Historical books set in Eastern European/ Nordic regions
I really enjoy learning about these regions’ histories, don’t really want an overview, just a book set in this time period but following a plot. Could be based on real life or complete fiction, I have no preference.
You could try Burial Rites by Hannah Kent – set in Iceland in the early 1800s and based on a true story.
If you like crime novels, you might want to look at the books by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö – they were a Swedish couple who wrote collaboratively in the 60s and 70s, and their work is considered pretty groundbreaking. They used their books as a sort of vehicle for criticising and examining social issues, so it gives a lot of detail about life at that time. They’re considered to be a strong influence on what we now see as police procedural books, and I found it really refreshing to read crime novels that were written at a time when detectives didn’t have all the technology and knowledge that they have now, it was interesting to see how they worked. The concept of the collaborative writing also really fascinated me – apparently they’d plot out each chapter together and then they’d write alternate chapters and then swap and edit each other’s. It’s so interesting that the style just flows, you can’t tell that it’s written by two different people so they’d obviously developed a joint style that they both used.
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The Hussite Trilogy by Sapkowski of the Witcher fame is historical fantasy in the Eastern Europe.
If you want pure historical fiction there is By Fire and Sword, The Deluge, and Fire in the Steppe by Henryk Sienkiewicz or alternatively Prince Serebrenni by Aleksey Tolstoy
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You could try Burial Rites by Hannah Kent – set in Iceland in the early 1800s and based on a true story.
If you like crime novels, you might want to look at the books by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö – they were a Swedish couple who wrote collaboratively in the 60s and 70s, and their work is considered pretty groundbreaking. They used their books as a sort of vehicle for criticising and examining social issues, so it gives a lot of detail about life at that time. They’re considered to be a strong influence on what we now see as police procedural books, and I found it really refreshing to read crime novels that were written at a time when detectives didn’t have all the technology and knowledge that they have now, it was interesting to see how they worked. The concept of the collaborative writing also really fascinated me – apparently they’d plot out each chapter together and then they’d write alternate chapters and then swap and edit each other’s. It’s so interesting that the style just flows, you can’t tell that it’s written by two different people so they’d obviously developed a joint style that they both used.
The Hussite Trilogy by Sapkowski of the Witcher fame is historical fantasy in the Eastern Europe.
If you want pure historical fiction there is By Fire and Sword, The Deluge, and Fire in the Steppe by Henryk Sienkiewicz or alternatively Prince Serebrenni by Aleksey Tolstoy
Ivo Andrić: *The Bridge on the Drina* (Bosnia).