My Favourite Historical Fiction

hi and welcome to my channel I'm Simon of savage reeds and state I am back with my favorite historical novels and the reason I decided this video right now is because and they don't know that I'm doing this and it's not spawn I have anything like that but the lovely folks at the Walter Scott prize have currently got nominations open for you to nominate not them your favorite historical novel of all time and then they're gonna do a top 10 and people can vote on that and basically it's their 10 peonage so celebrated by doing that which i think is ace so what I thought I would do is go through my favorite historical novels I've read the on my shelf and they do it through day order except for one that's an epic and just to throw you my very favorite I have not put in day order I'm just gonna save that to the end and I think it is my favorite historical novels I read it this year ooh spoiler and to that I wanted to mention fittest and intellectually make it 20 so it's nice and even ah books that I've used in well overall I've used the Walter Scott Prize submission rolls in the fact that I've chosen books where the author has had 60 years I think it's like 25 percent of it has to be set 60 years before the book was written and when I've got two books I really really wanted to include but they don't fall under that category that said and generally the price has been in the last 10 years and some of these books are older than 10 years but blah I've made I just wanted to kind of use someone off to Whitley down a bit but actually then I realized I was cutting up on his face because these two I really wanted to mention the first one is half Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie which is set in the by Afra war and I'm going to go through these books very very quickly because there are so many of them and because I have spoken about them and some of them you'll know really really well I'm sure most of you know this book and it's one my favorite books it was my first Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and remains like I said my favorite hers and but yeah and it's this book I think about 50 years or maybe even less than that and the bio for war is something I did not know much about and actually one thing that I realized going through my bookshelves and there's quite a lot of possible that don't know the history of Africa is one and I would love to know more so any recommendations for African history books I would absolutely love and yeah so I love this one and the other one and is Indra Singh has animal animals people and one I've read I think I've mentioned this a few times on the channel this is based on a natural disaster that happened in India but a fictional account and and it's certainly 80s so isn't old enough and because obviously we're not 60 years on from the ages because I was born in the edges so I know and and yeah it's but really history can be any time in the past can't it so I wanted to mention this and again India is another country that would love to learn more about the history of through fiction so I wanted to mention this one looks like I said this will tame this wood came out in the early noughties but was written in the ages so isn't it weird that we're going into the 20s next year like that I feel like the twenties part of history that you know obviously we read about it but so to go into the next 20 just seems a bit weird anyway brought off moving on to the 17 yes 17 books in order historical order so this book I have not talked about enough and again this is another area of the world I would love to know more about its history this is the incarnations by Susan Barker and I absolutely adored this so much so that when I was judging the fictional Code prize this was one of our winners this it takes place throughout several Chinese dynasties going way way way where we go back but also it is a little bit between set kind of now because it is our main character who is going back through the pass and we realized different incarnations says I don't attend of themselves but in other people and it's just brilliantly done there's something slightly and sci-fi about it even though it's really not it's very much a historical novel but I like the mishmash and I just thought the writing was fantastic I learned so much and was so fascinated by all I would HIGHLY highly recommend I'm going to recommend all of them to my favorites so I don't really need to say that maybe they're not to say stunning astonishing impressive amazing and the next book is this might be a surprise waiting on the sum of Achilles which tells of Achilles and Patroclus and is based on the classical myths which of course is ancient civilization so yeah this is their kind of bromance that becomes a love story and I find this compelling and so moving and as somebody who have been brought up by classes and so new a lot like kind of thrown themselves as far away as possible from reading classical myths or classical myth retellings when I picked this up as billa mm-hmm and then I read it and I just fell in love with it so and it got me right back in to classical civilization so a huge favor of mine another book I think I've mentioned quite a bit now we are sort of bolting world-renowned in 1616 66 the spring in fact for Geraldine Brooks the year of Wonders now this is another of the plague but not the plague in London and actually the plague did come from London to this one small town in Derbyshire in fact smaller a village in the town and it's not very far from where I grew up and we would visit him and the play cottages when I was younger and I've been like recently actually that's a flock of that at some point anyway that's where the plague hit and basically the whole village decided to self sacrifice itself so Conover