may I recommend To Prove a Villain edited by Littleton & Rea? It contains fiction (including The Daughter of Time and Shakespeare's play) and nonfiction on both sides of the question.

Btw, would anyone like to pump some life into the existing Richard III group, and start a debate? :-)

A World Lit Only by Fire is a controversial book - medieval scholars despise it from what I can gather - and not because it is 'pop history' but because it is inaccurate. On the other hand, it is a very popular book, like many of Manchester's works. Just be aware that there is disagreement about the validity of this one.

A review on Choice (an academic magazine) stated: "Because Manchester openly embraces a historical position now discarded by most medievalists, it must be assumed that this is a book for a popular rather than scholarly audience."

Caveat lector.

#40- I also found When Christ and His Saints Slept difficult to read through. I did it as a buddy read with one of my online book friends, and we were both so excited because we'd loved The Sunne in Splendour and I'd also enjoyed her Welsh trilogy. But WCAHSS was so REPETITIVE to me. All sieges and betrayals and burning and looting of towns. My god. I feel she could have fast-forwarded through ten years of that and not lost anything of the plot ;-)

I'm currently reading I, Claudius. Between him and Lindsey Davis's Marcus Didius Falco, I'm entering a Rome period. And I recently returned from an amazing trip to Egypt, so now I want to know more about the ancient history there, too!

But always, always, 1750-1830 Britain will be my historical "home" :-) I feel so comfortable there!

A few fiction books which come to mind for the Dark
Ages are:

* Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks
* An Instance of the Fingerpost - Iain Pears
* The Witch of Cologne - Tobsha Learner
* The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco

I would not have wanted to live in that era but it is certainly interesting to read about it.

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks is set in the 17th century - hardly the Dark Ages.

I think Name of the Rose is set in the early Medieval period, if memory serves some years after reading it - anyway somewhat after the period of time usually described as the Dark Ages.

#40 - I thought that Time and Chance was actually not as good as Penman's other novels, so if I were you I'd put a hold on it until the last novel in the trilogy comes out. If you weren't very fond of When Christ and his Saints Slept, it might be worth finding out how the last book is regarded.

Just as a note - 'Dark Ages' is not the term used to describe the medieval period any longer, and you will not find any serious historian using that term. 'Middle ages' is preferred, split into early (approx. 500-1000), high (approx. 1000-1250), and late middle ages (1300-1500, or whenever you regard the beginning of the Renaissance). Sorry, I'm a budding historian and these things drive me mad. =( I do realize this is about fiction and not history, but I thought I'd just say, for everyone's knowledge. =)

I usually use the term "Dark Ages" to refer to the period from about 400 to 600 A.D. because there is almost no evidence to show what happened during the two centuries between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the establishment of Germanic kingdoms in Britain.

The novel Julian by Gore Vidal tells the tale of the end of antiquity and (just perhaps) the beginning of the medieval period, with his story of Julian the Apostate. A terrific novel.

His novel set in the Axial Period, Creation, reads almost like a travelogue of the ancient world, and has become one of my favorite of his books. Written as if spoken by the grandson of the prophet Zoroaster, and transcribed the the budding Greek philosopher Democritus, this book has great historical and philosophical interest. Ancient Greece, Persia, India, China . . . all are covered, as are the major thinkers of that amazing age. (Socrates is portrayed as a very bad stonemason, if I remember correctly.)

I have not read his historical novel set in the medieval period, however, his short A Search for the King.

I agree with others who have responded to the question at hand, and highly recommend Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose.

I have a fondness for the fiction of F. Marion Crawford, a now-obscure but once wildly successful and even well-regarded novelist. He wrote romances, for the most part, many of them set in historical periods. His most successful novels were the books he set in then-recent but now-long-past Italy: Saracinesca, Sant' Ilario, and the great novel of a business bubble, Don Orsino. I highly recommend these books. They are good examples of 19th century literature, and concisely written by the standards of the day, though awfully long-winded by today's standards. I find them utterly charming. Many of his novels are set in the medieval period, or later, in the Renaissance: Arethusa, Via Crucis, and Stradella, the latter a romance based on a composer who (after the events depicted in this melodrama) went onto create the concerto grosso and defraud the Church! (Actually, Crawford did research his books pretty thoroughly, and his account may accurately defend Stradella's honor, as far as I know.) One interesting observation in the book is of an organ with TWO sets of black keys, designed to avoid "the wolf" in just temperament musical instruments. In a footnote Crawford insists that he had seen just such a device in a back room somewhere in Rome.

Crawford also wrote popular histories of Italy, including Ave Roma Imortalis. He was an American author who had worked in India as a journalist prior to starting his career as a novelist. He spent much of his adult life in Sorrento.

