Best historical fiction for HUGE ASOIAF fan...

[Mark Antony]

The Marius/Sulla Masters of Rome books are some of my favorites ever. I enjoy the entire series but yeah the first two are classic 

[Astromech]

6 hours ago, maarsen said:

I am not sure if this is still within your timeframe but Alan Furst's novel are set between the world wars in Europe and are absolutely fascinating and well written. I cannot recommend them enough. 

Thanks. I just read his Night Soldiers a few weeks ago. Good novel. It was my first Furst  novel.  It didn't blow me away but I will read more of his novels. I'm also interested in the French Resistance and would like to read his A Hero of France eventually, but want to read his novels in publication order. I'm also keen to find copies of Robert Gildea's Fighters in Shadows: A New History of the French Resistance, Julian Jackson's France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944 and Matthew Cobb's The Resistance: The French Fight Against the Nazis.

[Jo498]

On 7/22/2019 at 2:44 AM, Astromech said:

I'm fascinated by the WWI era. The entire tragedy of the period. Picked up Stefan Zweig's pre-war memoirs, The World of Yesterday.

I read some of it than got stuck (because I could not get interested in another encounter of the enthusiastic young Zweig with some famous artist of his time I neither knew or cared about...). It's quite interesting and I didn't find it all that whiny (especially considering that Zweig whose "world" perished twice in his lifetime did have some reason to be whiny) and he was also well aware of how privileged his belle époque upbringing was. But it's neither historical nor fiction

As for fiction concerning that period, the greatest novelists focussing on the twilight of old Austria besides Zweig are probably Joseph Roth, Robert Musil, Heimito von Doderer and Franz Werfel. I haven't read all of them but Roth (Radetzky March) and Werfel seem more accessible than the others who can be rather difficult reads. I got stuck about halfway in Doderers "Strudlhofstiege" and never even dared Musil's "Man without properties". My favorite from that time and place is the lesser known Leo Perutz who did write mostly (his very own brand of) historical fiction although his most famous book "The master of the day of judgement" is roughly contemporary takes place on the eve of World War I.

 

[Astromech]

5 hours ago, Jo498 said:

I read some of it than got stuck (because I could not get interested in another encounter of the enthusiastic young Zweig with some famous artist of his time I neither knew or cared about...). It's quite interesting and I didn't find it all that whiny (especially considering that Zweig whose "world" perished twice in his lifetime did have some reason to be whiny) and he was also well aware of how privileged his belle époque upbringing was. But it's neither historical nor fiction

As for fiction concerning that period, the greatest novelists focussing on the twilight of old Austria besides Zweig are probably Joseph Roth, Robert Musil, Heimito von Doderer and Franz Werfel. I haven't read all of them but Roth (Radetzky March) and Werfel seem more accessible than the others who can be rather difficult reads. I got stuck about halfway in Doderers "Strudlhofstiege" and never even dared Musil's "Man without properties". My favorite from that time and place is the lesser known Leo Perutz who did write mostly (his very own brand of) historical fiction although his most famous book "The master of the day of judgement" is roughly contemporary takes place on the eve of World War I.

 

Haha, I know. I was just mentioning it while on the topic of that era.

Thanks for the other recs.