A couple of weeks ago I was asking all you very well-read souls to recommend historical fiction, and a great response I got!
Then I discovered this little book, 100 Must-Read Historical Novels by Nick Rennison, and I thought that would be the perfect reference resource for when the 'period mood' strikes. It is pretty well pocket size, so ideal for carrying with you when you're in the bookshop or library and want a guide to point you in the right direction. But despite its lack of bulk it looks to pack a lot of information in between its covers.
I've just been skimming through it, but here's the gist: 100 titles arranged A-Z by author with a further 500 'read on' recommendations; themed categories such as 'Scotland', eighteenth century adventures, writers' lives, and so on. Each of the 100 main books covered has been chosen to represent the broad range of the genre, while entries are concise, give some information about the author as well as their book and then suggest further reading, either stylistically similar or thematically linked, and film versions where relevant.
How long will my wishlist be when I've dipped into this a few times, I wonder.
