Historical Fiction - Worthy or Worthless?

the Bartholomew Bandy series by Donald Jack, very funny account of a gentleman from ww1 to ww 2

 

Like anything, if it is done well, then it is worthy.

 

Last month read New York by Edward Rutherfurd now I'm half way through his book Sarum.
Bit of escapism but has got me Googling quite a few facts now & again.
Learning a bit of history whilst reading a ripping yarn.

 

Still haven't read SS-GB. Nice to read this thread again.

 

Perhaps a hybrid category. History with alternative facts.

 

Such a great book. Another I need to go back and read again.

 

I read it many years ago during my Deighton phase, was rather good I thought.

 

I read Goodbye Mickey Mouse and Bomber.

 

Historical fiction read when I was little got me interested in the real thing. I read widely as a youth and progressed to more significant fare later. Without fiction I'm not sure how my education would have proceeded.

 

Saw this today. Could have a few up in arms...


Good reviews thou.

 

One of the first "dramas" on the then-new BBC2 in 1967 was an adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's "Sword of Honour" trilogy: "Men At Arms" ( 1952), "Officers and Gentlemen" (1955), "Unconditional Surrender" (1961).

This was in black-and white with an excellent cast: Edward Woodward, James Villiers, Ronald Fraser, Freddie Jones, Vivian Pickles. Very bare sets, which made it better. It hasn't been equalled.Then I read the books. Waugh's "Put Out More Flags", about the phoney war is rather different, but well worth a read. Waugh was an unpleasant man, but was a brilliant writer. John Mortimer ( who wrote the Rumpole stories, amongst many other plays and novels, "adapted" Evelyn Waugh's " Brideshead Revisited" for the famous ITV series, but the dialogue is lifted straight out of Waugh's book with virtually no changes. Mortimer couldn't improve it.

George Macdonald Fraser touches on the war in his hilarious McAuslan stories ( there was a TV version.) See , for example, "The General Danced at Dawn", about life in a post-war Scottish regiment in the Middle East. Absolutely guaranteed to cheer you up. Very approachable, fascinating, funny, a superb craftsman. His autobiographical "Quartered Safe Out Here", about his time in Burma in 1944/45, is a masterpiece.

 

An old thread, I know but maybe worth a poke.

On Friday I finished the last book in the Sister Bells trilogy by Norwegian author Lars Mytting.
LARS MYTTING

The Sister Bells Trilogy — LARS MYTTING

I bought book one in Lillehammer last month , as I liked the paperback cover & the blurb looked good.
I was absolutely hooked.
The last book is mainly set in wartime Norway & the bombing of Dresden features too.

I've learnt quite a bit of Norwegian history through reading them.

 

I'm now reading this one.
The Sixteen Trees of the Somme — LARS MYTTING

The main character is my age.
It's set in 1991 but covers such topics as Norwegians fighting on the Eastern Front , the Holocaust to The Black Watch on the Somme in 1916.