Booklists: suggested reading

 

Tweet

Biographical Fiction Booklist

 

Novels about real people.

 

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

 

• In the Name of Salome
  Author: Alvarez, Julia
  Publisher: Algonquin $ 23.95 ISBN: 1565122763 Date: 2000
  KirkusPW
  Based on the lives of two heroic Latin women, Alvarez's sweeping fourth novelspans more than 100 years in the tumultuous history of the Caribbean.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Latino/Latina Stars
  Updated 5/11/00.
• According to Queeney
  Author: Bainbridge, Beryl
  Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 22 ISBN: 0786707739 Date: 2001
  Kirkus
  Taking her inspiration from eighteenth-century English history and literature, Bainbridge transforms meticulous research into a brilliantly imaginative portrayal of the complex relationship that the renowned literary giant Dr. Samuel Johnson enjoyed with his benefactress, Mrs. Thrale. - Publisher marketing.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 6/20/01
• Handsome Harry
  Author: Blake, James Carlos
  Publisher: Morrow $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060554789 Date: 2004
  Kirkus
  The renowned author pens his most commercial novel to date--a thrilling retelling of the John Dillinger story.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 11.12.03
• The Incantation of Frida K.
  Author: Braverman, Kate
  Publisher: Conari $ 23.95 ISBN: 1583224696 Date: 2002
  Library Journal
  Braverman's imagined life of Frida Kahlo begins and ends within the hallucinatory mind of the painter, at 46, on her deathbed. Reflecting on people, places, and events in her past, Frida talks of men, art, and philosophy.
  Updated 3/19/02
• Pretty Boy
  Author: Brooks, Bill
  Publisher: Forge $ 24.95 ISBN: 0765304732 Date: 2003
  Booklist
  From the author of the Western classic, The Stone Garden: The Epic Life of Billy the Kid, comes the life of one of the Depression's most dangerous outlaw, Pretty Boy Floyd.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 5.29.03
• The Stone Garden: The Epic Life of Billy the Kid
  Author: Brooks, Bill
  Publisher: Forge $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312875088 Date: 2001
  Booklist
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Western Stars
  Updated 6/20/01
• Jackson
  Byrd, Max
  Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell List Price: $23.95 ISBN: 055309632x Date: 1997
  Kirkus
  In his critically acclaimed novel Jefferson, Byrd revealed the private life of one of American history's most beloved and elusive figures. Now, in the magnificant tradition of Gore Vidal's Lincoln and Burr, he capture the essense of Andrew Jackson, one of the nation's most feared and admired leaders.
  Suggested Reading: New Orleans
• I Was Howard Hughes
  Author: Carter, Steven
  Publisher: Bloomsbury $ 14.95 (paper) ISBN: 1582343756 Date: 2003
  Kirkus
  Part The Great Gatsby, part This Is Spinal Tap, Carter's hilarious debut paints a fictional portrait of a biographer, his notorious subject, and the illusions held about fame and fortune.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts | Biographical Fiction
  Updated 7.8.03
• Girl With a Pearl Earring
  Author: Chevalier, Tracy
  Publisher: Dutton $ 23.95 ISBN: 052594527x Date: 2000
  PWKirkusBooklist
  With the precision and focus of an Old Master's painting, Girl with a Pearl Earring paints a vivid portrait of colorful 17th-century Delft, as well as the hauntingly poignant story of one young girl's rite of passage.
  Suggested Reading: Vermeer | Historical Fiction Stars | All Stars
• Casanova in Bohemia
  Author: Codrescu, Andre
  Publisher: Free Press $ 25 ISBN: 0684868008 Date: 2002
  KirkusLibrary Journal
  Beloved NPR commentator and popular author Codrescu makes a stunning return to historical fiction, detailing the adventurous life and erotic times of the famed illuminist Giacomo Casanova. Codrescu creates a surreal portrait of the legendary Casanova, as the old adventurer plays out his final years in a dilapidated castle in Bohemia.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 1/29/02
• I Am Madame X
  Author: Diliberto, Gioia
  Publisher: Scribner $ 24 ISBN: 0743211553 Date: 2003
  Booklist
  Even before John Singer Sargent painted her portrait, Virginie Gautreau's reputation for promiscuity and showy self-display made her the subject of Paris gossip. Her scandalous portrait, unveiled in 1884, provides the inspiration for this debut novel--a compulsively readable immersion in Belle Epoque Paris.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 12.2.02
• Slammerkin
  Author: Donoghue, Emma
  Publisher: Harcourt $ 24 ISBN: 0151006725 Date: 2001
  KirkusPW
  Inspired by a teenage girl who murdered her mistress in 1763 because she "longed for fine clothes", Slammerkin is the bestselling classic story of a lower-class Roxana, a female Tom Jones.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 5/17/01
• Queenmaker: A Novel of David's Queen
  Author: Edgehill, India
  Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312289189 Date: 2002
  KirkusLibrary Journal
  For more than 40 years, Michal lived and reigned in David's court. Speaking as a sister, a wife, a mother, a lover, a woman both scorned and worshipped, and above all, as a friend to David's other women, Queen Michal reveals her hopes and pains, as the fire of God burns and war, passion, murder, and prophecy fill the Promised Land.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | First Fiction
