Historical Fictionistas discussion
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How did you get into Historical Fiction?
Oprah's book club is what introduced me to historical fiction and I've been hooked ever since. :)
I started very young reading HF romance novels. It was pretty much all I read as a teen. Now that I think about it the settings were historical, but the stories not so much. Anyway, it led me to more historical novels. Now, I enjoy all types of historicals. I'm still developing a taste for HF with battle scenes, but I'm getting there.
I love this discussion thread. While I tend to think that I have been more into SciFi, fantasy and detective novels, when I recall my childhood favorites, they were all HF. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Little House on the Prairie, to name a few that I still love. But it was the All-of-a-Kind Family series that was the inspiration for my own "Rashi's Daughters" trilogy - a Jewish family with lots of daughters where the reader learned about their traditions, holidays, life cycle ceremonies, and day-to-day life in the "olden days." While my historical novels are for adults, I did adapt Rashi's Daughters, Book I: Joheved into Rashi's Daughter, Secret Scholar for a YA audience.Maggie Anton
Maggie, did you ever read the 'Almonds & Raisins' trilogy by Maisie Moscoe? I enjoyed it many years ago because, although not Jewish myself, I grew up in the same Jewish neighbourhoold in Manchester, England, where the novels are set. The trilogy charts Maisie's family from their 19th century migrations from Russia to England and their lives through two world wars. Maisie's ancestor developed the waterproofed raincoat so essential to British troops in wartime. It was a warm and enjoyable saga.
As a kid, reading from my older sisters' historical romance collections had an educational benefit - I recognized place names and events in my school history books. Later I loved stories of American pioneers like "My Antonia" and "Giants in the Earth," and of course, all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, E.M. Forester, and so many more. Reading historical fiction gets us to interesting times and places.My first novel is set in 1899 in a West Virginia sawmill town. I admire past technologies and the inventiveness of our ancestors. I think the average person a hundred years ago had many more survival skills than the average person today.
D.j. wrote: "Maggie, did you ever read the 'Almonds & Raisins' trilogy by Maisie Mosco? I enjoyed it many years ago because, although not Jewish myself, I grew up in the same Jewish neighbourhoold in Manchest..."I have put this on my 'to-read' list. Frankly, I'm amazed I've never heard of these books. I'm also amazed, and disappointed, that Almonds and Raisins isn't in the LA Public Library, considering how large the Jewish population is here. Sadly, none of Mosco's books appear to be in print anymore, although there seem to be no shortage of used copies available on the internet.
Maggie Anton
I was raised on John Wayne movies and have a soft spot for westerns. I enjoy romance, but dislike overly dramatic womanly woes. I had found a nice balance in books by Dorothy Garlock and Rosanne Bittner Kaki Warner among others.I really enjoy learning about the Native Americans and how they lived. Historical Fiction is my favorite genre.
Maggie wrote: "D.j. wrote: "Maggie, did you ever read the 'Almonds & Raisins' trilogy by Maisie Mosco? I enjoyed it many years ago because, although not Jewish myself, I grew up in the same Jewish neighbourhoold..."Maggie, it'd be well worth seeking out a used copy (paperback) especially of the first book in the trilogy, via Abe Books perhaps.
I never would have thought to pinpoint the Little House on the Prairie books, but I loved them as a child! There was also a great series of biographies for grade schoolers that I devoured. By eighth grade, I read Gone With the Wind several times and began to work my way through Jean Plaidy's books, as I'm sure many of you did. Reading Kristin Lavaransdattir in high school cemented my love for historical fiction. I highly recommend Sigrid Undset's Nobel-prize winning trilogy...but be sure to read all three volumes to appreciate its artistry.
I've loved to read since 1st grade. My two favorite genres throughout my years have been historical and mysteries. I remember my first trip to a library and it was the same experience that some children have walking into a toy store. I couldn't believe that so many people had written that many books.....for me. I have to say that my preference for historical came just because that is how my brain is wired. All I needed was an introduction to the genre and away I went. I consumed books of presidents, King Arthur, and as many kings and queens as I could.
