List your favorite Top 10 Historical Fiction Reads

rebecca · Post by **rebecca** » Tue October 18th, 2011, 1:19 am

[quote=""Margaret""]Given your name, how could you resist including it![/quote]

LOL Margaret

my thoughts exactly

Bec

Matt Phillips · Post by **Matt Phillips** » Tue October 18th, 2011, 8:42 pm

North and South, John Jakes
Here Be Dragons and Falls the Shadow, SKP
The Last Kingdom, The Winter King, and Rebel, Bernard Cornwell
I Claudius, Robert Graves
Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott
O Beulah Land, Mary Lee Settle
Tie: Arundel and Rabble in Arms, Kenneth Roberts

LGWalker · Post by **LGWalker** » Tue October 18th, 2011, 11:34 pm

I'm too intimidated ... I feel as if I should have stepped up my reading considerably circa 1982 if I ever could have hoped to chime in with this group. Oh well, woulda, coulda, shoulda ...

rebecca · Post by **rebecca** » Wed October 19th, 2011, 12:20 am

[quote=""LGWalker""]I'm too intimidated ... I feel as if I should have stepped up my reading considerably circa 1982 if I ever could have hoped to chime in with this group. Oh well, woulda, coulda, shoulda ...[/quote]

Hi LG

it's really just a matter of naming your favourite books at least that is what I listed. It doesn't have to be the best books ever written by man or woman and thank God for that for chances are the so called 'most brilliant' books I don't understand....'Wolf Hall' by Hilary Mantel is one

couldn't understand it when it was published and still don't 'get it'

.

I'd like to read what books you simply enjoyed reading.

Bec

LGWalker · Post by **LGWalker** » Wed October 19th, 2011, 7:13 pm

Ok then, (deep breath) here goes nothing ...

Widow of the South - Hicks
The Other Boleyn Girl - Gregory
The Life of Elizabeth I - Weir
Pillars of the Earth - Follet
Hawaii - Michener
Any of the Sir John Fielding mysteries
Skeletons on the Zahara - King
Caleb's Crossing - Brooks
The Secret River - Grenville
Killer Angels - Shaara

rebecca · Post by **rebecca** » Thu October 20th, 2011, 12:45 am

[quote=""LGWalker""]Ok then, (deep breath) here goes nothing ...

Widow of the South - Hicks
The Other Boleyn Girl - Gregory
The Life of Elizabeth I - Weir
Pillars of the Earth - Follet
Hawaii - Michener
Any of the Sir John Fielding mysteries
Skeletons on the Zahara - King
Caleb's Crossing - Brooks
The Secret River - Grenville
Killer Angels - Shaara[/quote]

Thanks LG

I also loved The Other Boleyn girl and feel it is Gregory's best work alongside the Boleyn Inheritance. I really enjoyed Pillars of the Earth(as well as the TV adptation) I also intend ordering 'The Secret River' and 'Sarah Thornhill' by Greville. Though I have Elizabeth I by Weir it is on my large TBR list

..Did you ever read 'Innocent Traitor' by Weir? I think it is her best non fiction book. I am also interested in finding out what 'Widow of the South' is as I haven't heard of it before.

Bec

Sharz · Post by **Sharz** » Thu October 20th, 2011, 4:06 am

Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
Eagle in the Snow by Wallace Breem
The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman
Knight's Fee by Rosemary Sutcliff
Shadows and Strongholds by Elizabeth Chadwick
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Celia Garth by Gwen Bristow
First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough
Shogun by James Clavell
Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell

Margaret · Post by **Margaret** » Thu October 20th, 2011, 4:02 pm

Great lists. I think I have Celia Garth in one of my TBR stacks, and will have to move it up. I want to read The Secret River, too. I read Hawaii as a teen and loved it - still the one Michener I thought was a thorough pleasure to read.

scubachick420 · Post by **scubachick420** » Thu October 27th, 2011, 12:05 pm

East of Eden by John Steinbeck
The Thorn Birds by Colleen Mccoullough (and the rome series)
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
The Source by James Michener
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Shogun by James Clavell
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (just because it was the first one i read)
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett
The Greatest Knight by Elizabeth Chadwick
The Master of Verona by David Blixt
(uh-0h, that's eleven!)

SGM · Post by **SGM** » Thu October 27th, 2011, 6:12 pm

[quote=""scubachick420""]East of Eden by John Steinbeck
The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett
(uh-0h, that's eleven!)[/quote]

I loved East of Eden and, I think GoK along with Checkmate were my favourites of Dunnett so far but I haven't yet finished the House of Niccolo set.

I read Taras Bulba aeons ago but loved that too as with the Robert Graves books (including Goodbye to All That - but differently).