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Post Info TOPIC: help me pick my next book
which book? [9 vote(s)]

London
11.1%
The Historian
33.3%
Gilead
0.0%
Forever Amber
55.6%
halleybird


Hermes

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help me pick my next book
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My dad gave me a stack of books last weekend, so I need to pick one. I am not particularly excited about any of them, so help me choose! I am going on a trip this week and need something sort of fast-moving. There's nothing I hate more than a slow-moving book on vacation. The Amazon reviews are never particularly helpful for me.


London : The NovelSummary: Edward Rutherfurd belongs to the James Michener school: he writes big, sprawling history-by- the-pound. His novel, London, stretches two millennia all the way from Roman times to the present. The author places his vignettes at the most dramatic moments of that city's history, leaping from Caesar's invasion to the Norman Conquest to the Great Fire to (of course) the Blitz, with many stops in between.


The HistorianIf your pulse flutters at the thought of castle ruins and descents into crypts by moonlight, you will savor every creepy page of Elizabeth Kostova's long but beautifully structured thriller The Historian. The story opens in Amsterdam in 1972, when a teenage girl discovers a medieval book and a cache of yellowed letters in her diplomat father's library. The pages of the book are empty except for a woodcut of a dragon. The letters are addressed to: "My dear and unfortunate successor."


Gilead: A NovelThe narrator, John Ames, is 76, a preacher who has lived almost all of his life in Gilead, Iowa. He is writing a letter to his almost seven-year-old son, the blessing of his second marriage. It is a summing-up, an apologia, a consideration of his life. Robinson takes the story away from being simply the reminiscences of one man and moves it into the realm of a meditation on fathers and children, particularly sons, on faith, and on the imperfectability of man.


Forever Ambercan't find a summary, but it's a fictionalized bio of Charles II's mistress. (I love mistress bios!)



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relrel


Marc Jacobs

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i think i read the rutherfurd novel but it might have been his other one, sarum. whichever it was though, i really liked it. just for the hell of it im just gonna list a couple others that i think you might like.


duh...the jack whyte series.


pillars of the earth by ken follet


stonehenge by bernard cornwell (and his others too, but this is the one i liked the best)


when christ and his saints slept by sharon kay penman (she has written a bunch of historical fiction but this is one of the best and starts out the eleanor of aquitaine series)


wild swans: three daughters of china by jun chang (not sure if this counts as historical fiction cause its based on a true story and its from the 20th century, but its still a wonderful read)


and two more which aren't really historical fiction, could be technically called "romance" or something like that but they are still extremely good and still have a pretty heavy grounding in historical/prehistorical events...


outlander by diana gabaldon (starts the outlander series, has a slight mix of science fiction because it does involve time traveling)


clan of the cave bear by jane auel (starts the earth's children series, excellent reads but it is prehistorical stuff so im not sure how into this you are)


and another that sorta fit into the category:


timeline by michael chrichton


 



-- Edited by relrel at 14:30, 2006-04-16

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orlando


Nine West

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outlander by diana gabaldon (starts the outlander series, has a slight mix of science fiction because it does involve time traveling)


timeline by michael chrichton


 


I second these two. They are both really good and I tore through them. I also really enjoyed The Historian but it was a bit more slow moving of a read.



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halleybird


Hermes

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relrel, you and I have similar taste in books! I have read Pillars of the Earth (just finished it a few months ago, actually!), Timeline and all of Diana Gabaldon's books (although the first 1-2 were really much better than the rest, don't you think?). I have never read that particular SK Penman book, but I did read another one. Anyway, thanks for your other recs -- I am adding them to my Amazon list! I did order the first Jack Whyte book, but Amazon takes forever, so I need to start something else in the meantime. 



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