History can make for great stories. Augmented or completely true, biography or time line, truth can be stranger than fiction and fiction can make the history more compelling.
Come along and follow my twisted reasoning…
I read mostly fiction. I’ve taken forays into various nonfiction genres, mostly essays, preferably humorous, in the vein of Umberto Eco’s Travels with a Salmon, or anything by David Sedaris. Occasionally, a piece of history contained within a novel will lead me to seek out the truth.
I went on an egyptology kick after reading a trilogy of books about Ahkenaten back when I was a teenager. I have been interested in books on Egypt ever since. Funny thing is, I cannot for the life of me remember the original books that led me on this (so far) 27 year adventure. So, if anyone out there can recall any historical novels based on Akhenaten and Nefertiti, please let’s have a title and author. It would be a wonderful thing to me as I’ve been dying to reread these books from an adult perspective.
In a somewhat convoluted way, the BBC series I Claudius led me to Robert Graves’ novels, which are two of the best I’ve ever read, “I, Claudius” and “Claudius the God”. I then began to devour actual imperial Roman history, and worked forwards and backwards, again over a 25-30 year period in my life.
Russian literature led me, more indirectly, to look into Russian history, from the time of Ivan the Terrible through the fall of Tsarism. I read book after book of Russian history, and the subject still fascinates me. I’ve had a lifelong love of Dostoyevsky, which took me into other Russian novelists, some I liked almost as well and some I didn’t. The historical research began because it seemed to me that there was something profoundly different about the Russian psyche that gave rise to such dark, introspective, lavish writing. Even Solzhenitsyn, so much more contemporary, continues the baroque language and symbolic richness of his fathers and grandfathers, Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, Chekov, and Tolstoy.
What historical novels have compelled you to read more about it? What are your favorite historical novels? What are your favorite history books? And, as always, what have you read lately?
Yes, I’m STILL working on “Cryptonomicon”. I am also reading “Legacy” by Greg Bear, I finished “The Dogs of Babel” by Carolyn Parkhurst(fantastic book, by the way) and am almost through with “The Chronoliths” by Robert Charles Wilson. (Charles no doubt inserted to avoid having him confused with Robert Anton Wilson, of “Illuminatus!” fame, which is also excellent but for different reasons.) I also started doing piano tunings this week for free, so that’s cut into my reading time somewhat, and I’m not even going to mention the new Scrabble game on my computer. Eeek.
i dont have a piano. but can you tuna fish?
:::smile:::
You should know that you can’t tune a fish.
heh.
I’ve just read Angels and Demons and DaVinci Code. Entertaining – some flaws – all in all I don’t quite get the polar reactions the books have gotten
but then I’ve never quite figured out why alternative Christianities so threaten “the Church” either… seems to me the tighter the grip the more slip through your fingers… ah well. I don’t buy all the illuminati and priory stuff – but there’s sure something to the was the early texts were shaped selectively. But DaVinci code is just drawing on some fascinating studies – it’s not a revelation in its own right.
Guess I spend too much time in the greys to ever quite grasp those who see things Black and White. I’m also a little wary of embracing things just because those I disagree with dislike it…
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Another “alternative history” thing I read was a book called “The Two Georges” it was an action mystery sort of thing set in a world in which George Washington led a faction that remained loyal to George III and ended the Revolution – very interesting how the author took that change and played it forward into what the modern (early 80’s or so) world might then look like. I recommend it much like the above to – as a good read that will spark imagination – nothing more.
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I’m going to break down and buy Harry Potter in hardback soon. I keep stopping myself – I don’t even own Tolkien in hardback….
Going to make myself reread the series first – and given all the more pressing stuff – maybe the paperback will be out by then 🙂
Need to read the Hitchhiker stuff too… must get to a library…
No interest in DVC at all. I was so pissed when I got done with angels and demons that I had lost about six hours of my life reading that. What dreck.
But that’s just my opinion. 😀
I’m contrary, though.. I also didn’t care for HP6. I just read it because I’d read all the others and wanted to see what happened next.
don’t touch DVC! Shitty, shitty shitty. I can’t believe that bastard gets paid to write that drivel.
Seriously — I’ve read better writing from illiterate 9th graders. feh.
Her two series, each is based on a different yet equally compelling Renaissance hero — Francis Crawford of Lymond (The Lymond Chronicles) takes about 5 volumes and is built around a chess theme; Niccolo (The House of Niccolo) takes about the same and is built around the rising merchant class of Europe.
She also wrote a great single volume about Macbeth (King Hereafter).
She died in 2001.
