Historical Novels (Recommendations)

Hey newbie here,

I'm currently reading Amin Malouf's Samarkand and have Orhan Pamuk's Instanbul on queue.

Honestly i never really cared about this genre until i read 'The bridge over the Drina' which i absolutely fell in love with...

So i ask for the generosity of more knowledgeable forum goers here at OL for some suggestions of similar works (preference to singular novels; no series). I'm Mainly interested in works relating to Eastern Europe, Middle East, Feudal japan or heck, Asia in general.

Cheers.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell - very good on the first trading missions from Europe to feudal Japan.

"Rob Roy" by Walter Scott - an old classic of the genre.

They both seem like great works (from the few reviews that ive read) but the one by David Mitchell is absolutely the kind of book i was hopeing to find out about! Thanks!

Scipio/Hannibal by Ross Leckie are very written books. Scipio in particular. As you're interested in the east, Shogun by James Clavell is the obvious one.

Try Mahfouz. He is known for his novels about pre-revolutionary Egypt.

Despite my sh*te Dutch translation (I keep repeating it :D), I am aware that he uses some great language and writes wonderful prose. And I am difficult to please.

" "Rob Roy" by Walter Scott - an old classic of the genre."

"Count Robert of Paris" & "The Talisman" would be nearer to the OP's criteria, especially Count Robert.
For that same clash of Western Europe/Byzantine Empire/Crusades, then Alfred Duggan's "Lord Geoffrey's Fancy" & "The Lady for Ransome."

And Robert Graves' "Count Belisarius"

But for a more modern take on the period, try "Pilgermann" by Russell Hoban - a weird & wonderful book.

I saw the movie Roby Roy with Liam Neeson, and was propelled into the book, but found it disappointing. Not like the movie at all. I don't like reading Scott's Scotch dialect, and would have never got through the book without a glossary.

What about going there for some practice :D

Although you specified against series, maybe you would accept a trilogy? Amitav Ghosh is part way through his Ibis trilogy, set in the period of what British historians refer to as the Opium Wars of the mid-nineteenth century between the East India Company and China. I read the first part, Sea of Poppies with much enjoyment and am looking forward to reading the second recently published part, River of Smoke. The characters are believable and sypathetically drawn and the events have a kind of disturbing inevitablity about them: the story throws light on one of the less-reputable parts of British History and opens up all sorts of questions about the nature of Empire.

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Originally Posted by endovelico

They both seem like great works (from the few reviews that ive read) but the one by David Mitchell is absolutely the kind of book i was hopeing to find out about! Thanks!

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Its one of the best modern novels I've read in the last year, up there with Philip Roth. Actually Roth seems be looking back to the 1940s a lot these days, so might be looked at as writing historical novels now (!) You might like "Nemesis" if 1940s US history is appealing - it's very good on the polio outbreaks of that period.

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Originally Posted by dfloyd

I saw the movie Roby Roy with Liam Neeson, and was propelled into the book, but found it disappointing. Not like the movie at all. I don't like reading Scott's Scotch dialect, and would have never got through the book without a glossary.

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I've lived there but still found the dialect difficult! But its not all in dialect, only one character is very "broad", and Scott has his English hero becoming confused about what that chap is saying - hinting to the reader that it doesn't matter if you don't understand everything the character says! I took the hint and then started really enjoying the novel. I only had to use my concise OED a couple of times for the other Scottish characters, and the words *were* in there - well done Oxford - not just E!

The strong dialect only takes up a few pages and doesn't seem to be important to the plot. Rob Roy and his wife, and many other characters, speak in an understandable Scottish dialect, and it's fascinating how Scott plays with these different dialects. Once the novel gets going, after a hundred pages or so, it turns into one of the most exciting adventure stories I've read.

Another great historical novel by a classic author - Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens.

I've read two historical novels and the one that didn't suck was Flaubert's Salammbo.

Quo Vadis - Henryk Sienkiewicz - one of my favorite books

Foreign Mud by Maurice Collis is a very good account of how the British managed to keep the Chinese zonked out on Opium in the 19th Century and how they started a war with the Chinese to ensure that they maintained the addiction!! That's how we came by Hong Kong. A very absorbing read.

With Fire and Sword. About a Polish/Lithuanian rebellion, I believe.