#46 aarti and #49 littlebookworm-
Thanks for your advice regarding Penman, glad to hear I wasn't alone in my confusion! I think I will hold off on Time and Chance and give The Sunne in Splendour a try. Any other recommendations?

*touchstone not working
*edited to spell aarti correctly

This has been a great thread for me! I have added numerous books to my reading list from the many suggestions. Please continue if anyone has more recommendations.

I think if you're interested in the French Revolution, Hilary Mantel's novel A Place of Greater Safety is an excellent book to read!

The trilogy of novels by Valerie Anand set in pre-Norman Conquest England and Normandy, Gildenford, Norman Pretender and Disputed Crown. I'm reading the second of these at the moment.

#47 My apologies. The books are of course from the Dark Ages of Bubonic plague, witch hunts etc. not The Dark Ages. I can only say my enthusiasm for recommending the books made me careless.

I have just published THE RISING SHORE - ROANOKE, a novel that tells the story of the Lost Colony through the voices of two pioneering women who sail from London to Roanoke Island in 1587. This venture was the first English attempt to establish a foothold in the New World. It failed—in fact, the colonists disappeared. Their fate remains a mystery.

To read an excerpt from the book and explore the history, please see www.risingshoreroanoke.com. For a review of the novel, see http://www.bookpleasures.com/Lore2/idx/0/2542/article/The_Rising_Shore_Roanoke.h....

The North Carolina Museum of History is planning an exhibit on John White and his watercolors later this year. John White, the leader of the expedition to Roanoke Island, is a major character in my novel. This year marks the 400th anniversary of Jamestown's founding. The region will be celebrating its earliest colonial history, and the saga of the Lost Colony is key to that history. Other novels focused on the historic Lost Colony are aimed at young adults or involve fantasy. THE RISING SHORE - ROANOKE is grounded in research concerning America's early pioneers and brings to life the delights and fears of the women who joined the company.

You are cordially invited to meet these women ....
Deborah Homsher

I am so excited to hear this. I read the novel - I think it's name was Big Chief Elizabeth ?? is that the correct name?? It talked about those earliest settlers that were really abandoned to the elements there and it brings up the question of what happened to them. I can't wait to read this new book! Thank you for bringing it to our attention.

warbrideslass,
thank you!

A very interesting book about everyday life of an ordinary boy in an unusual family is “The Good Stalin”, by Victor Erofeev, a Russian author who tends to but a lot of blame on the communist regime he used to live into. Try and read it and let me (massage parlor ) know what you think.

#59 => d.homsher
Will your book be sold through Amazon and Borders or just on your website?

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis is a great book about a modern time-traveler going to the Middle Ages who deals with the plague firsthand.

My favorite historical fiction is The Firebrand by Marion Zimmer Bradley, which started my lifelong obsession with the Trojan War when I read it in middle school.

The Thrall's Tale by Judith Lindbergh just came out at the beginning of this year. It's set in Viking Greenland at the dawn of the Christian era and is about a thrall who is raped and her unloved daughter who becomes obsessed with taking revenge. I found it quite absorbing, although the characters are not always sympathetic. The Dark Ages were a harsh period, and the people who lived then were not particularly warm and fuzzy. Lindbergh's language is very poetic, reminiscent of the Norse sagas she used as resource materials.

I believe Jane Smiley has also written about early Greenland. I haven't read her book The Greenlanders, but Thousand Acres (set on a twentieth century Midwest farm and based on King Lear) was wonderful.

To #61:

THE RISING SHORE—ROANOKE is available on Amazon and on the McBooks Press website. Also on my website (www.risingshoreroanoke.com) Barnes & Noble Small Press Department has read and approved the book and will order copies if I can find a distributor ... am in the midst of looking for a distributor now. Quite an education!

To #61,
OK, it's official. Biblio Distribution has agreed to carry The Rising Shore—Roanoke. Now all they need is about 9 cartons of books ... and lots of completed paperwork.

Re Greenlanders: it's an immense novel, written in hypnotic, somehow chill, cut, prose, influenced by Jane Smiley's immersion in the sagas. Well worth reading ... even if you don't finish it (in my opinion).

My favourites are
David Liss A Conspiracy of Paper and the sequel A Spectacle of Corruption -the first book was a better read and -The Coffee Trader
Barry Unsworth The Ruby in her Navel
Unsworth's Morality Play is my favourite of his books.
Homero Aridjis 1492 The Life and Times of Juan Cabezon of Castile and The Lord of the Last Days Visions of the Year 1000

# 66 torontoc - I read Morality Play last year and it was one of the best reads all year - excellent stuff, ad such a simple concept! I'd never even heard of Unsworth before then, but I do plan to try more of his work.

I can also recommend Sharon Kay Penman, i just finished her Welsh trilogy and i loved it. Very informative, but still a page turner.

Pillars of the Earth is also a real page turner, with tons of historical fact.