  Updated 11/20/01
• Oscar Wilde Discovers America
  Author: Edwards, Louis
  Publisher: Scribner $ 24 BN: 0743236890 Date: 2003
  KirkusLJ
  This compelling and unique fictional foray into American history follows a brilliantly conjured Wilde and his young black valet on a whirlwind tour across the country from high-society Newport to the deep south.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 11.20.02
• Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish
  Author: Flanagan, Richard
  Publisher: Grove $ 27.50 ISBN: 0802117112 Date: 2002
  KirkusLibrary JournalPWBooklist
  The latest novel from internationally renowned author Flanagan. A rich tragicomic saga of art, fish, and the founding of new worlds.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 3/26/02
• The Old American
  Author: Hebert, Ernest
  Publisher: Univ Press of New England $ 24.95 ISBN: 1584650737 Date: 2000
  PW
  This novel is inspired by the real life story of Nathan Blake, the first frame house builder in Keene, New Hampshire who in 1746 was abducted by Algonkians and held in Canada as a slave.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 10/26/00
• The Final Confession of Mabel Stark
  Author: Hough, Robert
  Publisher: Atlantic $ 24 ISBN: 0871138700 Date: 2003
  Kirkus
  This finalist for the 2002 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book in Canada tells the fascinating story of the greatest female tiger trainer in history--and her one true love--spanning from golden age of the circus in the early 20th century to the 1960s.
  Suggested Reading: Circus Fiction | Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 1.10.03
• Creation
  Author: Govier, Katherine
  Publisher: Overlook $ 24.95 ISBN: 1585674109 Date: 2003
  Booklist
  In this atmospheric and enthralling novel, Govier tells the story of John James Audubon, a man torn between the lies he has lived by and the truth he now needs. Her novel recreates the summer in which "the world's greatest living bird artist" finally understood the paradox embedded in his art: that the act of creation is also an act of destruction.
  Updated 4.28.03
• I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company: A Novel of Lewis and Clark
  Author: Hall, Brian
  Publisher: Viking $ 25.95 ISBN: 0670031895 Date: 2003
  KirkusPW
  Presenting the story of Lewis and Clark in an entirely new light, Hall uses the novelist's art to produce a compulsively readable book that fills the gaps and provides a new perspective on this great American story.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 11.27.02
• The Mulberry Empire
  Author: Hensher, Philip
  Publisher: Knopf $ 26 ISBN: 0375414886 Date: 2002
  KirkusBooklist
  Spanning a decade and moving between London and Calcutta, The Mulberry Empire explores the doomed 1839 mission of some 50,000 forces of the British Empire as they entered Afghanistan to overthrow a hostile amir.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | First Fiction Debuts
  Updated 9.7.02
• Patrick: Son of Ireland
  Author: Lawhead, Stephen R.
  Publisher: Morrow $ 25.95 ISBN: 0060012811 Date: 2003
  Booklist
  A magnificent historical novel about the early life of the man who would one day be known as St. Patrick. This is the story of Patrick's "missing years"--years of calamity, defeat, and crushing disappointment that form him into a bard and advisor to the High King of Ireland, and lead to the mission for which his name will be remembered throughout history.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 3.13.03
• Dancer
  Author: McCann, Colum
  Publisher: Holt $ 26 ISBN: 0805067922 Date: 2003
  PW
  Taking his inspiration from the biographical facts of Rudolf Nureyev's life, McCann tells the story of a famous dancer through a chorus of voices. Spanning four decades and many worlds, Dancer is peopled by a large cast of characters, obscure and famous. The result is a monumental story of love, art, and exile.
  Updated 11.18.02
• Empress Orchid
  Author: Min, Anchee
  Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 24 ISBN: 0618068872 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  Empress Orchid is the story of a fascinating, strong-willed woman who for generations has been vilified as a grand seductress and murderer. Min draws a vivid portrait of a flawed yet utterly compelling woman and, through her life, of the world of the Chinese court and the sexual and political lives of the royal concubines.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Asian American Stars
  Updated 11.25.03
• Becoming Madame Mao
  Author: Min, Anchee
  Publisher: Houghton $ 25 ISBN: 0681004076 Date: 2000
  Library JournalBooklistPW
  From the bestselling author of Red Azalea comes a strikingly original, erotically charged portrayal of Madame Mao, one of the most vilified women of the 20th century.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | All Stars | Asian American Stars
  Updated 4/13/00.
• Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath
  Author: Moses, Kate
  Publisher: St Martins $ 23.95 ISBN: 031228375x Date: 2003
  PWLJ
  This stunning literary debut captures the haunting last months of Sylvia Plath's life and the painful creation of her legendary Ariel poems. Wintering is a deeply felt novel about artistry, marriage, motherhood, and self-understanding.