For me, as I matured, I fell in love with certain time periods, special people in time (whether fact or fiction) and wonderful locations. My deep curiosity into how to live in a world so different from mine has always lured me. I absolutely love time travel books. Not because of the fantastical part of the travel but to get a glimpse into how someone from a current time could survive in a time gone by or vice versa.
My first job was as a page in our local library. A truly wonderful experience for me. I value my chance to really dig into books to help others with projects, and to become very familiar with how a library works. I think the best part was to have my finger on the pulse of the community's love of words. My relationships with the librarians were a dream. Very wise women with so much knowledge to share. I am thankful to have been a recipient of their guidance.
I have found, lately, several parallels between historical occurrences and today's world situations. Everything repeats. It's very interesting to see how we continue to play out the same scenes with different characters of time.
Some of the best quotes come from historical books. People in the past had a way of packing a whole speech into a one-liner. Wouldn't those have made some wonderful televised debates to see?
Also, maybe my love for historical is because I like that so many of the facts are true. It's like a behind the scenes expo. What did they wear, what were their daily habits, what did they eat, how they traveled and so on.....
Julie wrote: "I have found, lately, several parallels between historical occurrences and today's world situations. Everything repeats. It's very interesting to see how we continue to play out the same scenes with different characters of time."Historical fiction, done well, truly helps us understand our place in time, don't you think?
Carol wrote: "Julie wrote: "I have found, lately, several parallels between historical occurrences and today's world situations. Everything repeats. It's very interesting to see how we continue to play out the s..."Absolutely agree. History is wonderful learning tool that I feel is overlooked more than should be. But, on the upside, maybe the current trend in wonderful HF books will prompt us all to notice patterns in decision making.....big and small.
I share a birthday with George Washington. My early birthday cakes had cherries on them to commemorate that famous story. However, as I grew up, I began to wonder what Washington was really like. I discovered that he was far more interesting than the fables I had been raised with. This caused me to look at other heroes, in history, religion, and contemporary life, to see how they matched up with their fabled personas. In every case, I found real people far more interesting than fictional ones. However, I learned to appreciate the fact that fictional personalities could be inserted into historical tales to make them more interesting, more accessible. These characters provide readers with a point of view for understanding historical events, many times more clearly than academic studies of historical events and people. I was hooked. Thus, my first true novel is historical fiction and my memoirs are an attempt to provide alternative visions of the War in Vietnam, a story that has been greatly warped by propagandists, including those who stole the news media from the real journalists.
Jack wrote: "I share a birthday with George Washington. My early birthday cakes had cherries on them to commemorate that famous story. However, as I grew up, I began to wonder what Washington was really like. I..."Good post.
Jack, did you feel aggrieved that you had to share your birthday? Maybe you didn't like cherries. I wonder a lot about how true it is that we can imagine the inner life of historical figures. As HF readers and writers we love to try, but sometimes I wonder if it's really possible to know how someone who died before I was born, shaped the world for themselves, or had it shaped for them. All I have to do is look at the difference between children and grandparents to see how perspectives change through time, and it's excelerating.
...sometimes I wonder if it's really possible to know how someone who died before I was born, shaped the world for themselves, or had it shaped for them. All I have to do is look at the difference between children and grandparents to see how perspectives change through time, and it's excelerating.This is something I think about a lot. Sometimes when I read books written long ago I feel that the characters are fundamentally different from me, other times I feel an empathy, an overlap of the psyche as it were. An example of the first would be characters in the novels of Elizabeth Gaskell, an example of the second would be characters in Thomas Mann's novel, Buddenbrooks.
I haven't read either of those authors, but I think it must have the most to do with the writer not the period. I almost always find that books written more than 100 years ago or so leave me a bit flat, which enhances my suspicion that it's hard to relate to people in previous historical periods. Hilda wrote: "...sometimes I wonder if it's really possible to know how someone who died before I was born, shaped the world for themselves, or had it shaped for them. All I have to do is look at the difference ..."
