This list is for the most well known Historical Fiction books on Goodreads.

For purposes of this list, only include books with over 100,000 ratings and shelved at least 1000 times as historical fiction.

Anything with less than 100,000 ratings or shelved less than 1000 times as historical fiction will be removed and without comment.

A book that was set in the time it was written like say Pride and Prejudice is not historical fiction. Please avoid putting these on the list and call them out in comments to discourage people. But librarians shouldn't remove such books from these lists as long as its been tagged incorrectly at least 1000 times.

See also:
Best Historical Fiction
Best Historical Fiction of the 21st Century
Best Historical Mystery
Recommended Historical Fiction
Teen Historical Fiction

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1

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4.31 avg rating — 1,960,213 ratings
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4.26 avg rating — 1,149,174 ratings
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4.47 avg rating — 3,006,115 ratings
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4.36 avg rating — 3,474,607 ratings
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4.65 avg rating — 2,063,488 ratings
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3.93 avg rating — 779,064 ratings
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4.26 avg rating — 6,841,528 ratings
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4.41 avg rating — 211,543 ratings
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4.45 avg rating — 1,725,663 ratings
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4.16 avg rating — 2,104,787 ratings
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4.31 avg rating — 1,254,643 ratings
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3.90 avg rating — 2,030,155 ratings
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4.04 avg rating — 156,294 ratings
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3.91 avg rating — 232,413 ratings
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4.37 avg rating — 3,591,637 ratings
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4.26 avg rating — 226,274 ratings
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4.14 avg rating — 394,239 ratings
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4.11 avg rating — 1,696,366 ratings
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4.39 avg rating — 2,862,795 ratings
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20

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4.35 avg rating — 826,744 ratings
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3.90 avg rating — 2,818,402 ratings
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4.30 avg rating — 317,305 ratings
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4.32 avg rating — 274,852 ratings
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4.19 avg rating — 807,578 ratings
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25

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4.10 avg rating — 282,061 ratings
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26

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4.39 avg rating — 329,956 ratings
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27

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3.79 avg rating — 240,878 ratings
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28

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4.31 avg rating — 716,056 ratings
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29

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4.09 avg rating — 512,377 ratings
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30

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4.11 avg rating — 791,462 ratings
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31

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4.32 avg rating — 346,106 ratings
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32

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4.16 avg rating — 2,311,465 ratings
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32

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3.87 avg rating — 254,452 ratings
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34

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4.37 avg rating — 275,289 ratings
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35

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4.03 avg rating — 990,378 ratings
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36

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4.34 avg rating — 384,085 ratings
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36

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4.14 avg rating — 357,633 ratings
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38

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3.62 avg rating — 152,497 ratings
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39

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4.44 avg rating — 191,156 ratings
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40

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4.13 avg rating — 212,638 ratings
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41

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4.35 avg rating — 253,763 ratings
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42

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4.11 avg rating — 517,876 ratings
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42

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4.02 avg rating — 172,303 ratings
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44

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4.36 avg rating — 268,417 ratings
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4.10 avg rating — 1,477,754 ratings
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46

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4.44 avg rating — 165,245 ratings
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3.92 avg rating — 1,353,603 ratings
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48

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4.05 avg rating — 314,626 ratings
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4.34 avg rating — 182,453 ratings
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50

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3.88 avg rating — 1,009,656 ratings
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51

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3.93 avg rating — 166,936 ratings
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52

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3.99 avg rating — 884,570 ratings
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52

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4.10 avg rating — 346,036 ratings
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54

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3.74 avg rating — 411,151 ratings
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55

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4.32 avg rating — 661,937 ratings
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56

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4.01 avg rating — 174,866 ratings
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57

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3.80 avg rating — 225,512 ratings
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57

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3.97 avg rating — 708,670 ratings
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59

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4.31 avg rating — 269,441 ratings
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60

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4.25 avg rating — 364,185 ratings
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61

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4.04 avg rating — 662,429 ratings
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61

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4.07 avg rating — 141,409 ratings
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63

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4.17 avg rating — 1,289,842 ratings
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64

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4.16 avg rating — 237,933 ratings
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65

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4.30 avg rating — 272,930 ratings
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66

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4.38 avg rating — 176,761 ratings
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4.04 avg rating — 477,912 ratings
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68

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4.04 avg rating — 156,032 ratings
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4.03 avg rating — 160,054 ratings
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69

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3.83 avg rating — 609,230 ratings
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4.33 avg rating — 425,354 ratings
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4.04 avg rating — 549,584 ratings
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73

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4.08 avg rating — 271,095 ratings
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74

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3.79 avg rating — 230,699 ratings
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3.82 avg rating — 178,425 ratings
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76

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4.31 avg rating — 874,903 ratings
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77

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3.96 avg rating — 182,341 ratings
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77

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4.42 avg rating — 584,191 ratings
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79

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3.86 avg rating — 194,015 ratings
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80

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4.34 avg rating — 617,895 ratings
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81

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4.47 avg rating — 400,533 ratings
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82

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3.80 avg rating — 276,201 ratings
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83

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4.55 avg rating — 475,949 ratings
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84

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4.33 avg rating — 1,107,461 ratings
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85

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4.18 avg rating — 494,243 ratings
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86

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4.57 avg rating — 237,451 ratings
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3.80 avg rating — 871,034 ratings
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88

