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 — 1,965,779 ratings
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4.26 avg rating — 1,150,874 ratings
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4.47 avg rating — 3,012,352 ratings
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4.36 avg rating — 3,480,931 ratings
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4.65 avg rating — 2,075,655 ratings
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3.93 avg rating — 779,672 ratings
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4.26 avg rating — 6,858,315 ratings
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4.41 avg rating — 211,809 ratings
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4.45 avg rating — 1,728,130 ratings
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4.16 avg rating — 2,106,794 ratings
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4.31 avg rating — 1,255,421 ratings
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3.90 avg rating — 2,035,580 ratings
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4.04 avg rating — 156,452 ratings
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3.91 avg rating — 232,681 ratings
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4.37 avg rating — 3,605,402 ratings
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4.26 avg rating — 226,496 ratings
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4.14 avg rating — 394,617 ratings
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4.11 avg rating — 1,698,067 ratings
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4.39 avg rating — 2,868,440 ratings
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4.35 avg rating — 828,042 ratings
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3.90 avg rating — 2,824,529 ratings
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4.30 avg rating — 317,968 ratings
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4.32 avg rating — 275,199 ratings
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4.19 avg rating — 808,634 ratings
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25

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4.10 avg rating — 282,274 ratings
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4.39 avg rating — 330,236 ratings
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27

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3.79 avg rating — 241,027 ratings
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4.31 avg rating — 717,066 ratings
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29

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4.09 avg rating — 512,690 ratings
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30

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4.11 avg rating — 792,092 ratings
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31

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4.32 avg rating — 346,464 ratings
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32

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4.16 avg rating — 2,315,457 ratings
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32

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3.87 avg rating — 254,631 ratings
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34

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4.37 avg rating — 275,738 ratings
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35

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4.03 avg rating — 991,630 ratings
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36

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4.34 avg rating — 384,445 ratings
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36

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4.14 avg rating — 358,246 ratings
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38

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3.62 avg rating — 152,573 ratings
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39

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4.44 avg rating — 191,332 ratings
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40

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4.13 avg rating — 212,720 ratings
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41

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4.35 avg rating — 254,338 ratings
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42

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4.11 avg rating — 518,499 ratings
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4.02 avg rating — 172,793 ratings
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4.36 avg rating — 268,665 ratings
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4.10 avg rating — 1,479,410 ratings
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46

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4.44 avg rating — 165,406 ratings
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3.92 avg rating — 1,355,033 ratings
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48

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4.05 avg rating — 314,790 ratings
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4.34 avg rating — 182,740 ratings
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50

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3.88 avg rating — 1,010,635 ratings
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51

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3.93 avg rating — 166,986 ratings
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52

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3.99 avg rating — 885,190 ratings
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52

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4.10 avg rating — 346,270 ratings
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54

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3.74 avg rating — 411,549 ratings
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55

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4.32 avg rating — 663,470 ratings
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56

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4.01 avg rating — 175,002 ratings
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57

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3.80 avg rating — 225,527 ratings
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57

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3.97 avg rating — 708,962 ratings
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59

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4.31 avg rating — 269,955 ratings
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60

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4.25 avg rating — 364,354 ratings
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61

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4.04 avg rating — 662,721 ratings
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61

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4.07 avg rating — 141,484 ratings
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63

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4.17 avg rating — 1,292,143 ratings
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64

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4.16 avg rating — 238,085 ratings
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65

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4.30 avg rating — 273,366 ratings
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66

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4.38 avg rating — 176,994 ratings
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4.04 avg rating — 478,252 ratings
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4.04 avg rating — 156,159 ratings
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4.03 avg rating — 160,121 ratings
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3.83 avg rating — 609,783 ratings
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4.33 avg rating — 425,749 ratings
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4.04 avg rating — 550,595 ratings
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4.08 avg rating — 271,381 ratings
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74

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3.79 avg rating — 230,914 ratings
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3.82 avg rating — 178,543 ratings
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4.31 avg rating — 875,419 ratings
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77

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3.96 avg rating — 182,450 ratings
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77

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4.42 avg rating — 584,461 ratings
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3.86 avg rating — 194,096 ratings
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80

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4.34 avg rating — 619,848 ratings
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81

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4.47 avg rating — 401,231 ratings
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82

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3.80 avg rating — 276,328 ratings
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83

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4.55 avg rating — 476,245 ratings
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84

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4.33 avg rating — 1,109,511 ratings
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85

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4.18 avg rating — 494,468 ratings
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86

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4.57 avg rating — 238,264 ratings
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3.80 avg rating — 872,009 ratings
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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 128,055 ratings
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4.45 avg rating — 164,689 ratings
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4.06 avg rating — 443,715 ratings
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4.06 avg rating — 181,245 ratings
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92

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4.29 avg rating — 505,069 ratings
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93

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3.83 avg rating — 1,335,359 ratings
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4.05 avg rating — 464,670 ratings
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95

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3.94 avg rating — 545,646 ratings
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96

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3.92 avg rating — 1,016,080 ratings
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97

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4.09 avg rating — 387,161 ratings
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98

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4.19 avg rating — 212,447 ratings
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99

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4.35 avg rating — 647,498 ratings
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100

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3.93 avg rating — 123,007 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 11535 books
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Charlotte Igelkott 3128 books
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Comments Showing 1-9 of 9 (9 new)

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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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