I love the Tudor period and especially love books featuring Henry VIII and his wives - the fascinating relationship dynamics and the different interpretations of historical fact always grip me.

I've also recently become interested in WWII fiction, having read several over the last few months.

The others that really grab me are set during the various periods during the haydays of the Roman Empire.

#69
Kell - i just read your post and you mentioned that you like WWII fiction so i thought i should recommend The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons. If you haven't already read it, it is an amazing book, one of my favorites.

# 70 - Thanks AmandaB18 - I'll look out for it. :)

Has anyone read Graham Shelby who apparently did several books set during the various Crusades?

#63 I listened to the audio of The Thrall's Tale. I enjoyed the Viking history and the origins of Christianity. I might not have finished the book if I had been reading it.

I've certainly enjoyed this thread, and my wish list has grown exponentially while reading it. However, an issue everyone is dancing around that is very dear to my heart as a historian is the issue of historical accuracy....

I agree that historical fiction is a fantastic way to learn about a time period, and is far more interesting and enlightening than most academic history. However, how do you know when an author is writing good history as well as good fiction? Sharon Kay Penman generally does her research well, and Umberto Eco is impeccable, but authors like Phillipa Gregory and Marion Zimmer Bradley are not known for being good historians. (I admit that I enjoyed the Mists of Avalon, but I confess I wanted to scream when Bradley was mentioned on this list--good writer, not a historian by any stretch of the imagination.)

So how do you find the right balance between good history and a good story? Do you feel betrayed when you then go do some more reading and discover that your favorite historical fiction novel is totally false? Do historical fiction authors have any obligation to their readers to make it clear what is fact and what is fiction? I often won't read a historical fiction novel unless there is an afterword at the back telling me what was real and what wasn't.

I don't mean to sound overly critical here--I absolutely love historical fiction, and advocate it as a way to learn about the past, but I think readers are often not very cautious when they pick up a novel hoping to learn about the past, and that can get some of us into trouble.

For me a recent favorite is Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres. It is a tale of love and tragedy during the time of the Ottoman Empire's collapse and the beginning of the modern state of Turkey - a time when the Greek-Christian population was displaced and when World War One utterly transformed the region.

#74: I agree. I like Sharon Penman and Edward Rutherfurd for that reason and equally steer clear of Philippa Gregory. A historical note is very useful, though not essential if I already know the author can be trusted.

Yes, Dunnett gives a fantastically intense view of any history---Niccolo's time of the tanning trade, the rise of private armies--Lymond and his world adventures--but she is very self indulgent in her expression. Almost always, it's contrived to the point that you have to backtrack pages and pages to figure out who or what she is referring to. Also, her "heros" are supposedly omniscient, yet every book in each series ends with a most trusted character betraying them. It gets tedious.

->74 Gwendydd: I'm the one who mentioned Marion Zimmer Bradley. I mentioned The Firebrand, in which I think she is a little more historically accurate than in Mists of Avalon. As an archaeologist who has studied the Bronze Age, there are parts of the story that make me cringe, but there are others that speak some truth. The reason I listed it, however, was because the book interested me enough in the subject not only to search out more information, but it also pushed me in the direction of studying archaeology in the first place. A good piece of historical fiction should make you want to learn more; if you are truly looking for historical accuracy, it shouldn't be the end of your reading.

While I enjoy well-researched historical fiction, sometimes all the research gets in the way and bogs down the story. To me, it often seems like the author is putting in historical tidbits just to prove that he spent time researching instead of because it will make the story better.

I second paghababian's sentiment about good historical fiction leaving you wanting to learn more. By definition, fiction is never going to be totally accurate in portraying specific people who lived in a specific time. But with fiction the author is free to imagine how people thought and felt, making it possible to connect readers emotionally with a different time period than our own.

Of course, some novels depart from known facts more radically than others. If a portrayal is too anachronistic, it should almost be read as fantasy rather than as a historical novel - a lot of historical romance leans in this direction even when it doesn't introduce the supernatural, and of course Marion Zimmer Bradley includes a lot of fantasy elements in novels like The Mists of Avalon.

I just finished Labyrinth by Kate Mosse (which I actually plucked off my shelf to accompany me on a trip to the Pyrenees), and now I'm interested in learning more about the Cathar movement and the history of south of France.

webgeekstress: If you want more fiction about the Cathars, you might like The Treasure of Montségur by Sophy Burnham.

I love "The Alienist" and "Angel of Darkness" by Caleb Carr. Reading them put me in the midst of these stories. I actually liked the followup "Angel...." best.

Charmaine Craig's The Good Men is another novel about the Cathars.

It's the authors who deliberately distort facts (without telling the reader that they have done so) or who do sloppy research who drive me bonkers. Especially when the author excuses his or her lack of effort with a statement like, "It's only fiction."

