(Part 2) Best biographical historical fiction books according to redditors
We found 551 Reddit comments discussing the best biographical historical fiction books. We ranked the 216 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
May I recommend...The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Sunne-In-Splendour-Richard/dp/031237593X
Penman tells the story from the death of Richards father through his own in a way which contradicts the Tudor propaganda.
I suggest Nadine Gordimer - she's a South African Nobel laureate/political activist - and Jane Urquhart.
The God of Small Things by controversial smartypants and activist Arundhati Roy - her wiki makes for an interesting read itself - is one of the best books I've ever read. I also quite enjoyed Sandra Gulland's Josephine Bonaparte trilogy, consisting of The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.; Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe; and The Last Great Dance on Earth.
Have you tried Margaret Atwood and Margaret Laurence?
Zadie Smith is quite popular, though I've never read anything of hers. And I second Marion Zimmer Bradley. Do you like sci-fi? Try Ursula K. Le Guin.
I'm forgetting so many, I just know it, but my books - my babies! - are all packed away in a storage facility. So sad :(
ETA the wickedly witty Sarah Vowell!
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Man-Jesus-Scoundrel-Christ/dp/080212996X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270013334&sr=8-1
... this is the book but it hasn't shipped yet. That quote was great...... I'm going to buy the book just based on this video :-P
Are we talking about Drood by Dan Simmons? (Which, coincidentally, features Charles Dickens as noted by ImNotDoingThat2Much, but is based on the life of Wilkie Collins, another writer of the time that Simmons sets up as a rival, much as Amadeus sets up Antonius Salieri as a rival to Mozart.)
I read it about a year ago, and enjoyed it a lot. Alas, I was already an atheist at the time.
For people who like atheistic fiction, I also recommend The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ.
I actually found it a relief to not be bogged down by magic. Fantasy doesn't have to have magic, it just has to be a different place or setup than history (alternate histories and dystopias are kind of a grey area for me - I usually call them sci-fi). Clockwork's just as interesting to me, especially when it's not just run by phlebotinum! The Winner's Curse is the only fantasy I can think of off the top of my head that had no magic whatsoever.
In terms of feel though, The Goblin Emperor reminded me more of Empress Orchid, in that someone young and mostly unprepared is thrust into a public role and the entire plot is built around learning and navigating the place and solving political crises. That's pure historical fiction though (1800s China).
Read this if you're interested. Great book.
It has a quite revisionist (i.e. biased) take on Richard III, but The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman is my go-to recommendation. She has clearly put a lot of research into it, and the characters really come to life.
Also, Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. Meticulously researched historical fiction, time travel, and plague! What more could one ask for?
Check out Drood by Dan Simmons. I picked it up on a whim, and couldn't be happier that I gave it a chance. It's a total trip, and suspenseful in a laid-back / behind-the-scenes sort of way.
Also, I find anything by Michael Chrichton to be utterly "un-put-downable". I'd recommend starting with Congo or Prey, but definitely give Sphere a shot before you move on.
Edit: Sorry I meant Micro instead of Prey. Prey was "meh" but Micro is great. Also definitely check out Timeline! (Sorry, I'm basically obsessed with Chrichton)
Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, is another favorite of mine. But, it's been so long since I last read it that I can't really remember why. I'm going to be rereading that one again soon.
Gary Jennings wrote a crazy good book called 'The Journeyer' about his life and travels and it was fascinating. If they do even half as good a job as he did depicting Marco Polo, it will be worth watching.
Edit- I found a link for it at amazon in case anyone wants to read up before Netflix releases.
Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa. Widely considered to be Japan's Gone with the Wind.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CD428BU/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_-XA7ybTXSTD5D
If Walter White lived in the 13th Century: The Journeyer.
Hope I'm not too late to the party. In this thread you'll find a lot of material on Rome, but I wouldn't go as far as calling them sources. HBO's Rome is a historical fiction TV series, and Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, of which I'm a fan, should never substitute genuine academic work or ancient literature. If you're looking for books, there's a plethora of works to choose from.
In the lighter end of literature, you'd do well reading Mary Beard, Adrian Goldsworthy or Tom Holland - all educated in Classicism from either Oxford or Cambridge. I'd categorise most of their work as popular history, so they're easy reads, yet made with authority on the subject.
If you want your information straight from the horse's mouth, you can also look into works written by the Romans themselves, such as Livy, Plutarch or Suetonius. Reading these can be a little challenging/dull at times though, as they don't conform to our modern ways of structuring a narrative.
As for fiction, which, if done right, does have something to offer, you'd benefit from checking out I, Claudius, Memoirs of Hadrian or Julian imo.
Oh, man, there's a lot of great literature about ancient Rome. It really depends on what part of that era you want to focus on, but my favorite non-fiction are:
I hope this helps!