  Suggested Reading: First Fiction & Mystery Debuts | Poets
  Updated 1.16.03
• Frida
  Author: Mujica, Barbara
  Publisher: Overlook $ 26.95 ISBN: 158567074x Date: 2001
  LJ
  Based on the life of artist and icon Frida Kahlo, this historical novel is told from the point of view of Frida's sister, Christine. What unfolds is both an intense tale of sibling rivalry, as both sisters vie for muralist Diego Rivera's affection, and a fascinating history of Mexico at the first half of the 20th century.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 11/29/00
• Mrs. Shakespeare: The Complete Works
  Author: Nye, Bobert
  Publisher: Arcade $ 23.95 ISBN: 1559705523 Date: 2000
  KirkusPW
  In this humorous and bawdy fictional memoir, Shakespeare's wife Anne Hathaway reminisces about her famous husband seven years after his death.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 8/31/00
• Bucking the Tiger
  Author: Olds, Bruce
  Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 23 ISBN: 0374117276 Date: 2001
  KirkusLibrary Journal
  Evoking Doc Holliday's checkered careers as a frontier dentist, itinerant saloon gambler, professional faro dealer, and occasional shootist (including his involvement in the fabled gunfight at the OK Corral), Bucking the Tiger displaces the popular image of the Latin-spouting serial killer with the reality of a self-afflicted human being.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Western Stars | Take a Gamble
  Updated 8/24/01
• Double Play
  Author: Parker, Robert B.
  Publisher: Putnam $ 24.95 ISBN: 0399151885 Date: 2004
  KirkusPW
  In a brilliant novel about a very real man, Parker tells the story of the 1947 baseball season--when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier--through the eyes of a difficult, brooding, wounded man hired to guard Robinson.
  Updated 3.29.04
• Gunman's Rhapsody
  Author: Parker, Robert B.
  Publisher: Putnam $ 22.95 ISBN: 0399147624 Date: 2001
  Kirkus
  This muscular yet sensitive take on the story of Wyatt Earp, the legendary late-19th-century lawman, is filled with all the danger and uncertainty of the Old West and set against the backdrop of his real-life romance with showgirl Josie Marcus. A novel of the Old West, imagined as only Robert B. Parker can.
  Suggested Reading: Western Stars | Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 4/20/01
• Dancing in the Dark
  Author: Phillips, Caryl
  Publisher: Knopf $ 23.95 ISBN: 1400043964 Date: 2005
  BooklistPWLJ
  This novel reimagines the remarkable, tragic, little-known life of Bert Williams, the first black entertainer in the U.S. to reach the highest levels of fame and fortune. W.C. Fields called him "the funniest man I ever saw, and the saddest man I ever knew."
  Suggested Reading: African American Stars | Historical Fiction | All Stars
  Updated 7.11.05
• Tides of War: A Novel of Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War
  Author: Pressfield, Steven
  Publisher: Doubleday $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385492529 Date: 2000
  KirkusPWLibrary JournalBooklist
  The internationally bestselling author of Gates of Fire returns with a stunning novel of the Peloponnesian War and Alcibiades, the man whose heroics and passions fueled the epic struggle. Narrated by the conqueror's trusted bodyguard and hired assassin in a mesmerizing death-row confession, Tides of War is historical fiction at its finest - a full-bodied, flesh-and-blood retelling of one of history's pivotal conflicts.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | All Stars
  Updated 4/3/00.
• Booth
  Author: Robertson, David
  Publisher: Anchor Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0385487061 Date: 1998
  PWLJ
  A gripping novel set amidst the confusion and chaos of the Civil War, Booth tells the story of the only conspirator in the plot to kill Abraham Lincoln who was not killed or executed - a young man who falls under the spell of the charismatic and captivating world-famous stage actor, John Wilkes Booth, and is gradually sucked into the vortex of his insidious plans.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Civil War Fiction
• As Above, So Below: A Novel of Peter Bruegel
  Author: Rucker, Rudy
  Publisher: Forge $ 23.95 ISBN: 0765304031 Date: 2002
  Booklist
  In 16 chapters, each headed by one of the artist's famous works, Rucker brings the painter's progress and his colorful world to vibrant life, doing for Bruegel what the bestselling Girl With a Pearl Earring did for Vermeer.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 12.2.02
• I, Roger Williams: A Fragment of an Autobiograpy
  Author: Settle, Mary Lee
  Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0393049051 Date: 2001
  Booklist
  Banished by his fellow colonists in the dead of winter, Roger Williams endured years of exile among the Narragansett Indians and narrates this tumultuous tale in the peaceful last years of his life. In this panorama of war and love, the reader finds the freedom of conscience is an idea worth dying for.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 4/20/01
• Abe
  Author: Slotkin, Richard
  Publisher: Holt $ 27.50 ISBN: 0805041230 Date: 2000
  PW
  In a brilliant work of historical imagination, award-winning historian Slotkin recreates the childhood of Abe Lincoln, including a dramatic flatboat journey down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans.
  