and well it shuts itself off when people would go and leave food at one place and then the people never gonna pick up but they would leave an hour between something couldn't touch anything and it's just a wonderful retelling of what that was like in both the horror of it but also some of the hope in it too so yes then and this looks nothing like the finishing to show because I've got very very very very very early proof of this this is the miniaturist by Jesse Burton one is it really really super duper duper early proof and looks really nice as the muse is very similar to this actually the proof of it and this is set in hamsa van in the 1680s I want to say and follows and the situation where a young girl now gets married and and ends up in this house off which is just brimming with secrets I mean there's like a housekeeper there's a little bit like mrs. Thomas of course I was gonna love it but this book is so rich in the atmosphere of the time that you really feel like you're part of it and basically what happens is she gets a doll's house and slowly but surely the main interest who's creating it starts to send her things I start to reflect on what is going on behind the closed doors in the house and all the mysteries start to arise assault glimpses of them scene and it's just this wonderful gorgeous gothic historical joy so highly recommended I said again it keeps that highly recommended then on to some history from Australia for the next two books are Australian historical novels and this book I read and it's set in 1806 and when it starts 96 in London and then goes over to Australia because we followed William Thornhill as he goes over to Australia to claim the land and this is a story of what happens between the people who are arriving in Australia and the people already living there and it is horrific what happened to the indigenous people and this book caused so much uproar because it was the first time somebody had really written about it and what's also interesting is that there is a sort of Thornhill strand in some of Campbell's writing because there are other books from the family and go forward in time and but I just thought this was incredible really hard-hitting open my eyes or something I didn't know about because obviously British people try and cover that up because we were all part of it by heading over there also sending our convicts over there etc and yeah it's just a very very very powerful powerful book this will come as no surprise this has been one of my favorite books and last couple years and is historical even though it's also sci-fi and bonkers and that is from the wreck by Jane Ross and now this takes place later on in the eighteen hundred's and is actually based on the story in part of Jane's great-great-great great-grandfather I think I've done one too many greats or one too few and but this is about a man who is on a boat he sees this woman in the horse stalls and is kind of instantly beguiled by her and then the boat is wrecked they're stuck together and then when they get on land after some horrific things that happened to them which I won't spoil and they get onto land and she disappears and he thinks she's run away but as the reader we know that she's actually turned into a cat because she's an alien life-form and it's how these two beings and never quite apart from that point also looks at the role of women in Australia at that time it looks at family all sorts I think it's amazing it is nicely bonkers which is one of the reasons that kind of my interest was piqued and I wanted to read it and it works fantastically because of that so really different historical novel if you like sci-fi fantasy this might be your way in this area I would highly recommend that one I'll sit again a book that will be nice print because I think this is probably a lot of people's favorite historical novel if I'm honest and this is certainly 1870s this is the Crimson petal and the white by Mikael favorite Mikkel Faber Michele Faber Michele Michele favor anyway and this tells of sugar a prostitute in London and we follow her story through quite a big romping but this is one of those books is an absolute delight get completely and utterly lost in which is what I did I was actually reading this on the eve before and the eve of and then for a few days after my first wedding so have some interesting memories around it and but yeah I thought was absolutely brilliant and there is also and I think it's the Apple and other stories where you can go back into sugars world and find out more firm yet I thought this is ace that's why it's in my favourites keep saying it again this will be no surprise to anyone who's probably for any length of time again it's certainly 1800 because those are my favorite I think it's 1893 said just the end of the eighteen hundred's this is the Essex serpent by Sarah Perry and I just think this is wrong and until this year I would have probably said this is my hands-down favorite historical novel this tells of Cora who is a widow who's heard of this mysterious mythical serpent that is causing havoc in well near a small place called old winter and it's how she befriends the local priest there and of what follows on with them as well as what follows on with the mess and everything at will mythical beasts are in everything else and it's just I just think it's phenomenal absolutely glorious just this is kind of everything I love in a book and it's interesting this Rebecca can't be a style carnival because it was sort of set management I think that was right did she sent anyway I turned in your bangs I think if she if she bends meaning set it earlier it would've been nineteen twenties or thirties and it was rain I think in that and so yeah but that's sort of this is that kind of glorious gorgeous juicy right wonderful books