For various reasons, I can't ask my friend to suggest specific authors. She has asked for historical fiction. I can tell you some books she has been interested in recently both from fiction and non fiction genres. Whether or not she has liked these books is a different matter but hopefully it might help people with recommendations;
She has recently read Lessons in Chemistry, some Thomas Hardy and One Hundred Years of Solitude and the Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb. She has read Haruki Murakami and is learning Japanese.
She reads extremely serious historical works such the Tattoist of Auschwitz, The Choice by Edith Eger, The Survivor by Josef Lewkewicz with Michael Calvin, Samurai by Jon Man, and Robert K Massie: Catherine the Great. She likes feminist histories and works by Tracy Borman. She has probably read all of Philippa Gregory and Hilary Mantel. She has fairly recently read some well known retellings of myth and legend, for example Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker and Circe and The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.
She also has recently read very light works mostly satire and travel books particularly focussing on East Asia. She also has a close connection to Hong Kong.
She is a fan of Jane Austen and watches a lot of thrillers on TV.
Would people kindly suggest as many books as possible and hopefully something will work out 🙂
by Lost-Resolution679
19 Comments
Hild by Nicola Griffith.
Based on a real person, but it’s fiction as when she was young, and that wasn’t really known, other than she really did advise kings.
Natalie Haynes does some great retelling of Greek myths. Also try The Miniaturist, for a bit of Dutch history. Finally, Cryptonomicon, and The Baroque Cycle, both by Neal Stephenson.
Thank you for all the comments so far!
The traveling cat Chronicles,
The physician by Noah Gordon,
Lavinia by Ursula le Guin retelling the Aeneid,
Till we have faces by c s Lewis retelling the legend of psyche
James Clavell and/or James Michener. There’s lots of books.
She might enjoy something by Margaret George. I liked Mary Queen of Scots and Mary, Called Magdalene. Her Nero one was great but it’s in two parts.
I also like Lisa See’s books. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan; The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane; and Peony In Love are among my favorites.
This House is Mine by Dorte Hansen is something a little different and maybe slightly out of the genre. It deals with the long shadow World War II casts on a family who escaped Poland and the Germans who took them in.
Harry sidebottom is an Oxford don who’s written quite a few very historically accurate historical fiction books, but they’re rather male-focused iirc
*Here Be Dragons* by Sharon Kay Penman is wonderful. (So is *The Sunne in Splendour* by the same author, but I’m recommending *Here Be Dragons* because of its female protagonist, Joanna.)
For retellings and mythology, maybe she’d like something like one of Vaishnavi Patel’s books or the Winternight trilogy by Katherine Arden? Vaishnavi Patel has two standalones giving perspectives to women from the Ramayana (*Kaikeyi*) and the Mahabharata (*Goddess of the River*), and the Winternight trilogy has Russian history and mythology.
Exodus or anything else by Leon Uris.
Code Name Verity
Karen Maitland, perhaps? Most of her works are medieval-set.
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, Pachinko, Babel! 🙂 your friend and I have very similar tastes so hopefully one of those is up her alley.
if your friend likes mid-century / WWII -ish era historical fiction, maybe check out Ruta Septys’ works? she writes about lesser known historical events from that time
Look at The Gift of Rain or The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng – set in Malaya during the early to mid 1900s and really well written. They can be quite grim, but in a similar way to things like The Tattooist of Auschwitz.
Blackout by Connie Willis
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer
The Dove Keepers by Alice Hoffman
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
“The Exiles,” by Christina Baker Kline. Part 1 describes the cramped and unsanitary conditions British prisoners endured when transported by sailing ship to Van Deiman’s Land, later Tasmana, to the port city of Hobart Town. This was the penal colony of the Empire. we get some of the prisoners’ stories later, but Part 2 is of extreme interest. It is all true. Polar Explorer, Sir John Franklin was appointed governor of the land by the Crown. He and his wife, Lady Jane lived there. She was the living embodiment of the Guiness’ Book of Oddities. She had an 8 year old Aboriginal girl taken from her tribe and brought to the governor’s mansion. Jane set about using the girl, named Mathina, in a social experiment. Mathinna was a real person as were the Franklins. Everything written about these people is true. The is a Wiki page about Mathinna.
“The Last Bookaneer,” by Mathew Pearl. This is an historical fiction taking place in the late 1890s-early 1900s. It is a story about three bookaneers, manuscript thieves, who are frenemies. Each has their eye on Robert Louis Stevenson’s current work in progress. Unfortunately, Stevenson has left Britian and is currently living in Samoa where he is writing his last novel. These London based bookaneers not only have to get themselves to Samoa, everyone there has aligned themselvrs with Stevenson and his family. The locals are NOT about to let anyone near the family, especially not the bookaneers. What each has to do finagle their way within stealing distance of the manuscript is really, but this is not intended to be a funny book. It’s a great read!
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.
The Women of Chateau Lafayette by Stephanie Dray. Historical fiction about the strong women who lived there in three different time periods.
1632 by John Ringo. great series about a modern day USA town dropped into the 30 year war.