historical references. I'm interested in reading some history pieces, though I'd like the stories to be about people more so than the events they live in.

Books I'm not crazy about are any westerns.


Got suggestions?

The Thomas Lymond Series by Dorothy Dunnett
The House of Nicollo Series by Dorothy Dunnett
The Horatio Hornblower series
The Richard Sharpe Series by Bernard Cornwell
The Archers Tale series by Bernard Cornwell
The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell
The Jack Aubrey series by Patrick Obrien

horatio said:

With historical references but not about historical events? I don't understand.

What are some examples?

BlackAdder7 said:

Great stuff!

look up some Colleen mcCulloch

You mean you want "period" books? Like books that take place in a given era but aren't necessarily factually historical?

jtfolden said:

Haha! Like the Iraq Intelligence Report!

jtfolden said:

Yeah.

If they're factual, that's great, but I'm looking for a good story above all else.

horatio said:

Try Caleb Carr, The Alienist.

The Game of Kings, Dorothy Dunnett.


Pendults (sp?) Fulcrum..

I got my dad, "Manhunt: The 12 Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer" by James Swanson. He just told me that it's a great book, and he can't put it down!

It did get a lot of good reviews at Amazon and Double Day Book Club, where I got it from.

slowness by milan kundera -- one of my favorites.

from amazon:

Kundera's latest (after Immortality) is a scintillating jeu d'esprit, as coolly elegant and casually brutal as the 18th-century French arts to which the text pays tribute. Indeed, this is the expatriate Czech author's first novel written in French, his adopted homeland's native tongue. The paintings of Fragonard and Watteau, Sade's La Philosophie dans le boudoir, Laclos's Les Liaisons dangereuses and an obscure novella entitled Point de lendemain, by Vivant Denon, are all invoked by the narrator, who may be Kundera himself (his wife calls him "Milanku"). He recalls the plot of Point de lendemain while visiting a chateau-turned-hotel, admiring the leisurely hedonism implicit in both these relics of a bygone age. "Why has the pleasure of slowness disappeared?" the narrator asks as he considers the frantic, joyless pursuit of stimulation that modern men and women call pleasure. He remembers-or perhaps invents-a group of French intellectuals determined to demonstrate their political correctness as a means of furthering their ambitions. "Dancers," he calls them, discerning that they are more concerned with displaying their moral purity than with accomplishing anything. The political and sexual maneuverings of these contemporary characters intermingle with the narrator's musings and ongoing retelling of Point de lendemain; in a brilliant and oddly moving finale, the protagonist of the 18th-century novella comes face to face with his present-day counterpart, Vincent, who is incapable of slowing down long enough to appreciate the meaning of the experiences he has just undergone. A deliberate chilliness of tone and the one-dimensionality of Vincent and his peers keep this from being as emotionally engaging as it is intellectually stimulating. Nonetheless, it embodies provocative thoughts on personal and social triviality from a postmodern master.

So you want historical fiction or biographies?

1.Is Paris Burning? by Larry Collins & Dominique Lapierre: "Is Paris burning?" was a question that Hitler persistently put to his commander in the French capitol during August 1944. Thus begins the absorbing account of the liberation of Paris. It also discusses how DeGaulle sneaks back into Paris just as the Allied forces, led by Eisenhower, are on the way to liberate the city. I LOVED this book...just the right amount of history and suspense. (Plus I'm a huge Francophile.)

2.Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa by Antjie Krog: Antjie Krog, a prominent South African poet and journalist, led the South African Broadcasting Corporation team that for two years reported daily on the Truth & Reconciliation Commission hearings. Extreme forms of torture, abuse, and state violence were the daily fare of the Truth Commission. Many of those involved with its proceedings, including Krog herself, suffered personal stresses--ill health, mental breakdown, dissolution of relationships--in the face of both the relentless onslaught of the truth and the continuing subterfuges of unrelenting perpetrators.

3.Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela: This is his autobiography, full of history but also very inspiring. It's long, but so worth reading. Nelson Mandela's story--and that of the African National Congress (ANC)--is amazing.

4.The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory: Before Henry VIII ever considered making Anne Boleyn his wife, her older sister, Mary, was his mistress. Historical novelist Gregory uses the perspective of this "other Boleyn girl" to reveal the rivalries and intrigues swirling through England. (This one might be more for "chicks," we just read it for my book club...but right now I'm only half way through it. )

5.The Devil in the White City: by Erik Larson: Set in Chicago as it prepares for the 1893 World's Fair, it tells the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair's construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor. (Holmes is believed to be one of the first known serial killers in the US.) He built a mansion on the delevoping south side of Chicago, complete with crematorium and gas chamber and used the World's Fair to lure victims to his "hotel". Holmes was one creepy dude. The history of the Chicago World's Fair is cool too--that's when the Ferris Wheel was invented, among other things. Honestly, this book reads a bit like a research paper, but it is pretty interesting.

