Favorite Historical Novels?

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As condemnable as it is, I still like Silence by Shusaku Endo.
 
I recommend Pillars of the Earth. I love the time frame of Kings and knights and horses.
 
Also enjoyed Louis de Wohl’s historical novels about the saints. Might give them another go.
 
LoyalViews said:
As condemnable as it is, I still like Silence by Shusaku Endo.
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Is it a lot like the movie (if you’ve seen it)? I’ve been considering reading the book, on and off. The movie had a huge impact on me.
 
There used to be so many of these, and I think they were all printed in condensed form in those Readers’ Digest volumes that everybody over a certain age had on their bookshelves. Are there still good historical novels?

As a young person, I greatly enjoyed the condensed version of Michener’s “Hawaii”. I did not like some of his later works as much, but “Hawaii” was awesome and I learned so much about the history of the islands.

I also liked “The President’s Lady” by Irving Stone, which was about Rachel Jackson, the wife of Andrew Jackson.

Another one I found intriguing, because it was about a lesser known person in history, was “Beloved” by Vina Delmar, about Judah Benjamin, a Jewish politician who was married to a French Creole wife (who cheated on him, apparently) and became a member of Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ cabinet.

In high school I was a big Leon Uris fan and made it through “QB VII” and most of “Trinity”. I’d like to re-read “Trinity” again now, I would have more idea what was going on apart from Catholics and Protestants fighting each other.

One more that I read completely on a whim after finding it at Goodwill and liking the cover design, is a Jewish Holocaust survivor novel called “Anya” by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer. I don’t read many books on the Holocaust or on WWII, but this was beautifully written and spent a lot of time discussing the protagonist’s pre-war life. I found out many years later it was based on a real person who I think sued the author for appropriating her life story.
 
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Robert Graves, I, Claudius, together with its sequel Claudius the God. The BBC series starring Derek Jacobi, aired in the mid-seventies, was a first-rate adaptation.
 
I watched the first half of the film, and it was almost scene-by-scene as what the book was. I don’t know for the second half, because I had to run somewhere.
 
BartholomewB said:
Robert Graves, I, Claudius
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I remember my high school Latin teacher trying to get us to watch the miniseries on PBS. I had better things to do with my time in high school, but when I hit my 30s, I decided to read the book and then rented the entire miniseries to have something to watch with my mom and husband when she was staying with us for a couple weeks. Really good miniseries.

Have not read “Claudius the God” yet.
 
Oh yes I forgot about Trinity. I’ve read that twice.

Also Herman Wouk. I liked the Winds of War book better than the mini series.
 
I loved “The Caine Mutiny” and “Marjorie Morningstar”, especially the ending where she gets married and then meets up with Wally again. I think on the one hand it was awful for Wouk to reduce his heroine to being obscure and boring, but on the other hand, he showed so well how all those things we think are so important to our existence when we are 20 just simply aren’t that big in the grand scheme of things.

After those two masterpieces, I didn’t feel like bothering with “Winds of War”…just seemed to me like he was trying to write something sellable as a miniseries, since those were so very trendy for a couple decades.
 
Sigrid Undset’s trilogy, Kristin Lavransdatter is just marvelous.
 
My favorite historical writers are Dostoyevsky and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. I’ve read their works many times. Never tire of them.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
One more that I read completely on a whim after finding it at Goodwill and liking the cover design, is a Jewish Holocaust survivor novel called “Anya” by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer. I don’t read many books on the Holocaust or on WWII, but this was beautifully written and spent a lot of time discussing the protagonist’s pre-war life. I found out many years later it was based on a real person who I think sued the author for appropriating her life story.
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I read “Anya” years ago and loved it! Gosh, it’s been years since I’ve even thought about the book. It’s still available on Amazon.
 
North and South…though I probably should not have read that at age 11. 🤔😶😐
 
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