Readers' Advisory Guide to Historical Fiction

The Readers' Advisory Guide to Historical Fiction 

by Jennifer S. Baker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As I mentioned in my sign-up post for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge I am not a big reader of this genre. I have been working on my readers' advisory skills recently for work and I read this book as part of that project. I found it very interesting -- particularly the definitions of sub-genres and what seemed to be a tremendous struggle to get these massive tomes to fit into any kind of classification structure. Ultimately I'm not sure they do. I was somewhat reassured by the numerous books discussed in this volume that I have read. 

One of the key pieces of advice in this book is that to get to know this genre (or any other) you need to read in it. A reading plan is provided at the end of the book, but as I was reading I kept notes of titles that appealed to me so have constructed my own Historical Fiction reading plan. This list constitutes thousands of pages of reading, even if I don't continue with any of these series,  so I am not setting any time-frame for completing it, but am compiling a list of potential reading for future reference.

There are a few authors that I want to read something by, but don't have a specific title in mind:

• Howard Fast (I remember my Mom reading his books when I was a kid)
• Jean Plaidy 
• Mazo de la Roche (the Whiteoaks of Jalna series--set in Canada)

Then there are specific books that looked interesting to me:

• Stonehenge by Bernard Cornwell (set in pre-history)
• I, Claudius by Robert Graves (set in the ancient world)
• A Sudden Country by Susan Fisher (the Oregon Trail -19th century)
• Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres (fall of the Ottoman Empire -20th century)
• The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan (set in Canada -early 20th century)
• Lionheart by Sharon Kay Penman (biographical fiction, historical figure)
• The Painted Kiss by Elizabeth Hickey (biographical fiction, artist)
• The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver (from section on Latino fiction)
• The Outlander by Gil Adamson (set in the Canadian West)
• And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander (a mystery series for Amelia Peabody fans) 
• Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree by Tariq Ali (first book in a time-sweep series about a Muslim family in Granada in 1492)

There were also some titles that were already on my TBR list that I am even more excited about now:

• Lust for Life by Irving Stone
• Passing by Nella Larsen
• New York by Edward Rutherford