• God's Fool
  Author: Slouka, Mark
  Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 0375402160 Date: 2002
  KirkusLibrary Journal
  Stretching from ancient Siam to the fields of the American Civil War, Slouka's debut novel transforms the story of the first Siamese twins in recorded history into a universal tale of brotherhood.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 5/20/02
• All Honest Men: The Story of J. Willis Newton and America's Most Successful Outlaw Gang
  Author: Stanush, Claude & Michele
  Publisher: Permanent $ 28 ISBN: 1579620841 Date: 2003
  Kirkus
  A lyrical debut novel by a father/daughter writing team based on the true-life story of J. Willis Newton, the cagey, charismatic son of a Texas sharecropper who fled the cotton fields to America's most successful bandit leader. Bridging the Old West outlaw era and the gangster world of Al Capone, the book explores the widespread twisting of the American Dream. - Publisher marketing.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | First Fiction Mystery & Debuts
  Updated 6.2.03
• Chang and Eng
  Author: Strauss, Darin
  Publisher: Dutton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0525945121 Date: 2000
  PWKirkus
  Everyone has a story to tell. Some of us even have two. Born attached at the chest, Chang and Eng Bunker were the Siamese twins for whom the term was coined, one of the 19th century's most fabled oddities. Narrated by Eng during the final moments of his life, Chang and Eng follows the extraordinary lives of the twins from poverty to wealth, from hopeless solititude to boundless love, from the court of the King of Siam to the crowded bedroom of their North Carolina home. Chang and Eng is an unforgettable and sublimely moving story that reveals the longings and humanity of these remarkable twins. - Publisher marketing.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 4/6/00.
• The Master
  Author: Toibin, Colm
  Publisher: Scribner $ 25 ISBN: 0743250400 Date: 2004
  KirkusBooklistPWLJ
  "A deep, lovely, and enthralling book that engages with the disquiet and drama of a famous writing life: splendidly conceived and composed by a writer who is himself a master of his art."--Shirley Hazzard (The Great Fire).
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Author Author
  Updated 5.4.04
• The Book of Salt
  Author: Truong, Monique
  Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 24 ISBN: 0618304002 Date: 2003
  PWKirkus
  In this literary feast, the Vietnamese cook for Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas reveals his fascinating story.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 1.26.03
• 1929
  Author: Turner, Frederick W.
  Publisher: Counterpoint $ 25 ISBN: 1582432651 Date: 2003
  KirkusBooklist
  In a briefly affluent and deeply disenchanted postwar America, the Jazz Age erupts in gaudy glory. It and one of its most colorful icons, Bix Beiderbecke, are celebrated in this first novel by an acclaimed nonfiction writer.
  Suggested Reading: Music & Fiction | Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 5.29.03
• Fanny: A Fiction
  Author: White, Edmund
  Publisher: Ecco $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060004843 Date: 2003
  KirkusPWLJBooklist
  This highly anticipated work is a brilliant novel based on the life of Fanny Wright--Scottish gentlewoman, early abolitionist, plantation owner, and newspaper publisher.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | All Stars
  Updated 10.2.03