Christine wrote: "Jack, did you feel aggrieved that you had to share your birthday? Maybe you didn't like cherries. I wonder a lot about how true it is that we can imagine the inner life of historical figures. As HF..."I don't regret having to share my birthday with a famous person. I understand how awful it is to share it with a gift-giving holiday like Christmas. However, I was upset when they decided to celebrate all holidays (except July 4th and Christmas) on a Monday or Friday and lump the Presidents together in one day. Before this misguided decision, I always had a school holiday on my birthday. Now that made me feel special.
From an early enjoyment of the Flashman novels and then the more esoteric work of Julian Rathbone I have always enjoyed fiction set in the past to the extent that this is the area I have now begun writing fiction myself.
My father used to tell us these fantastic stories about ancient Greek heroes and gods and goddesses, and Shakespearean characters and he built us a miniature Globe Theater so we could act out Shakespeare's plays. Admittedly, we lived in an Ancient Greek/Roman/Trojan/Egyptian fantasy world when we were kids. My favorite class in college was "Elizabethan Popular Culture." I started reading at age 3, and it was a book about a Greek goddess, as I remember. The rest is history. (Get it?)
L.B. wrote: "I actually loved history in school. My love of historical fiction came just a little later when I first read THE PERSIAN BOY by Mary Renault. I was sixteen, and, well, my crush on Alexander was snu..."I started reading Mary Renault at that age as well! Love her books!
I was born in Poland but moved to the US (Florida) by the time I was 10. Then every summer I woul visit and all old-ness and history would be so different and exotic than what I came to know of the communities here that sprung up in the 1970s. So, I started with legends and then moved on to fiction as I explored museums, castles, cathedrals, etc. Reading HF while sitting in places where the events took place made history much more alive. Then I branched out to more using just my imagination.
That's a really good question and I am not exactly sure. It probably started when I was 14 and read Gone With the Wind. I knew it was a book for adults and am not sure how I started reading it, but it affected me in a big way. For one thing I discovered that adult books might actually be interesting but I also learned that history can indeed be interesting when woven into a story. I knew the basics of the Civil War but had never considered how it affected civilians. My brother was also away at boot camp during the Vietnam era and seeing all those thousands of wounded soldiers scorching in the sun hit home. So I guess the emotional impact of that book led me to seek out other books to understand how the history affected people and to try to figure out why people do the things they do.
I was ten and the bookmobile ( a library on a bus ) came to my neighborhood every week - ah the good old days in sunny Southern California suburbia - that and the melody from the ice-cream truck made summer true paradise - I checked out 'Johnny Tremain' by Esther Forbes and proceeded to leave my cul-de-sac and inhabit pre-Revolutionary War Boston as a young wounded silversmith, literally 'left' the 20th century and never looked back - the MOST exhilarating way to learn history - to live it - Alison M. Bailey
Lynn wrote: "My father used to tell us these fantastic stories about ancient Greek heroes and gods and goddesses, and Shakespearean characters and he built us a miniature Globe Theater so we could act out Shake..."Lucky you to have had such an inspiring dad!
My mom had a collection of novels by Anya Seton, James Michner and Mary Stewart. I picked up "Green Darkness" at 14 when I was babysitting & bored one night. By 17 I'd read all of them except Michner's "The Drifters" - I got around to that one the summer after H.S. graduation.
When I was about 11 years old I read John Buchan's The Thirty Nine Steps. I've loved historical fiction spy thrillers every since then.John BuchanThe Thirty-Nine Steps
My father subscribed to Readers Digest books and I waited for each new one. It was my first introduction to James Mitchner. I found Thomas Costain, Mary Renault and Anya Seton. when I was allowed in the adult section of the library. I love Goodreads and this group because I keep finding new authors. On my TBR list are Sharon Kay Penman,Hillary Mantel and Bernard Cornwell,Alison Weir.I could go on and on. So many books,so little time!
