I need to escape to ancient Egypt, New Orleans or the Deep South of 100 years ago. In fact, any historical book that brings a place to life. I love books that immerse me so deeply in the time, culture and beliefs that it becomes a sensory experience. A magical or spiritual component would be a bonus. Help me escape🙏😁
by neezykhaleezy
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Skull Mantra by Pattison – winner of the Edgar Award
This is the publisher’s blurb:
“Critical acclaim ranks The Skull Mantra with Gorky Park and Smilla’s Sense of Snow as a novel as much about a people and a place—the Tibetans of the high Himalayas—as it is a gripping thriller. Winner of the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, author Elliot Pattison masterfully scales the heights of the genre, taking readers to the top of the world while he chills us to the bone in… The Skull Mantra.”
“The corpse is missing its head and is dressed in American clothes. Found by a Tibetan prison work gang on a windy cliff, the grisly remains clearly belong to someone too important for Chinese authorities to bury and forget. So the case is handed to veteran police inspector Shan Tao Yun. Methodical, clever Shan is the best man for the job, but he too is a prisoner, deported to Tibet for offending Beijing. Granted a temporary release, Shan is soon pulled into the Tibetan people’s desperate fight for its sacred mountains and the Chinese regime’s blood-soaked policies. Then, a Buddhist priest is arrested, a man Shan knows is innocent. Now time is running out for Shan to find the real killer…in an astonishing, emotionally charged story that will change the way you think about Tibet—and freedom—forever.”
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Rhadopis of Nubia by Egyptian Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz is good.
For books about Egypt, the author you want is Wilbur Smith.
For other places/times:
Colleen McCullough’s *The First Man in Rome*
Gary Jennings’ *Aztec* and *The Journeyer*
James Clavell’s *Shogun*
Helen of Troy by Margaret George is absolutely fantastic.
You need to read Pauline Gedge. I enjoyed the Lord of the Two Lands Trilogy. I think the first book is The Hippopotamus Marsh