Drood by Dan Simmons.
Here Be Dragons. The character development is amazing.
> Eiji Yoshikawa
In addition to Musashi.
To my knowledge, there are no audiobook versions of Eiji Yoshikawa's works.
Musashi which is now available in Kindle format.
And similarly, the Vagabond manga series
Tulku (if you can find a copy)
I love historical fiction and Gates of Fire is what got me started on it. Here are some other books you might like.....
The Assyrian and The Blood Star by Nicholas Guild
The Last King and The Ten Thousand by Michael Curtis Ford
The Parthian Chronicles by Peter Darmin
The Long War series by Christian Cameron
*All the other books by Pressfield, most have already been mentioned
Let me know if you are interested in any other eras or historical fiction, I would be happy to recommend more...
Bernard Cornwell is well regarded and quite good at "action scenes." He's also very very prolific.
For Roman settings Steven Saylor is pretty good; excellent on Roman society and civilian life. You could also check out Lindsey Davis or Ruth Downie. All three of these write Roman historical "crime" novels.
Allan Massie has also published some excellent "historical fiction biographies."
And please read I, Cladius. You may also like Gore Vidal's Creation (actually set in ancient Greece, India & China - a quite simply astounding book) and Julian, a fictionalized account of Julian the Apostate's life.
If you want more recommendations, just ask. :)
Thanks for the recommendation. I will have to check it out.
I was also thinking of books to go along with the game and came up with these.
Came here to suggest Beneath A Scarlet Sky. Absolutely incredible book.
Amazon Link
Have you tried Historical Fiction writers like Conn Iggulden (who wrote about the Romans and the Mongols) or Robert Harris?
I find that people who don't like fiction generally feel like it's a waste of time reading about "fake" events. Maybe reading about stuff that really happened with fleshed-out characters might be just the thing to get you hooked?
The Forever War - Haldeman
Flowers for Algernon - Keyes
The Prestige - Priest
LoTR - Tolkien
Sphere - Crichton (One of the first "real" books I read as a kid, and was my favorite for years. It isn't the best in the world, but it is an extremely fun page turner and means alot to me)
There are also three books I've read in the last couple of years that I want very badly to say are in my top five (to replace some of those listed above). But it has not been long enough for me to make a decision, and I probably need to re-read them. Those three are:
The Passage - Cronin
Cloud Atlas - Mitchell
Wolf Hall - Mantel
Conn Iggulden wrote about the rise of Julius Caesar in his Emperor series.
Granted, they aren't historically correct, but if you're just looking for a tale about a boy setting out to first learn the sword, then his adventures as he rise to power, they might be worth looking into.
It's not SciFi--more like magical Gothic horror--but I'm finishing up Simmons' Drood right now, and it's SPECTACULAR. I'm a HUGE Simmons fan. I've given away more copies of Hyperion than I remember--it's one of those books I "loan" with really no intention of collecting back. Just keep passing it around.
Read anything by Ferrol Sams.
The Cormoran Strike series (by Robert Galbraith aka JK Rowling) is phenomenal.
Beneath a Scarlet Sky is very good, and the Monuments Men and Saving Italy are really good, too. All three are based on the true stories of people during WWII (and Monuments Men is far, FAR better than the movie).
If you like historical fiction, you can't do better than James Michener (my favorites are The Source, Texas, and Caribbean), Leon Uris (read The Trinity series... slog to get started, but worth it), and Edward Rutherford (just read them all).
Over 10K? Fancy!
[Can I has it?] (http://www.amazon.com/Certified-Diamond-Engagement-Baguette-Clarity/dp/B00BRMUK8M/ref=sr_1_8?s=jewelry&ie=UTF8&qid=1394044521&sr=1-8)
[It should be gold encrusted too how insane?] (http://www.amazon.com/3ct-Diamond-Pacifier-Pave-Diamonds/dp/B000VG4608)
[My item, no where near that bologna] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0096QZ6OE/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=26SWLD702LW5B&coliid=I22AEKYGCLHMQC)
Thanks for the contest <3
I really enjoy novelizations of the lives of historical figures. I loved Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald.
On a similar note, if you guys haven't read this yet, read it. A great book kind of similar thematically.
The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. is the first book in a trilogy that depicts, with tremendous hisotrical detail, that whole period, but with the main character being Josephine Bonaparte. Of course, this means a tremendous amount of info about Napoleon. If you like historical fiction, then I really think you should give this a try.
I wish more people have heard about him. I doubt Julian would have erased Christianity, but he would have curbed its power significantly. I think, had he succeeded, Christianity would have continued, but it would have changed into a much less hostile form (this is happening now in some quarters, but 1500 years too late), and perhaps would have syncretized with the traditional religions. Also, one of his policies had been to take rival bishops out of exile, such that the Christians would have been too busy fighting (violently) over the nature of Christ to even think about taking power. As Julian said, "No wild beasts are so dangerous to men as Christians are to one another."
