Historical Fictionistas discussion

Hi everyone,

I just joined this group today and hope to participate actively but was also hoping you all could help me pick a great book or two to buy my father for the holidays. We both are big history fans and my dad is a retired teacher who majored in History as well as education. He's elderly and rather chronically depressed but nothing fires him up like a great historical fiction novel! He's the kind of reader who will read almost anything and the kind of person who when asked what he likes, whether books or music or TV, will answer very vaguely so it's hard to get an actual concrete idea of what to buy from asking him. He and I also tend to have differing interest as far as time period and area of the world we're most interested in and hence I thought I would ask here for some good recommendations.

My dad has always had a thing for the more scandalous side of history. Growing up he would sit and lecture on all the affairs and controversies of the former US presidents and the British royal family. So books that go into those kind of things work well. Whenever I see historical fiction at book sales on the British royal family, that's kind of a no brainer perfect choice for my dad though I wonder if he's read too many of them at this point. Books that take place in the early 20th century US work great too as he gets all nostalgic about his parents or his own childhood.

It's so hard to even list more of what he's specifically interested in because he will read anything and I've shared with him many of my own books (I was a Middle East Studies major myself and that's generally what hooks me but I feel like even if he enjoyed a book along those lines it seems like I bought it so I could later read it, which I always did when I was younger. Haha.) I want the perfect book for HIM, not a book I think sounds amazing that he may happen to end up liking. And it's so nice to see him get really into a book and excitedly tell me basically the entire plot interspersed with his own stories or things he knows about the time period. It's one of the very few times I see my dad happy. So I'm up for further exploring any and all books that come to mind, new or older. Also if you've read a really great book that doesn't necessary fit my description of my father's interests go ahead and list that too. I know my dad will probably like just about any book I give him but I really want to find a few that are completely engrossing. My mom always buys him whatever random Danielle Steel or Nora Roberts she finds at the grocery store (I really wasn't kidding when i said he will read anything! My aunts and grandmother give him harlequin romanes and he reads those too even!) and I prefer to buy him better quality reads. ;)

The Pillars of the Earth or Fall of Giants

Outside Bernard Cornwell I can recommend Antoine Vanner's 'Britannia' series. Britannia's Wolf: The Dawlish Chronicles: September 1877 - February 1878

is set in the declining decades of the Ottoman empire and includes a slightly scandalous affair for it's Victorian setting. A lot of early steamship technology, too. And it's relentlessly pacey.

I don't read much political-themed historical fiction, I tend to lean toward art or literature-themed works. I would like to recommend some of my favorite historical fiction authors. I've rated 5-stars the following books:
Melanie Benjamin: Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb, Alice I Have Been, The Aviator's Wife
Tracy Chevalier: Girl With a Pearl Earring and The Lady and the Unicorn
Corrag by Susan Fletcher
The Woman Who Heard Color by Kelly Jones
The Jewel of Medina by Sherry Jones
Sunflowers by Sheramy Bundrick
The Sound of Blue: A Novel by Holly Lynn Payne
The Witch of Cologne by Tobsha Learner

I, Claudius/Claudius the God by Robert Graves is good for intrigue and nasty politics and crazy gossip of the Romans :)

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry is excellent. Also by the same author The Last Picture Show set in 1950s Texas.

He might even like Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and its sequels.

All the above have movie or miniseries versions too if he/you are interested.

I’m guessing he has already read Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall?

The Masters of Rome series by Colleen McCullough is amazing. In order:

The First Man in Rome
The Grass Crown
Fortune's FavoritesCaesarCaesar
Caesar's Women
The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra

And not necessary, but still well worth the read:
Antony and Cleopatra

I've read most/many of the books referenced above, and they are all so well written. Colleen McCullogh's Rome series is wonderful, as is Outlander and I, Claudius. Ken Follett's historical fiction is outstanding. The only author I would add is Sharon Kay Penman and her novels about the Plantagenets. Her first novel, a real tour de force, was The Sunne in Splendour. If you started with that one, you would not go wrong.

by Nancy Bilyeau
by Dan Jones
by Dan Jones
by Peter Ackroyd
by Richard Brooks

If he likes scandal, he might enjoy the new biography of Margot Asquith, though you'd need to order from the UK.

Margot at War: Love and Betrayal in Downing Street, 1912-1916

http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/9381...

I highly recommend the following:
The novels of Margaret George, especially The Memoirs of Cleopatra and The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers.
The series The House of Niccolo by Dorothy Dunnett
The Raj Quartet by Paul Scott
The Irish novels of Morgan Llywelyn, like Druids, Bard, Lion of Ireland, Red Branch, etc.
River God and sequels by Wilbur Smith
Morgan's Run by Colleen McCullough

Tammy wrote: "The Pillars of the Earth or Fall of Giants"

I was totally about to say...any Ken Follett!

I cannot agree more with Carolyn above. Memoirs of Cleopatra and The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers are among my all time favorite books. Long, but they don't feel like it. They actually leave you wishing for more pages.

If you want something that is more of a non-fiction nature but about scandals you could tryRoyal Affairs: A Lusty Romp Through the Extramarital Adventures That Rocked the British Monarchy or Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III. The second one is filled with more quotes and footnote type things but still tells a side of a British royal family about whom not much is heard here except that George III was the king during the American Revolution and had sanity issues.

If he likes scandal, how about The Winter Palace: A Novel of Catherine the Great and its sequel, Empress of the Night: A Novel of Catherine the Great? You can't beat a good Russian tsar(ina) for scandal.

Along those lines, there are also Robert K. Massie's acclaimed Nicholas and Alexandra and Peter the Great: His Life and World. They claim to be nonfiction, but the conversations make one suspicious. And even if they are, Rasputin is stranger than fiction, as they say.

Not sure about your father, but I see that your Goodreads profile says your interests include Judaism, Middle East politics & culture, & historical fiction. Let me suggest my own new 2-part historical series set in 4th-century Babylonia as the Talmud is being created. The two novels areApprentice: A Novel of Love, the Talmud, and Sorcery and Enchantress: A Novel of Rav Hisda's Daughter.

Non-fiction, but you should consider Erik Larson for your father. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America or In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin

Burr by Gore Vidal had a different take on History that your father might enjoy. I also think The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers would be a great choice.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

The Tokaido Road by Lucia St. Clair Robson

The Prince Lost to Time by Ann Dukthas

Kelly Park by Jean Stubbs

The Fourth Turning by William Strauss

Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived by Ralph Helfer

Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson

The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman. She has other books about the Plantagenet family, Yorks, and Lancasters.

Conn Iggulden has three historical series, Conqueror about Genghis Khan, Emperor about Julius Caesar, and War of the Roses one.

Jeff Shaara writes about the Civil War and other American conflicts.