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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 127,889 ratings
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4.45 avg rating — 164,640 ratings
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90

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4.06 avg rating — 443,183 ratings
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4.06 avg rating — 181,179 ratings
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92

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4.29 avg rating — 504,103 ratings
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93

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3.83 avg rating — 1,334,766 ratings
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4.05 avg rating — 463,394 ratings
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95

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3.94 avg rating — 545,111 ratings
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96

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3.92 avg rating — 1,014,711 ratings
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97

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4.09 avg rating — 387,018 ratings
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98

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4.19 avg rating — 212,291 ratings
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99

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4.35 avg rating — 645,845 ratings
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3.93 avg rating — 122,893 ratings
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176 books · 29 voters · list created December 21st, 2020 by Mitchell Friedman (votes) .
5 likes · 
Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes.


Mitchell 11529 books
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Fiona 1667 books
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Rebecca 5584 books
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Willow Anne 1665 books
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Rich 85376 books
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Charlotte Igelkott 3128 books
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Comments Showing 1-9 of 9 (9 new)

dateUp arrow    newest »

message 1: by BookLovingLady (deceased Jan. 25, 2023...) (last edited Dec 22, 2020 01:01AM) (new)

BookLovingLady (deceased Jan. 25, 2023...) There are a number of books on this list which are not historical fiction... (Pride and Prejudice for instance, as it was written in the time it was set).


message 2: by Mitchell (new)

Mitchell Friedman Booklovinglady wrote: "There are a number of books on this list which are not historical fiction... (Pride and Prejudice for instance, as it was written in the time it was set)."

The fun thing about an arbitrary rule - like must be tagged a particular way - is it doesn't have to be right.

I thought about this exact instance when creating this list and I'll put something in the list description.


Charlotte Igelkott Mitchell wrote: "Booklovinglady wrote: "There are a number of books on this list which are not historical fiction... (Pride and Prejudice for instance, as it was written in the time it was set)."

The f..."


Other weird effects of the number of shelvings rule:
The Name of the Rose qualifies for the classics list, but not for the historical fiction list. (Still not sure I can trust my eyes on that one but I've checked and double checked and...nope)
The House of the Spirits qualifies for the historical fiction list, but not for the classics list.
Surely I can't be the only one who thinks the reverse would make more sense? (Not trying to suggest any changes, just genuinely astonished)


message 4: by Emrys (last edited Jan 18, 2021 10:24AM) (new)

Emrys Charlotte Igelkott wrote: "Mitchell wrote: "Booklovinglady wrote: "There are a number of books on this list which are not historical fiction... (Pride and Prejudice for instance, as it was written in the time it ..."

I suspect with the The Name of the Rose probably did previously qualify for this list but somehow the genre shelf totals have been been reinterpreted/misinterpreted by Goodreads - e.g. the 4000 or so shelvings it has for “Fiction” is similar to the number of shelvings Fall of Giants has for “historical fiction” (the two books both have about 300,000 ratings).


Charlotte Igelkott Emrys wrote: "Charlotte Igelkott wrote: "Mitchell wrote: "Booklovinglady wrote: "There are a number of books on this list which are not historical fiction... (Pride and Prejudice for instance, as it ..."

Oh. Sounds a bit odd to me, but then I'm not very tech savvy. Is this the sort of thing that would be likely to flip back and forth at random or will it be stable until someone notices and changes it back? (Assuming the current numbers are wrong, of course) How can one tell if tNotR is the only book this has happened to or if it's a widespread phenomenon? Would it be likely to have affected other shelves as well? And from a librarian point of view, should I stop deleting books for insufficient shelvings for now?
(Sorry if I'm being too inquisitive - would be better to contact support, perhaps?)


message 6: by Emrys (new)

Emrys Charlotte Igelkott wrote: "Emrys wrote: "Charlotte Igelkott wrote: "Mitchell wrote: "Booklovinglady wrote: "There are a number of books on this list which are not historical fiction... (Pride and Prejudice for in..."

I have a spreadsheet of books that records 4000+ shelvings for the genre “Historical Fiction” - I used this tool to get the genre data: https://github.com/PaulKlinger/Enhanc... , but I can’t be sure if the discrepancy is because of an error made by the tool, or because of Goodreads changing things.

Yes, I’ll try asking Support about it later. I don’t get the impression that it’s a widespread problem (just this book actually).


Charlotte Igelkott Emrys wrote: "Charlotte Igelkott wrote: "Emrys wrote: "Charlotte Igelkott wrote: "Mitchell wrote: "Booklovinglady wrote: "There are a number of books on this list which are not historical fiction... ([book:Pride..."

That sounds reassuring. Thank you for answering :)


message 8: by Emrys (new)

Emrys Charlotte Igelkott wrote: "Emrys wrote: "Charlotte Igelkott wrote: "Emrys wrote: "Charlotte Igelkott wrote: "Mitchell wrote: "Booklovinglady wrote: "There are a number of books on this list which are not historical fiction....."

I raised this issue with Support and they said they’d get the developers to look into it.

If it’s not sorted in a week or two I guess the book can be removed from the list.


message 9: by Emrys (new)

Emrys The Name of the Rose now has 4300 shelvings as "Historical Fiction" so it seems the issue has been fixed.


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