Historical Fiction

[Lake Swan]

Take your finger off that Purchase button for a minute and post a list of your favorite historical novels.

Thanks.

[Opus106]

I haven't read many in this genre, but the one that immediately comes to mind is The Day of the Jackal (Frederick Forsyth). It's a thriller, centred around a plot to kill Charles de Gaulle (have I spoiled it for you already? ). Regardless of whether one likes the book (I did), the meticulousness with which Forsyth describes how the assassin's plan takes shape would astound the reader. I read somewhere that this didn't sit well with the authorities at the time ('70s), since he was pretty much giving a primer on passport forgery and other such ways to deceive them.

[The book was adapted to film at least twice. Avoid the one with Bruce Willis at all costs.]

[petrarch]

Off the top of my head (but these were the first that I immediately remembered, so probably those I find most memorable):

Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian
Umberto Eco, The name of the rose
Umberto Eco, Foucault's pendulum
Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi
Patrick Süskind, Perfume

[Florestan]

OTOMH

Umberto Eco, The name of the rose
Umberto Eco, Foucault's pendulum

Umberto Eco - The Island of the Day Before
Mika Waltari - The Dark Angel, The Wanderer
Amin Maalouf - Samarkand, Balthasar's Odyssey, The Gardens of Light
Monaldi & Sorti - Imprimatur
Jose Saramago - Baltasar and Blimunda
Mario Vargas Llosa - The War of the End of the World

[Karl Henning]

I've not read all that many;  these I've enjoyed, though I make no ambitious claims for them:

Allan Massie's Let the Emperor Speak, whose conceit is that it Cæsar Octavian's autobiography.
And a book whose author and exact title elude me, which is a hypothetical biography of Marlowe-who- really-wrote-Shakespeare.  (Personally, I am content to let Shakespeare have written his own plays, but the book was diverting.)

[Bogey]

 

and

[Lake Swan]

Very good, gentlemen! I'll investigate those I haven't read already.

[Bogey]

Very good, gentlemen! I'll investigate those I haven't read already.

I highly rec the Valley Forge.  Reads very well and engages from the get go.

[The new erato]

Anything by Newt Gingrich is highly fictional.

[Lake Swan]

Anything by Newt Gingrich is highly fictional.

Ew.

[Bogey]

Anything by Newt Gingrich is highly fictional.

You might be surprised by how good it is.  I usually do not care for historical fiction, but this one is excellent.

[Gurn Blanston]

I cut my eyeteeth in the genre with James Michener. Whether one loves, hates or doesn't know him, he is nonetheless a superb writer who truly does write historical fiction. The amount of actual factual that you come away with at the end is mind-boggling!

Off the top of my head (but these were the first that I immediately remembered, so probably those I find most memorable):

Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian
Umberto Eco, The name of the rose
Umberto Eco, Foucault's pendulum
Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi
Patrick Süskind, Perfume

I've read all of these except for the Süskind. Of the 2 Eco's, I preferred 'The Name of the Rose' to 'Foucault's Pendulum', And seeing the 'Musashi' mention reminds me that James Clavell's 'Shogun' was one of the best novels in the genre ever, IMO. 

[Lake Swan]

Thanks, everyone. 

[Karl Henning]

Gurn, although buzz for Michener is an early memory in my own timeline of publication industry awareness, I've not read a page of his stuff. If I could choose but one to read, what in your estimable opinion ought that one to be? TIA

[Karl Henning]

One book, I mean--not which one page ought I to read....

[Lake Swan]

I think my father-in-law has plenty of Michener.

[drogulus]

     Mitchener is a clunky writer. I've only read a few and of those I'd pick The Source and Hawaii. You're reading through the clumsy prose and characterizations to get the ideas. Depending on where the balance is struck (Jamesian versus Wellsian) he's either a very bad writer or a fairly good one.

[Gurn Blanston]

     Mitchener is a clunky writer. I've only read a few and of those I'd pick The Source and Hawaii. You're reading through the clumsy prose and characterizations to get the ideas. Depending on where the balance is struck (Jamesian versus Wellsian) he's either a very bad writer or a fairly good one.

Needless to say I disagree. However, the bigger picture is that his ideas are interesting enough to overcome that perception (if you have it).

His essential concept (used in most books) is to pick a spot on Earth and reconstruct its history from prehistory to the present. IN addition to the 2 you mentioned, I found Centennial to be very interesting, and Poland too. I like 'em, you don't. No big deal either way. He's dead, so he won't care. 

[drogulus]

Needless to say I disagree. However, the bigger picture is that his ideas are interesting enough to overcome that perception (if you have it).

His essential concept (used in most books) is to pick a spot on Earth and reconstruct its history from prehistory to the present. IN addition to the 2 you mentioned, I found Centennial to be very interesting, and Poland too. I like 'em, you don't. No big deal either way. He's dead, so he won't care. 

     I don't know what you're disagreeing with, that Mitchener is not a graceful writer, or that his books are worthwhile in spite of this.

[Gurn Blanston]

     I don't know what you're disagreeing with, that Mitchener is not a graceful writer, or that his books are worthwhile in spite of this.

That he is a clunky writer. I didn't find him anything but easily comprehensible.