Blog Posts by Subject: Historical Fiction

What if Hitler won World War II? Alternate history recommendations for teen readers.

At our March Open Book Night readers recommended a wide variety of books by favorite women authors, from contemporary fiction to older favorites, even questioning the authorship of a great classic of Western literature.

It’s time for the second annual NYPL Best Books for Teens list! Get ready for the most memorable, the most gut-wrenching, the most exciting, the most fun, the most swoony, the most informative and the most engaging books of the year.

Why did this happen and how could it have happened? You’ll have to read the accounts, the theories and stories and figure that part out for yourself. The following are recommended nonfiction and fiction books on the topic from children’s, YA and adult collections.

That sticky summer humidity broke just in time to give us yet another gorgeous Open Book Night at the Outdoor Reading Room this past Friday night! Patrons of all ages spent the evening reclining on the lawn, enjoying a host of great recommendations, and, for the first time in 30 years, the relaxing sound of Truth and Beauty’s waters flowing nearby.

As we prepare to celebrate Independence Day, read some of these fascinating historical fiction and nonfiction titles to better understand how our country came to be.

The Fourth of July: Fireworks, hot dogs, potato salad, parades, washing the dog (hey, not everyone has the same rituals). These are just a few of the things that most people will be partaking of this Saturday.

If you’re Regency romance fan and have yet to read a Company of Rogues novel by Jo Beverley, then boy do I have a summer challenge/project for you!

Reading (and watching) Wolf Hall was such an engrossing experience that it sent me into a tailspin where I read anything I could get my hands on about England during the Renaissance era. Here are some of the best books I found.

It’s going to be rough wait, but we will do it together and somehow find other books and films to fill the Downton-sized hole in our hearts.

The witch trials are a circus. The afflicted girls, as well as many local residents, attend the trials. The accused witches are not appointed counsel, and their words of defense fall on impatient ears.

Way way back, in 1990, I wandered into a Portland, Oregon bookstore and found a romance novel, set in Scotland, involving time travel and I was hooked! Since then, it’s been a 25 year odyssey of reading and waiting. Outlander finally returns to TV on April 4.

I don't know what it is about autumn but it puts me in the mood for history. Inspired by Octavian Nothing, here is a list of other historical fiction for teens.

You may have been tagged in a social media chain making the rounds in which you are supposed to list ten books that have stayed with you in some way. The goal is not to overthink it; simply take a few minutes and answer.

Earlier this year I read a young adult novel called The Boy on the Bridge by Natalie Standiford. Then more recently I read Tsarina by J. Nelle Patrick and Sekret by Lindsay Smith, and I started thinking … hang on … is Russian historical fiction a “thing” now?

My romanticized view of history was crushed in college when my history professor explained that historians in writing history sometimes create fictional narratives around the facts to make it coherent and more interesting to read. I much prefer reading that George Washington cut down the cherry tree or that Nero fiddled while Rome burned.

Post-WWII Britain. Rural Warwickshire. Doctor Faraday is called to Hundreds Hall to treat Betty, the fourteen-year-old maid, for stomach cramps. He is horrified at the changes to the once grand estate and home of the Ayres family,  where his mother was once a nursery maid. He is also quick to spot Betty's nervousness and anxiety. The reader meets the characters who will play significant parts in the story as the setting and context are laid out.

What is the significance of Doctor's Faraday's memory of prising the plaster acorn? The conversation between 

Happy 2014 and welcome to the first book discussion of the year! This month we read and discuss The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, who primarily writes Victorian and Suspense fiction. Her books are rich in period detail and painstakingly researched to bring alive an era that is complex and contradictory to say the least. From Tipping the Velvet, to Affinity, to

"An ungodly pummeling on the door of my grandmother's house at 19 Washington Square North brought first the maid and then my grandmother herself to the doorways of their bedrooms at two o'clock on the morning of March 3, 1896."

The gruesome case at the heart of Caleb Carr's The Alienist begins at this ungodly hour in an ungodly time of New York City's history, the turn of the 20th century, that brutal period when Teddy Roosevelt served as New York City Police Commissioner. This is