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[Edited 7/25/07 20:33pm]

"Orlando," by Virginia Woolf, is a favorite of mine.

It's the story of a young man, Orlando, born into the court of Queen Elizabeth I. A free spirit, he decides never to grow old and lives for centuries -- first as a man perhaps too sensitive to have been born male... and then eventually, inexplicably, as a woman! He just metamorphoses one night! The book, published as a sort of faux biography, then tracks Orlando's life and his/her unique feminist vantage point up through the time of the book's publication in 1928.

It's odd, fun stuff with a really interesting retrospective take on English history from the 16th through 20th centuries.

horatio said:

Well, if you like romance then a great book set in the Victorian era is The Age Of Innocence, a novel by Edith Wharton. If you like that, she wrote another novel called The House Of Mirth which is dramatic but tragic.

Another good author is E. M. Forster who wrote several novels set in the Edwardian era including Howards End, Maurice, A Room With A View, Where Angels Fear To Tread and A Passage To India.

You can find in depth descriptions of all these books on Wikipedia, and at least one is legally and freely downloadable (Age of Innocence), IIRC.

Lammastide said:

That is a great book! ...and it inspired quite the odd little movie.

jtfolden said:

Made me fall in love with Tilda.

"Stealing Heaven: The Love Story of Abelard and Heloise" by Marion Meade.

This particular book is a work of historical fiction, and so there are embellishments for the sake of storytelling as well as being a rather one-sided account of the relationship of Abelard and Heloise since it is written from Heloise's perspective - but the novel is very engaging, giving wonderful descriptions of Medieval France, and providing the reader a good understanding of the intriguing and tragic circumstances of the doomed lovers.

For those not familiar with the story of Peter Abelard and his pupil Heloise, the following brief overview: Abelard was a greatly respected and celebrated theologian and philosopher in 12th century France, even becoming head of Notre-Dame by the year 1115. It was around this period that he became private tutor to Heloise, an exceptionally intelligent and (for the times) very educated young woman who resided with her uncle, a canon in the church.

Abelard and the much-younger Heloise, aware of - and fascinated by - one another through reputation before even actually meeting, quickly became lovers, a relationship carried out in secrecy but eventually found out and resulting in an attempt by Heloise's uncle at separating the couple. Instead, Abelard and Heloise continued meeting clandestinely until Heloise became pregnant and ran away from her uncle's home to stay with Abelard's relatives in Brittany. Heloise gave birth to a son, and shortly thereafter - in a bid to appease her uncle and repair damage to the family name - left her son in Brittany and returned to Paris and married Abelard in a secret ceremony, as it was not in Abelard's best interest as a philosopher to be publically be known as married.

However, Heloise's uncle, still bearing a deep grudge against Abelard for allegedly having 'corrupted' his niece, began circulating rumours of the marriage, consequently driving Abelard, for safety's sake, to place Heloise back in the very same convent in which she grew up as a child until leaving to go live with her uncle. For a time, Abelard and Heloise continued their romance until, again, her uncle learned of their meetings and sent men to violently attack Abelard in his home, castrating him.

After Abelard's castration, Abelard and Heloise never saw one another again...she staying at the convent and taking vows as a nun - a vocation which, as a young girl, she swore never to accept; he entering the monastery and becoming a monk. Years passed with no communication between the two until, due to circumstance, the former lovers again began a (chaste) correspondence which resulted in a collection of now-famous letters.

Debate still remains over precisely where Abelard and Heloise are now actually buried, but it is claimed they were reunited in death in a tomb in a Parisian cemetery.

Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae (Paperback)
by Steven Pressfield

I loved this one

Synopsis
An epic heroic novel, set in Ancient Greece, and based on the true story of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. This is the story of Xeones, the only survivor of 300 Spartan warriors ordered to delay for as long as possible the million-strong invading army of King Xerxes of Persia.

Gai Jin,. and Tai Pan by James Clavell, about Hong Kong was very good

BlackAdder7 said:

that does look educational

the City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal

Originally published in 1948, THE CITY AND THE PILLAR is generally considered the first mainstream American novel to place gay men and their lives and loves at dead center of the story. As such, it receives a tremendous amount of attention from critics and historians. Still, for all the stir it caused at the time (most newspapers wouldn't review or advertise it and many bookstores refused to carry it), it is more interesting for its history than for itself.

The story concerns Jim, an all-American boy from Virginia, who has a sexual encounter with classmate Bob just before Bob graduates from highschool and leaves town "to go to sea." This is Jim's first same-sex encounter, and with classic adolescent innocence he concludes that he and Bob are spiritual "twins." As soon as he graduates, Jim goes in search of Bob on the assumption that Bob feels the same--and driven by this obsession he too "goes to sea," and moves from port to port and eventually from relationship to relationship in search of his ever-elusive lost love.