Second favorite historical fiction writer is George Garrett who wrote Entered from the Sun about the playwright and spy (?) Chritopher Marlowe; his other is called The Succession About QEI and James.
Wasn’t there a series — perhaps not fiction — on the lives of the Plantagenets? Thomas B. Costain wrote several, but I’m not sure if I’m thinking of his books.
Anyway, next to actual history (especially history by Barbara Tuchman). . .
chess, you say? I must read that, then.
Have you read “The Eight” by Katherine Neville? It’s a chess thriller with a lot of history and a tinge of horror/fantasy.
Has been on my bookshelf for years, leant to friends and family, and is feeling the need to be read again.
One of the best parallel plotted novels I’ve ever enjoyed.
Ok, that goes on the list…. check.
Thanks!
(never thought these book diaries would be so expensive, but it’s definitely worth it)
not to be missed: QBVII, by Leon Uris.
I’ll second that. The Lymond Chronicles are superb. I started reading the first book, The Game of Kings often not having a clue what was happening … but then about 100 pages in something clicked, and I was hooked. Dense and rich like no other book(s). Haven’t read the Niccolo series yet, though they are all down on my bookshelf … I’m saving them for when I can dedicate the time it will take me away from all other activities.
I hesitate to mention the series, because Orson Scott Card has become such a nut, but I found his Alvin Maker series to be intriguing, entertaining, and thought provoking as a teen. The stories are set in the early U.S., in an alternate universe where folk magic is real. Alvin is the 7th son of a 7th son, and therefore has extremely powerful magic. The series follows his personal growth as he learns to use his powers. Historical figures that play into the story include Napoleon, William Henry Harrison, and Tecumseh (called Ta-Kumsaw in the books). I don’t know if he ever finished the series.
He also wrote “PastWatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus” in which people from the future travel to the past to prepare the native Americans for the arrival of Europeans. But instead of just giving them biological immunities, they alter the native culture to remove the “barbaric” elements. So to redeem Columbus, the natives needed to be changed?… kind of rubbed me the wrong way, and indicative of the kind of nut-job Card has become.
I enjoyed some of the card books but in the not-alvin-maker series, by about the third one his nuttiness was starting to show. He’s a decent writer, though. Just insane.
I can’t bring myself to read the Alvin Maker series, even though I have enjoyed some Card in the past. From what I understand, the Alvin Maker series is based on the life of Smith, the founder of Mormanism. That was reason enough for me not to bother.
I recently read an expose on the web of mormonism… I don’t want to offend anyone who might follow that faith, but come on… golden tablets? And Smith was a known confidence trickster.
Shame people seem to be just as gullible now as they were then.
My ultra-Catholic mother gave me DaVinci Code. I’m going to follow it up with The Chalice and The Blade as recommended by a friend here at BT. Just finished Gail Collins’ America’s Women – Four hundred years of dolls, drudges, helpmates, and heroines. A wonderful revelation of the history we never got in school. Meanwhile spending some time every day in To Kill a Mockingbird.
Thanks for this diary, I’m always looking for books.
go on and read “foucault’s pendulum” to get really good worldwide long term illuminati conspiracy theory stuff from Umberto Eco.
I’ve visited Paris three times, and each time I went to the Pantheon and viewed the real article, which invariably brings the novel to mind.
But it’s been so many years, and I remember feeling so confused while reading it, I think I’d better give Eco another try.
Of course, The Name of the Rose is also superb historical fiction.
name of the rose was just fabulous… but you may have noticed I have a love/love relationship with Eco. If he wrote a phone book I’d read it.
The movie based on the book was actually pretty good, too.
I’m an Anglophile. Studied British History in college and loved it.
I highly recommend 2 historical fiction books by Edward Rutherford:
They both have the same structure, they both start in prehistoric areas and go through the 20th century. They entertwine different families in different economic strata. They are long books, but fairly quick reads for the size.
Was my spouse’s and my read-aloud book for what seemed to be years. At first I was enjoying it, but once the settlements cropped up, the author seemed to settle, likewise, into dull repetition.
Perhaps it was because England is small geographically to begin with, and then Rutherford got stuck in a few acres of it forever.
To me, few if any of the characters were remotely interesting, and certainly while there was plenty of blood and gore it was like reading a book starring one actor. And that would have to be the consummate, can-only-play-myself-bore-ass, Charleton Heston.
To be brutally honest (in case I haven’t been already)I found it to be like reading the begats section of the Bible. Consequently, I’ve pulled my hand back when it reaches for London on the library shelf. Should I over rule it and check the book out?
