Someone asked: “A historical novel I can't put down.”
Historical fiction you can't put down.
Cathedrals, wars, royal courts and ordinary people caught up in history. These novels teach you about the past without ever feeling like homework.
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All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr · 2014
A blind French girl and a German boy whose paths cross in the Second World War. Short chapters, huge heart.
The Pillars of the Earth
Ken Follett · 1989
Building a cathedral in twelfth-century England, with love, betrayal and power struggles. A thousand pages that fly.
Wolf Hall
Hilary Mantel · 2009
Thomas Cromwell rises at the court of Henry VIII. Clever, sharp and so vivid you forget it happened five hundred years ago.
The Nightingale
Kristin Hannah · 2000
Two sisters in occupied France, each resisting in her own way. Big, emotional and impossible to put down.
Pachinko
Min Jin Lee · 2017
Four generations of a Korean family in Japan. A saga about belonging that stays with you for years.
Cathedral of the Sea
La catedral del mar
Ildefonso Falcones · 2006
Medieval Barcelona, a serf's son and the church the whole city built with its own hands. Adventure and history in one.
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Tracy Chevalier · 1999
A maid in Vermeer's house and the painting that made her famous. Quiet, sensual and beautifully written.
The Help
Kathryn Stockett · 2009
Black maids and the white families they work for in 1960s Mississippi. Funny, angry and very moving.
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