Not sure exactly how to describe what im looking for. I’ve recently read books like A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (firsthand account from the Sierra Leone Civil war), Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (historical non-fiction), and The Mountains Sing (historical fiction, story of a family living through the Vietnam War). I’ve found these books at times disturbing and heartbreaking, at others touching and riveting, and ultimately impactful and important reading. They provide perspectives on historical events, some of which I had a decent amount of previous knowledge on and some I knew next to nothing about before reading.
I want to read more books like these. While all three of these books are set in times of war, that’s not necessarily a requirement of what I’m looking for. Suggestions from any of the above genres are welcome (memoir, historical fiction, historical non-fiction).
by SpecialBreadfruit584
7 Comments
I’ve been reading Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano. It’s a great read.
[The Name of the Rose](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2519) by Umberto Eco (a lot of historical, philosophical, and religious history in this fictional mystery set in an Italian monastery in 1327).
[Killers of the Flower Moon](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35954609) by David Grann (about the Osage murders in the 1920s).
[Human Acts](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34964181) by Han Kang (about the 1980 democratization uprising in Gwanju, Korea).
[The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57224204) by Shehan Karunatilaka (set in Sri Lanka during the civil war).
The Flashman Papers by George MacDonald Fraser. Thrilling historical fiction laced with anthropological and cultural observations, based on contemporary historical works, of peoples across the globe in the mid to late 19th century.
* *Nothing To Envy: ordinary lives in North Korea*, Barbara Demick
* *The Night Watchman*, Louise Erdrich
* *Stasiland*, Anna Funder
* *Nickel and Dime’d*, Barbara Ehrenreich
* *Down and Out in Paris and London*, George Orwell
* *Homage to Catalonia*, George Orwell
* *Orwell’s Roses*, Rebecca Solnit
* *Stalingrad*, Antony Beevor
* *The Fatal Shore*, Robert Hughes
* *American Visions*, Robert Hughes
*Wild Swans* by Jung Chang. A memoir, but also a trip through the c20th history of China via the lives of three generations of women – and an amazing, page-turning read.
Here’s the blurb:
*Few books have had such an impact as Wild Swans: a popular best seller and a critically acclaimed history of China that opened up the country to the world.*
*Through the story of three generations of women in her own family – the grandmother given to the warlord as a concubine, the Communist mother, and the daughter herself – Jung Chang reveals the epic history of China’s 20th century.*
*Breathtaking in its scope, unforgettable in its descriptions, this is a masterpiece that is extraordinary in every way.*
A World Apart by Gustaw Herling-Grudziński (memoir from his time as a prisoner of gulag in Siberia)
The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich (oral history of the experiences of the Russian women during the second world war)
House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk (historical fiction with a little bit of magical realism about small town in Silesia and it’s history)
I have a few graphic novel suggestions:
Persepolis
The march
They called us enemy