Score

"Historical fiction" as in, "events set prior to the time of the book's writing/prior to the author's own life," or "historical" as in "set or written before our time," even if contemporary from the author's point of view?

(Example: Jane Austen's fiction is set in historical times from our point of view, but takes place in Austen's own world and was contemporary to her. James Clavell's "Shogun," on the other hand -- for whatever it's worth in terms of historical accuracy -- is set prior to Clavell's own birth; a whole number of centuries, in fact, before his life. The latter book would therefore arguably be considered "historical fiction" by most definitions, the former -- Austen's novels -- "fiction dating from/written in a past historical period.")

Or doesn't it matter either way, for purposes of this list?

Duarte wrote: "Great point.
I was thinking more along the lines of stories that are written to portray a time period or convey information about a specific time period or an historical event in the past. The particular time in history and the information about the time period should be accurate,authentic,or both."

That's a great answer! :)

BTW, my picking on Clavell's "Shogun" is motivated in no small parts by the reactions I get from Japanese friends when I mention that book (which are sort of along the lines of "the man may or may not be able to tell a great story, but he clearly doesn't know what he's writing about when it comes to Japanese history -- or if he does, he obviously just doesn't care about getting it right). Let me haste to point out, though, that (if anything) I know decidedly LESS about Japanese history than Mr. Clavell, who after all actually spent a considerable part of his life in Asia. So it will probably be safer if someone with a bit more insight on the subject comments on the historical accuracy of the books posted.

Then again, if anybody had bothered to include "accuracy" among the criteria of eligibility for the Best Books About Tudor England list, half the books on that list would probably never made the cut in the first place ... :)

P.S. How come "historical" vanished from this list's title?

Suits me better this way as now I can add a whole load of stuff if I can just find out if this is meant as story-centered in Japan or if it has to be specifically written by Japanese authors.

Just wondering because there are already several similar lists, inter alia for Japanese Literature, Best Japanese Books, Japanese Authors, Good Books About Japan, Best Books About Japan, Découvrir le Japon etc. ... so I thought the added "history" touch made a nice difference from all those other lists (shrug).

Themis-Athena: I didn't include "accuracy" among the criteria for Best Books about Tudor England because I was interested in what books people were actually reading.

Susanna wrote: "Themis-Athena: I didn't include "accuracy" among the criteria for Best Books about Tudor England because I was interested in what books people were actually reading."

I thought as much -- just saying ... :)

Oh, I agree totally! The Other Boleyn Girl wasn't at the top of my list, I assure you!

Susanna wrote: "Oh, I agree totally! The Other Boleyn Girl wasn't at the top of my list, I assure you!"

I would have been shocked if it had been ... ;) (or anything else by the same author, I suppose.)

The "Confessions of Lady Nijo" is a memoir, not fiction, else I would have voted for it.

Also, "Novels by Michael Morpurgo..." published by Books LLC is one of those fake Wikipedia-scraped compilations with misleading titles bordering on fraud. If you check out that book's description it's pretty clear.

Question to the list creator: Is nonfiction now welcome, too, or should we keep it to fiction? In the latter event, Confessions of Lady Nijo should probably be removed.

Personally I'd say the same for the OCR scrape entitled Novels by Michael Morpurgo in this particular instance, though I will admit that sometimes I do include such scrapes as well, either in lieu of a non-existing "real" multi-volume compilation (to free up votes for other books) or in lieu of ANY real entry of the book(s) I have in mind in the GR database (which happens most frequently with screenplays).

In case anyone but me still uses this list, I have attempted to clean it up a bit. Gone are:

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
The Pillow Book
Geisha, a Life
The Confessions of Lady Nijō
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The School for Good and Evil
Coraline

First four are (or are generally thought to be) non-fiction and thus don't belong here. Last three books are, well, a nice try, but not Japanese, set in Japan, or have anything to do with the country at all.

Many of the remaining wprks are also not Japanese (chief among them Memoirs of a Geisha, which is about as American as it gets) but since there are so many of them and since the list's creator is no longer on Goodreads to request their removal, I'm letting it slide. ;-)