I think I probably started with the HF genre by reading the Dear America series (and other similar ones) when I was a kid, and worked my way up to more adult books. I've always been really interested in history, but I usually find purely non-fiction history books to be a bit boring and dry, and I could never finish them. I prefer HF because there's room for my imagination to work, and depending on the book, I can still LEARN a lot from them! :)
I used to get up before anyone in my family, and watched old movies - from MGM musicals to Jerry Lewis to Hitchcock to westerns. I became fascinated by different time periods, cultures, the way women were dressed & treated throughout history. I'm the youngest of the youngest from a very large family - my mom's oldest sister was 22 years older. Age, history, held an odd fascination. People were always people, but their historic surroundings could change so drastically and instantly. I then ran across a card that my great aunt had purchased for her fiance - a valentine's day card. He was in WWI and had caught malaria and died on the plane back home. My aunt, a 90+ year old woman would still get teary whenever she said the name, "Bill". I spent lots of time creating the lives of my aunts and uncles in my head, and wondered, how they felt, what they were like, and tried to piece together the story. So, when I picked up my first novel The Autobiography of Henry VIII, it felt like I put a tiny block into the wall of life, this immense castle of life that we are all building over time. It felt the same way when I put down my last historically based work, "A Perfect Armenian" by Keri Topouzian. I learned something about our human history that I did not know before, and with each little block I gain more understanding, and am left with more questions to answer.
I remember really liking the American Girl series when I was a kid. I never had the dolls but I remember reading the books and seeing ads on TV. My dad and I used to go on road trips from Texas to Florida every year, and I remember wondering what the places along the way looked like to the first people who settled there, and what they had to endure just to ge there. I was really puzzled especially by people in the Louisiana swamps! I think that was what piqued my curiosity for pioneers, immigrants, and the first settlers.
Liza wrote: "I remember really liking the American Girl series when I was a kid. I never had the dolls but I remember reading the books and seeing ads on TV. My dad and I used to go on road trips from Texas ..."
I loved the American Girl series! I don't remember having a doll, but I do remember reading all the books from the library. I don't remember if the series triggered my love of HF. I think I've always been drawn and fascinated by how others lived.
Jackie wrote: "Liza wrote: "I remember really liking the American Girl series when I was a kid. I never had the dolls but I remember reading the books and seeing ads on TV. My dad and I used to go on road trip..."
I'm pretty sure that my parents figured that with all the time I spent reading as a kid, I didn't have time to play with dolls. And I really didn't! Even my Barbie phase was very short lived. I think that series has expanded quite a bit since I was a kiddo, which makes me happy.
I picked up Wilbur Smith's River God one day and it rekindled my passion for reading as well as fueled my love for HF specifically. (As a non-native speaker, reading has helped me so much with improving my English.)
My love of historical fiction started in 7th grade. I was one of very few in our class who actually enjoyed reading Johnny Tremain. After that I fell in love (er, became obsessed) with the Anne of Green Gables series.
For me, I wrote a series that entailed a lot of research for the setting...and ended up with a five book historical fiction series! Although I have probably read some, I had never on purpose delved into the genre. I am now, though, and having a blast!
Liza wrote: "I remember really liking the American Girl series when I was a kid. I never had the dolls but I remember reading the books and seeing ads on TV. My dad and I used to go on road trips from Texas ..."
I am (embarrassingly) old enough that the American Doll series didn't exist when I was younger--though I do remember loving the "Little Maid" series by Alice Turner Curtis. However, I've gotten into the American Girl books with my daughters and have been pleasantly surprised by how well they are written and the thought-provoking issues they bring up for each period--it's heartening that there are still such great HF reads for kids out there.
Joanne wrote: "Since I'm somewhat new here, I thought I'd start this thread to see how others got stuck into the historical genre and get to know some of you in the process.Personally, I was visiting Edinburgh ..."