I've read it being compared to ancient Chinese policy to curb the power of Buddhist monasteries, but not wipe out Buddhism.
In our history, Christopaganism has happened in the past (and is an option for modern Pagans), maybe in this alternate history, there'd have been Hellenochristianity instead. ("pagans" were also called Hellenes, after the widespread Greek culture.) There had been syncretism with Judaism, why not Christianity?
By the way, I highly recommend that you read the historical novel "Julian" by Gore Vidal. It is a novel, but it's a meticulously researched and damn good one. Besides reading his many writings ([for free at Wikisource, and available for download into electronic formats(http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Julian)) or quotations from them, it's as close as anybody can get to meeting the man.
(Full disclosure: I revere his spirit as a divus, as Roman Emperors were considered to become after death. Human deification (typically after death--for good reasons!) is a common tradition in ancient polytheistic religion (I posted a link to a talk on the subject in ancient Egypt at /r/pagans) , especially since polytheistic religions have looser and more porous boundaries between god and man. (I don't see him as on the level of say, Ra or Hathor, but somewhere above a dead ancestor, though I also see Julian as a sort of spiritual ancestor, since he was himself a convert from Christianity.)
The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.
It's about Josephine Bonaparte, Napoleon's wife.
https://www.amazon.com/Many-Lives-Secret-Sorrows-Josephine/dp/0684856069
I enjoyed Conn Iggulden's Emperor series about Julius Caesar. It gets dinged a lot for its lack of historical accuracy, but I have no intention of being a Roman scholar and it was quite readable.
Tides of War is one of my favorite books of all time, Alcibiades is featured heavily (told from the perspective of another soldier).
I love Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman. Set in 13th century Wales.
edit: also, in spite of the title, it's straight historical fiction, not fantasy.
It's historical fiction, but based on real events - Sunnyside by Glen David Gold. One of my favorite authors even though he's only written two books.
Introduced me to the American military involvement in the Russian Revolution, which I never knew about.
If you're Charlie Chaplin-curious, you should ready "Sunnyside" by Glen David Gold (of "Carter Beats the Devil" fame and husband of Alice "Lovely Bones" Sebold).
Have you read Drood?
Annnnd here we go again, another crazy but fun contest =)
Thank you!
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Read Wolf Hall to learn about Henry VIII, the Church of England, Lutheranism, why people fall in love, how to make people do things, how to pull yourself up by the bootstraps, how to flatter powerful people, and more.
Great stuff! Thanks.
I understand that Tarleton was hated by the Americans for his cruelty, but I didn't know much about Cowpens.
I only knew of Samar as part of Leyte Gulf. Even if Kurita hadn't turned away, the Japanese cause was lost. But if he continued, he could have caused untold damage to the landing fleet until Halsey got back. I think it's a kind of Pyrrhic victory.
Aegospotami I had no idea about. But Steven Pressfield wrote a great [book] (https://www.amazon.com/Tides-War-Steven-Pressfield/dp/0553381393) about Alcibiades.
My DVD copy mentions Xenophon, does the Netflix version not? Also, The Ten Thousand is a nice novelization of Anabasis.
First, the article you link to says nothing about her erratic behavior being provoked by her "pretty mean husband". It does say that "Her doctors diagnose her with schizophrenia (she was more likely bipolar, scholars say) and attribute the disease to her failure to accept the traditional female role." Of course, all of this is moot because:
Second, the article is a book review of a book which is Historical Fiction about their romance, which is why it's listed in the " Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Historical > Biographical" section of Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Z-A-Novel-Zelda-Fitzgerald/dp/1250028663
Into the Wilderness by Sara Donati (six books in the series). Donati is friends with Diana Gabaldon, and there are some similarities in that these are big, sweeping books with adventure and romance in a historical setting.
Sharon Kay Penman's Here Be Dragons (the Welsh Princes series) is based in 13th century Wales. There's as much political intrigue as romance and battle.
Another author I like who doesn't get nearly as much hoopla as she should is Linda Holeman. The Linnet Bird and The Moonlit Cage are linked books that I thought were great.
This perhaps may be a stretch, but to give you truly different, rather offbeat recommendation, I would say Augustus by John Williams. It's far from the page-turners of Dan Brown and is actually considered foremost to be literary fiction. It follows Augustus Ceaser's rise to power following the assassination of his father, Julius Ceaser--including the triumvirate wars that spawned therein. To be fair though, the wars are more of a thing that's happening rather than the focus itself. The writing is absolutely beautiful, and while the author does take plenty of liberties, the research is actually quite accomplished.