that Rebecca is but just in a different of contemporary unset in the Victorian era did that make any sense I'm not sure I did but let's all move on swiftly so then a book that is based on a real historical event and well a lot of the books based on obviously historical events because of the research that goes into them this is based on a particularly incident and this is the case of Lizzie Borden who many believed killed her father and her stepmother or her mother - her father and and let's see what I've done it by Sara Schmidt which is and just the how can I put it it's really gritty it's very dark and it's dead it's one those but I quite like some house books where you feel like the carrots have got dirt under their nails and you're looking at quite a kind of the dark side of humanity at the same time I'm sorry they go hand in hand somebody be possibly I think about but and this kind of totally got me lost really really claustrophobic Lee in the Borden household as these murders take place and I love unreliable narrators and Lizzie is the perfect unreliable narrator some people found a bit too Duncan dog but I reveled in now and is it's pretty and you feel like yeah you can waive everything you've got to do your nails let alone Lizzie herself so Amaya I thought this was ace obviously and then and this was the first trace each Friday books that I read and it is falling angels and this really really holds a place in my heart for T reason and this is set in the at the beginning of the 1900s things going to no one and it is about two families who kind of the children initially become friends behind the graves of Highgate Cemetery now I was a tour guide at Highgate Cemetery and got so involved in kind of the folklore around it around all the things to the funeral rituals all that kind of stuff and this book has all of that as well as being a really interesting look society at that time and the perceptions and sort of the not the more society but the perceptions people have other people but also the the confines that society put on certain people and that's something that I'm really loved about article fiction is you can really get into the like moving through the classes or seeing where the kind of classes clash and all this and I just I love all that but this is just a joint you might well see Tracy's Friday again on this list and maybe you know I have gotten is thrown around because I think this is early 1900s but it might be late 1800 so I apologize if I've got the wrong way around this is a place called winter by Patrick Gale and this again like with Jane Rosen's book this is set this is Patrick writing about a member of his family story and kind of changing it so Patrick had this great great-great uncle a great great uncle who basically sort of was banished to Canada and what he does is Patrick gives his character and the reason he's gone away is because his family found out he's gay and so they've shunned him and so he's got office Canada left his wife behind and is sending the money and we follow how he tries to make his place there how he meets an incredibly awful buddy who's a little bit sexy and also then falls in love and it's just wonderful and I think the fact that you really feel like Patrick wants to give voice to this person who really didn't have a voice in history already in his family and it makes me feel slightly choked up in emotion about it and so yeah I have heard rumor we may head back to these characters at some point and I'm very excited by that and another now where I'm touching two really small books that I've really really looked in kind of mini historical gems and at first is eons moonstone which is set in 1918 and this is Iceland where history is sort of bypassing the island but then suddenly hits it and unexpected well into unexpected ways they're kind linked with each other weirdly so as war is going on that's kind of not the forefront but then when the Spanish flu comes over that is quite something that hits the land harder we follow a young boy who is basically making money and getting his kicks out of having sex with men and while so this is going on but also the other thing that comes in which is something that seems very small but has a huge effect on the whole island is film and cinema and I found how cinema kind of was used as either a blame for the flu and a curse on people but also like blamed for people's debauchery and so yeah it's a really really short sharp historical shock and I thought it was fab another one who loved and this is a much more gentle book actually and it sort of slowly but surely grabs you by the hand and then takes right and it just leaves you with quite an emotional punch it reminded me a little bit of in Macomb's on chesil beach which actually could have been on this list that this is one I went for instead cuz I think this one has the most resonance I mean this is Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift and it tells of a young woman who is having an affair with the master of the local big giant gothic or not necessarily gothic but big giant stately house and we follow them from there I won't say anymore but I just loved how this romance and the consequences of it really really kind of changed his characters life yeah I won't say anymore I was boiling that beer incredible and then I don't like bugs set in the walls I find it quite and they had to have a bit of a different edge for me I suppose and this one spies by Michael friends well I don't kind of have mentioned on this channel but it's the kind of book where I don't often like child narrators but there are a couple of exceptions and one of them is this book and the other one is the trouble with goats and sheep by Johanna cannon where you have a duo of young children going over to try and investigate adult secrets but