I’d check London out. It’s free, so if you don’t care for it, you can always return it. I preferred London to Sarum because it seemed more intimate – London is only so big. Yeah, there are some boring parts, but they seemed to pass relatively quickly.
I read this book (by Eloise McGraw) in 6th grade and it gave me life-long fascination with Queen Hatshetsup (but what made me love it was that it was about a young woman who did exciting and important things!). It’s out in a softcover edition now and I highly recommend it to girls (and their mothers).
Generally, I don’t seek out historical fiction to read as a genre. If I’m interested in some aspect of history, I’d much prefer to read a non-fiction book. That said, I read a lot of books that would be classified as historical fiction; it’s just not the primary reason for reading them. Of course, I do have some recent favorites:
Clara by Janice Galloway (Clara Schumann)
Vindication by France Sherwood (Mary Wollstonecraft)
Farewell, My Queen by Chantal Thomas (the Versailles court during the revolution from the point of view of a woman who is a reader to the queen)
Just finished “The Lake, the River, and the Other Lake” by Steve Amick, an enjoyably and exquisitely detailed creation of a very particular place and its very particular people.
I wonder how many of us were enthralled by the BBC production of Graves? I certainly was and after the Claudius books I also got my hands on King Jesus which led me to nonfictional books on church history. And of course the White Goddess and his take on the Greek Myths. And I remember Jean Plaidy wrote historical romance type books, one of which was about Lucretza Borgia, which led me to a fascination with the Borgia and a few nonfictional books on them.Which led to “The Bad Popes”by Chamberlin. Anne of a Thousand Days led me to more books on Henry the 8th and his troubled matrimonial history than I can name. And of course that led to nonfiction about Elizabeth and Mary and Mary Queen of Scots-mainly by Carroly Erickson and Antonia Fraiser. Then there was a mystery that featured Richard the 3rd that led to a bout of searching for his story in a non fictional account. I could go on for way too long here…manga led me to The World of the Shining Prince, Court Life in Ancient Japan. As for what I’m reading at the moment-Lost and Found,Dogs,Cats and everyday heroes at a country animal shelter-by Elizabeth Hess. A sad and wonderful book.
that was a terrific book-I think I still have that in the stacks somewhere-at least I hope so because I think it’s out of print.
I mentioned in a previous book diary that I love learning “herstory” by reading women’s biographies. There are a ton of great ones about middle eastern women that I found after 9/11 when I turned my saddness about that incident into a need to know about the lives of women who live in these cultures. I’ve read so many its hard to summarize, but two that had a real lasting impression on me were:
“Honor Lost: Love and Death in Modern-Day Jordon” by Norma Khouri. Its a difficult read, but tells the story of an honor killing of a young woman in Jordon – one of the countries that we think of as fairly democratic. The best friend of the woman who was killed tells the story after having to flee the country for fear of her own life. She has risked everything to tell this story and I think that we need to do her the honor of hearing it.
“In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story” by Ghada Karmi. Ghada was a young girl during the Jewish takeover of Palestine and her family had to flee to England in 1949. This book tells the story from the Palestinian perspective – something we don’t often hear – and is also a powerful portrayal of what its like to grow up as an immigrant in a new country.
On a completely lighter note, right now I’m reading the second in the series about the “Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants.” What a wonderful and fun story about real teenage girlfriends. I’m having a ball being young again!
Nien Cheng’s Life and Death in Shanghai about how she survived the Cultural Revolution, and how memebers of her family didn’t has got to be one of the most powerful personal stories I’ve ever read. Met her years ago at the Miami Book Fair International. As are many Chinese, she’s diminutive but embodies strength in various forms — of body, mind, will, and spirit.
Another bio that grabs me is Quentin Bell’s of, Virginia Woolf as well as the bio of Virginia’s one-time lover, Vita Sackville-West by Victoria Glendenning. I’ve got a Bloomsbury obsession.
I’m a history prof, and since one of my teaching interests is public memory (the way people throughout society understand and make use of the past), I’ll often teach historical novels.
One pair of novels I taught to very good effect some years ago were Don DeLillo’s Libra and Norman Mailer’s Oswald’s Tale. Both are fine works of literary fiction. Both are very interesting about the Kennedy assassination. But the two books reach entirely opposite conclusions: DeLillo’s novel is about a conspiracy so intricate and deep that it’s impossible to get to the bottom of; Mailer explores Oswald, who acts alone. Both make (very different, as you can imagine) larger points about the meaning of the assassination.
Teaching them side by side (or just reading them together) nicely illustrates the complexity of the past, and the many meanings of major events.