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Tag: Historical fiction

  • The Book Thief

    In 1939, nine-year-old Liesel Meminger is taken to live with foster parents on Himmel Street in Molching, a small town near Munich. On the way, at her brother's graveside, she picks up her first stolen book, a gravedigger's handbook she cannot yet read. Her accordion-playing foster father, Hans Hubermann, teaches her letters in the basement late at night, while his sharp-tongued wife Rosa hides real tenderness.

    Liesel befriends Rudy Steiner, a lemon-haired neighbour who idolises Jesse Owens, and begins rescuing books from Nazi bonfires and the library of the mayor's wife. The Hubermanns then take a dangerous step by hiding Max Vandenburg, a young Jewish man, in their basement. Words become Liesel's way of understanding and resisting the world around her.

    The narrator is Death, weary, wry and oddly compassionate, who announces some events in advance and comments on human nature. Zusak, an Australian whose parents grew up in Germany and Austria, drew on their stories. Published for adults in Australia and as young adult fiction elsewhere, the book became an international bestseller and a 2013 film.

    Book details

    AuthorMarkus Zusak
    First published2005
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreHistorical fiction
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)552
    SettingMolching, a fictional town near Munich, Germany, 1939-1943
    AwardsMichael L. Printz Honor 2007

    Themes

    • The power of words
    • Death
    • Courage
    • Friendship
    • Life under Nazism

    Who should read it

    Teenagers and adults who want a moving Second World War story about books, family and kindness.

  • Les Miserables

    In 1815, Jean Valjean is released after nineteen years in the galleys for stealing bread and trying to escape. Shunned everywhere because of his yellow ex-convict's passport, he is taken in by the Bishop of Digne, whose act of mercy after Valjean betrays him changes the course of his life. Years later, under a new name, he has become a prosperous manufacturer and mayor.

    His path crosses that of Fantine, a young factory worker forced into destitution to support her daughter Cosette, who is being exploited by the innkeepers Thenardier. Inspector Javert, who believes the law is absolute, never stops suspecting the mayor's past. The story follows Cosette's growing up in Paris, her love for the student Marius, and the 1832 June Rebellion at the barricades.

    Hugo fills the novel with digressions on the Battle of Waterloo, convents, Parisian slang and the sewers of Paris. Published in 1862, it is a sweeping indictment of poverty and injustice and a meditation on grace, conscience and the law, later adapted into one of the world's most successful musicals.

    Book details

    AuthorVictor Hugo
    First published1862
    Original languageFrench
    Translated byNorman Denny
    GenreHistorical fiction
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)1463
    SettingFrance, 1815-1832

    Themes

    • Redemption
    • Justice and law
    • Poverty
    • Revolution
    • Love and sacrifice

    Who should read it

    Readers who want a sweeping historical epic about mercy, injustice and the poor of nineteenth-century France.

  • War and Peace

    War and Peace opens in a St Petersburg salon in 1805, where the talk is of Napoleon, and follows several aristocratic families over the following years: the warm, chaotic Rostovs, the proud Bolkonskys and the scheming Kuragins. At its centre are three figures: Pierre Bezukhov, an awkward illegitimate son who unexpectedly inherits a fortune; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, an ambitious, disillusioned officer; and Natasha Rostova, whose vitality lights up the book.

    Tolstoy alternates between ballrooms, country estates and battlefields, including Austerlitz and Borodino, and the French occupation and burning of Moscow in 1812. Historical figures such as Napoleon and the Russian commander Kutuzov appear beside the fictional characters. Pierre's search for meaning takes him through Freemasonry, a disastrous marriage and captivity.

    Lengthy essays argue that history is shaped by countless individual actions rather than by great men. Huge in cast and scope yet intimate in its psychological detail, the novel is widely regarded as one of the greatest ever written. Readers often worry about its length, but its short chapters and vivid scenes carry the story forward.

    Book details

    AuthorLeo Tolstoy
    First published1869
    Original languageRussian
    Translated byLouise and Aylmer Maude
    GenreHistorical fiction
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)1225
    SettingRussia and Austria, 1805-1820

    Themes

    • War
    • History and free will
    • Love and marriage
    • Meaning of life
    • Russian society

    Who should read it

    Ambitious readers ready for an epic that combines family saga, war story and philosophy of history.

  • A Tale of Two Cities

    The novel opens in 1775 as Doctor Manette is released after eighteen years of secret imprisonment in the Bastille, his mind damaged so badly that he obsessively makes shoes. His daughter Lucie, raised in England believing him dead, brings him to London, where they are drawn into the treason trial of Charles Darnay, a French emigre who has renounced his aristocratic family.

    Darnay is saved partly thanks to the dissolute barrister Sydney Carton, who looks strikingly like him and who quietly loves Lucie. Meanwhile in the Paris suburb of Saint Antoine, the wine-shop keeper Defarge and his implacable wife knit and plot as resentment against the nobility, embodied by the cruel Marquis St. Evremonde, builds towards revolution and the Terror.

    Shorter and more plot-driven than many Dickens novels, it was serialised in his weekly magazine All the Year Round in 1859. It contrasts the two cities and explores sacrifice, resurrection, mob violence and the cycle of oppression and vengeance. It is often cited as one of the best-selling novels ever published.

    Book details

    AuthorCharles Dickens
    First published1859
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreHistorical fiction
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)448
    SettingLondon and Paris, 1775-1793

    Themes

    • Revolution
    • Sacrifice
    • Resurrection
    • Injustice
    • Doubles

    Who should read it

    Readers who like historical drama and want a Dickens novel driven by suspense and the French Revolution.