Wonderful Wednesdays – Historical Fiction Favourites
Wonderful Wednesdays is a meme run by Sam @ Tiny Library aimed at spotlighting and recommending some of our most loved books, even if we haven’t read them recently. Each week will have a different genre or theme.
This week’s theme is HISTORICAL FICTION.
Some of my more recent favourite historical fiction novels are:
Wanting by Richard Flanagan , The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton , All Our Worldly Goods by Irene Nemirovsky , To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis and Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey .
In Wanting Richard Flanagan’s writing style is artful but confronting, grabbing the reader by the shoulders and forcing them to delve into their own ideologies and beliefs on good and evil, discipline and desire, right and wrong.
Kate Morton’s The Forgotten Garden is an enchanting multi-generational mystery that melds the harsh reality of life with fairytales. I was engrossed for the entire 20+ hour audio book.
I also cannot go past Irene Nemirovsky when talking about historical fiction. Her lesser known novella All Our Worldly Goods deserves wider recognition and exudes a greater sense of hope than some of her other titles. It explores love in its many forms, and ultimately the inspiration and steely determination that emotion can provide.
To Say Nothing of The Dog is wonderful. Connie Willis’ characters, both the human and animal variety, exude such personality that one cannot help to cheer them on in this hapless yet charming romp through time and space. Ned Henry is your quintessential good-hearted underdog finding his way through a maze of Victorian manners, literary debate, domineering women and animal wrangling with absolutely hilarious consequences.
In the Man Booker Prize winning Oscar and Lucinda, Peter Carey casts an Alice in Wonderland type spell on readers with quirky characters and the outlandish situations they find themselves in. The imagery is so vivid and imaginatively described.
I could list many more, but have restricted myself to 5 titles for this response. :)
Do any of these titles make it onto your historical fiction favourites list?