seeing them in a young people's perspective and in this case and the children believe that there is a spy on the I think is a cul-de-sac yes it is a cul-de-sac on a quiet cul-de-sac and we see it from a very different way than they do but also see it through their eyes and I just loved it for that so yeah pretty imprinting book burn shadows by Camilla Shama Z the first command Shamsi I read and I thought was absolutely incredible and set in 1945 it's in Nagasaki and we all know what happened in 1945 and Nagasaki so I don't want to spoil too much but we followed these characters who and it's how some of them survived and some of them managed to leave and how the bigger dramas can be also the smaller drummers can also have lasting effects like the bigger dramas Camilla Shamsi was really really good historical fiction and is it a God in every stone it was really really interesting to look at how India played a part in a world war 2 and also about female archaeologists so and if you're thinking that because her latest novel was very much but then shadows of this one latest home fires was was her right eye she known as contemporary that's not the case I have salt and saffron by hand I think on my shells which I think isn't the historical one yeah I thought this is phenomenal and got me into her work and then and ultimately out of the ones well no this is the last one in date order actually and so in the 1950s my policeman by Beth Ann Roberts I love this book this is a book about now I want to get this right Marian who falls in love with and this is where the characters long because I was getting Patrick and Tom mixed up basically and Marian meets Tom for smitten with Tom and at the same time Patrick means Tom and for smitten with Tom Thomas the policeman here's their policeman in is the story for both of them of my policeman and how that trio I shall say no more but it starts off with a very powerful quite bitter voice and then he just opens up into the story of love and also what it was like to be gay in the 1950s and have to keep that hidden ace and finally before my very very very favorite was put in any order this book is incredible because its historical not what the pan is from these 4017 one starts in 2017 in English back so again this is people as ones that has a little bit of the present-day because back all the way to the 1700s in to Iceland where there is an ever must there's a pool for everlasting life and we follow the characters from there kind of mainly heading to the Victorian era meet some wonderful villainous types and it's a book all about immortality it's a book about how people if they've been born a certain different times in history their lives would've been so much better or would they possibly have been even worse and in one character's case it would have definitely been there because their story broke me I'm sorry it's the parent ations by Kane Mayfield I think this is exceptional I really want everyone to read it and because what kate managers do here is just really really vividly capture these different periods in history and you're just lost in this wonderful big giant story and what more could you want from a historical novel than that so what is my favorite historical book of all time no like I said until this year had probably been the Essex serpent or Rebecca if it could kind of count I'm trying to work out if Daphne did said Rebecca before it was written I'm very I'm struggling with that one anyway and but I read this book this year I thought it was an absolute masterpiece it will definitely be one of my favorite books as the air is certainly my most favorite historical novel now and I have mentioned already this is a girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier I just think this is phenomenal and this is about a young girl who goes on work in the house of Jonas Vermeer and she becomes his muse and is how this tension between the mounds and what follows it's really sexy it's really vivid it's really dark and but it just it revels in its own time period as well it's just yeah it's just wonderful and I think what I love about Sir ticularly is its simplicity and in house in simple yet beautiful writing like this can invoke way more than a book that's drenched in research this just is like a captial as these people's lives in the past and yeah I just thought it was a phenomenal phenomenal phenomenal phenomenal book that's why it's my favorite so almost 22 minutes sorry about that but they're my favorite books you can nominate your favorite book I'll link all Scott Prize website down below and you can also let me know in the comments down below what your favorite book is and why all your fate not your favorite book what your favorite historical books are and why are you favorite book we didn't we have to know favor his books video on this channel anyway sorry and that was me trying to wrap up quicker and then doing so trip myself up and then went off on a tangent surprise surprise so hope you enjoyed that video I'll be back with another video very soon and I'll speak to you then ossama chat about historical fiction in the comments below bye

Channel: SavidgeReads

Views: 13,810

Rating: 4.9019265 out of 5

Keywords: Booktube, Savidge Reads, Favourite Books, Historical Fiction, My Favourite Historical Fiction, Simon Savidge, Tracy Chevalier, Kamila Shamsie, Kate Mayfield, Bethan Roberts, Michael Frayn, Graham Swift, Sjon, Patrick Gale, Sarah Schmidt, Sarah Perry, Michel Faber, Jane Rawson, Kate Grenville, Jessie Burton, Geraldine Brooks, Madeline Miller, Susan Barker, Indra Sinha, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Walter Scott Prize, Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction

Id: T0fVUlqqtqA

Length: 22min 23sec (1343 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 19 2019