Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This week, we’re highlighting books from time periods other than our own. I’ve gone back through my read list and picked ten books I really enjoyed set in all different times and places!
Catherine, Called Birdy (the Middle Ages): This is smart and funny and surprisingly well-rooted in actual history. Teenage Catherine may be anachronistically high-spirited and rebellious, but it’s a winning middle-grade book that will actually teach readers something!
The Butcher’s Daughter (the English Reformation): I’ve read a ton of books set in the Tudor era so knew about the closing of the religious homes but had never really thought about what might have drawn young people into that sort of environment…and how they would have coped with having their lives ripped away from them. A different and interesting perspective!
The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B (the French Revolution): The woman who became Empress of France as the wife of Napoleon Bonaparte saw the very dark side of the French Revolution, being imprisoned after her first husband fell out of favor with the Jacobins, who eventually executed him, and coming close to being executed herself. A compelling look at a very tumultuous time.
Persuasion (Georgian-Era England): Any of Austen’s novels would have worked here, but Persuasion is my favorite. It’s a very specific part of the English experience of that era, with little evidence of larger movements of the outside world (though Wentworth’s achievement of status is tied to his service in the navy during the Napoleonic Wars, this is not dwelt on), and tightly focused on country gentry, but it paints a rich portrait of that little world.
The Killer Angels (the American Civil War): This book depicts the Battle of Gettysburg from both sides and really goes deep into its characters, providing rich context to the social environment of the Civil War, especially that of the officers. I learned a lot more about the time than I’d known before I read it and really enjoyed it!
The Children’s Book (the Belle Epoque): I think technically this term is meant to refer to French history specifically, but this book beautifully captures England in the years leading up to WWI and the peace, prosperity, and frivolity of that era that were ripped away when the war began.
The Shining Girls (the Great Depression): While this book takes place in several timelines, one of the major ones follows a drifter during the Depression, really emphasizing the rootlessness and desperation to survive of that time through the eyes of an unusually unsympathetic character.
Life After Life (the London Blitz): The book’s central conceit, that an English woman lives her life over and over again, really shone for me in the portions that take place during the Blitz, exploring the fear and devastation from multiple perspectives.
Midnight’s Children (the Partition): One of the most significant events of the 20th century is masterfully explored in this masterpiece novel that traces 1,001 children born in the hour India becomes independent and is also torn asunder. Every time I read about Partition I want to read even more, I can’t believe how little I learned about it growing up!
Oryx and Crake (the near future): This is just one take on what might be in store for the world but felt (and still feels) frighteningly prescient.
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