@Joanne, I think buying a book related to your vacation destination is a great idea. I may have to steal that. My husband and I just took a trip to Atlanta, I should have bought something related to Atlanta history while I was there. It didn't even cross my mind.
I got into historical fiction after reading "War Letters" by Andrew Carroll in 2010. It is, as the title says, a collection of war letters from the Civil War through the Gulf War. It was fascinating and it led me to read more military and war books which led to military and war fiction and now, here I am.
War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars
As a teenager I read several books by Norah Lofts that were on the bookshelves in my house. Each was an epic multi-generational story of the families occupying a particular house in England. I don't remember details of them, but I remember being drawn in and enthralled by these stories that took me to long-ago and far-away places. I suspect these may have influenced my interest in the works of James A. Michener and Edward Rutherfurd. Even if the latter two can be a little cheesy or dated, the sheer scope of the research and imagination in those novels blows my mind. (e.g. Sarum: The Novel of England, The Source. These are the kinds of books that lead one to find other books on the topic ...
In any case I would like to track down one of those Norah Lofts books again and see what they are like, all these decades later.
A bunch of Norah Lofts' books have been reissued, including on Kindle. I have some on my wish list, waiting for the happy day when I have some spare cash. The Town House and The House at Old Vine are two I remember, Nethergate is another of hers about a house.
Jackie wrote: "Liza wrote: "I remember really liking the American Girl series when I was a kid. I never had the dolls but I remember reading the books and seeing ads on TV. My dad and I used to go on road trip..."
I think American Girl triggered my love of historical fiction.
@Melissa I didn't really read the American Girl series but I did love the Royal Diaries. I still read those up to this day. I think those books were made by the same publisher but I'm not sure.
Hi everyone, I am new to this group but I love historical fiction. I got into historical fiction from having to read The Lives of the Saint in Catholic School. I loved it and thankfully my Mom was a great reader and guided me to Costain, Caldwell, Mitchner, et al. I lost my Mom last year but every week we would make time to discuss what we were reading and give each other recommendations - usually in this genre. I am passing this love of historical fiction on to my children.
Does anyone remember those mail order book clubs? Way back in the 80's I was moving and didn't send in a order and received To Dance with Kings I was hooked on historical fiction since. I had also read The Clan of the Cave Bear but it was to dance with kings that got me started into historical fiction
The first book I ever read all on my own was a story that took place in pioneer times, about a family who found their homestead after getting there on a houseboat. I have no idea of what the title of the book was, or the author, but it appealed to me right away. Later on, I found Jean Plaidy, Thomas Costain, and Marchette Chute, and others. I don't even have a particularly great interest in American history, but that was the book that got me on this path.
Spending time with my Great-Grandma Sorbo who was an excellent storyteller . . . her walks to parochial school being chased by wolves in the days of the pioneers, church, cooking, farming, family gatherings, all the struggles of raising a first generation American family while longing for her motherland of Norway.
My love of reading is due to my Mom and she always loved historical fiction. I can still remember the wonderful "smell" the first time she took us to our local library; I was probably about 5 or 6.When I was about 8 my cousin gave me Little House in the Big Woods and I was hooked!
I now read most genres except horror but historical fiction will always be my favorite!
Tammy wrote: "Does anyone remember those mail order book clubs? Way back in the 80's I was moving and didn't send in a order and received To Dance with Kings I was hooked on historical fiction since. I had also ..."Yes Tammy! My Mom belonged to Doubleday Book Club in the 60's, 70's and 80's. I joined myself in 1968 when I got my first job and then was a member until the mid 1980's. Great memories!
Good to hear from yet another HF fan. I have been hooked ever since convent school days and the fabulous, 'Knights of St John''. Now I even write the stuff.Tony
Historical Fictionistas
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You're most welcome, and enjoy the books and her writing! I love what you said about your emotional chords singing!