32. Read a book that lists 'Historical Fiction' as its genre

[Martha]

Genre - Historical Fiction
Listopia - Best Historical Fiction

Some examples
The Book Thief
The Color Purple
The Shadow of the Wind
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
All the Light We Cannot See
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Discussion prompts
- What did you / will you read for this prompt? What did you think?
- Do you like Historical Fiction as a genre? How does it differ from Contemporary Fiction?
- How do you feel about HF that alters real events? Do you think the author has a responsibility to be true to life, or is it okay to take artistic license?

[Marina]

For this prompt I read And the Mountains Echoed. It lists historical fiction as its main genre, with 851 users shelving it as such, but I'm not sure I would define it historical fiction, actually. Yes, it describes life in Afghanistan in various historical periods, from the 1950's onward, but it's more the story of a family, or families.

I liked the book and Hosseini definitely is a great storyteller, but I "only" gave it 3 stars as it didn't move me like his two other books did.

I like historical fiction, though I'm not a big fan of it. I read it from time to time, but the fact is, I don't very much care what a book's genre is as long as I like the book itself. (In fact, I only have a very generic "fiction" shelf, where all fiction books go - historical, contemporary and otherwise).

I think it is okay to take artistic license, but then in my opinion the novel borders on alternate history rather than historical fiction, depending on how far the alteration of real events goes. However, I prefer for a historical fiction book to be true to historical events, but that's just my take on it.

[Martha]

Did you like the other two Hosseini books then Marina? I have The Kite Runner and a Thousand Splendid Suns on my shelf that I keep meaning to read!

For this task I read The Firebird. I loved it! It had a fantasy element and cut between present day and the Jacobean period, so it wasn't straight historical fiction. It also had a slow burning love story that drove me nuts and I fell head over heels for the lead guy - I'm not usually big on romances, but this really got me!

I don't normally consider myself to be a big HF reader, but I seem to accidentally read a lot of it! To be fair, it's quite a wide remit if it's basically set in any time that isn't right now so it could be quite a wide genre. I like it because it can be akin to fantasy in that it's a different world, so you can suspend your disbelief over what's necessarily "real" or "true". I've also always loved reading about the history of kings and queens (my favourites are the Tudors and the Romanovs) - a lot of the real life stories of these monarchs are better than fiction! The monarchy quite often pops up in this genre so that's another reason why I read it.

I think the clue is in the fact that it's a type of 'fiction'. I don't have an issue with the author taking artistic license, though I've had this debate with friends before who get quite angry when the past is misrepresented. However, I think the responsibility lies in that of the reader to be completely aware that it is fiction, or at least an altered version of history, and that they shouldn't take that as truth.

[Marina]

Martha wrote: "Did you like the other two Hosseini books then Marina? I have The Kite Runner and a Thousand Splendid Suns on my shelf that I keep meaning to read!"

Yes, they are great! I especially loved A Thousand Splendid Suns, it was a 5-stars read for me. I can definitely recommend both of them.

[Martha]

Excellent, I'll read that one first!