I read a novel recently (from a major publisher) where the research was so poor that even the author's note at the end contained factual errors. Sad, because such novels give historical fiction a bad name, particularly among those who read the worst of the genre and assume that they're all like that.

Message 84: boswellbaxter

C'mon, aren't you going to tell us the title of the book? I'm intrigued, now...

re: message 36
I met Sharon Penman when she came to a gathering o the Richard lll Society to talk about her newly published Sunne In Splendor.
It was not "a romantic view" but an extensively researched account of one of Britain's most maligned kings.
Shakespeare's "imaginative" play was written to kiss up to the Tudor Queen Elizabeth whose grandfather had benefited from Richard's betrayal and murder.
I don't like revisionist history whether it is written by the bard or the Nazis who dispute the holocaust.

webgeekstress: I keep picking up Labyrinth and then putting it down because the size of it seems so daunting. Is it worth the time?

#87
Pesserj,

I was a little daunted by the size, too, but it's a very quick read.

I enjoyed it, although more for the history and the view of the south of France than for the plot per se. While it's been compared to DaVinci Code, I found it to be more more similar to Katherine Neville's The Eight (which I loved). And, like many horror films, if the protagonist behaved rationally, there would have been no story!

I would recommend giving it a try.

#81 & #83

Thanks for the recommendations: I'll keep an eye out for them. In the meantime, I've found The Perfect Heresy by Stephen O'Shea.

#88
webgeekstress

Thanks. I loved The Eight too, so I'll bite the bullet and give Labyrinth a try.

#86: I don't doubt that it is well researched, but it is the interpretation of facts and motives that often creates disagreements about history, not necessarily lack of research, though that is obviously the case in some instances. One can read and contrast, say, Alison Weir's Princes in the Tower and Paul Murray Kendall's Richard III to see this. Shakespeare's plays were largely meant to be entertainment, rather than educational. What history is revisionist and what is not is also partly subjective - the label is more often applied to what might be broadly described as the "pro-Richard III" historians, than others.

For what it's worth my own view is that Richard III is to some extent misjudged and was certainly by no means all bad. He was a good administrator in the North of England especially and seemed genuinely committed to the good of the country, certainly more than many other monarchs. But I think the balance of evidence is very much that he almost certainly murdered the Princes in the Tower, though I would concede a small outside chance that Buckingham may have conceived the murder independently.

john257hopper, the Richard III group was recently revived...you might want to check it out. Two excellent fictional accounts of RIII are: Sunne in Splendour and We Speak No Treason; both sympathetic views of Richard (which I share).

As for favorite historical fiction...a favorite of mine is Lonesome Dove for the American west and The Far Pavillions by m. m. kaye for the Raj India (far less daunting than Scott's Raj Quartet).

#92 - I also loved Lonesome Dove, that is one of the best stories. Have you ever seen the mini series with Robert Duvall?

I also have Sunne in Splendour and The Far Pavillions on my wishlist.

AmandaB18, yes, thought the mini series was fabulous! Great casting (so rare). I have it on video tape from the old days. Someday will replace with the DVD version or whatever is at the top of the technical heap at the time. It's one of the few times that a movie or tv version can live up to the book.

ITA, the casting was the best i've ever seen for a mini series (band of brothers is a close second though). I have the DVD set and it's addicting. I've watched it at least 5 times, I absolutely love Gus (and Dish).

#69 Kell,
On another group here, we have collected a list of recommended books about the WWII period. I compiled the list based on books mentioned by LT'ers on the WWII history group. It was an enlightening experience to ask for titles that people had enjoyed. If you want a copy of the list, I have it in Word and in Excel as well as a text file if you prefer. Just drop me an email and I will send it to you. I like it because I can sort by author, and search for books that way because that's the way the local second hand book store has their history/war section organized.

I can tell you it's no secret that Harlequin's research is very far from historically accurate. But I was really shocked when my daughter who worked for them for 4 years pointed out some historical inaccuracies in a particular novel. For instance, our city was amalgamated from two older cities and renamed Thunder Bay in 1970 and it appears in a book set in the mid 1800's. When she took this observation to her supervisor, she said it's OK we accept 100 years either way give or take. That means a range of 200 years. LOL! All of the place names in the book referred to current names not the historically accurate ones that could easily have been found on a map of that period. Those are things that drive me bonkers. All you need is Google for pete's sake!

The Walking Drum by Louis L'Amour,set in late 12th century Europe and Asia Minor.

We have just started a cooperative blog ... about historical fiction, written by six historical-fiction authors.
Susan Higginbotham
Carla Nayland
Deborah Homsher
Frances Hunter
Pauline Montagna
Sheri Vangen-Ratcliffe
Visitors welcome!
http://yesterdayrevisitedhere.blogspot.com/
Carla's newest post offers a great list, with brief reviews, of Daphne du Maurier's historical novels.