[Closed] The Last Kingdom.., and other leading stories - Books N+1

I got tired of them after book 3 or 4 but bizarrely carried on to at least 9. It was like some sort of addiction, I knew it wasn't good for me but I kept doing it anyway. I've been clean for a couple of years now.

I’d be interested to know of other leading reads of any genre that forumites have discovered

Have you read any Rosemary Sutcliff? Mostly children's books really but of the sort that adults can read. For something a bit more grown up her retelling of Arthurian legend 'The Sword at Sunset' is excellent.

Cornwell does write some great stories. I like the Grail Quest trilogy and you can never get enough of Sharpie.

Actually, if you want a right good read with a healthy dollop of history then start on the Flashman series. Pretty much all I know about Victorian history comes from them.

Love a bit of AS history, always make a beeline for the gold hoard etc if in a museum 😀
Bumped into these guys a few times on rides as their base is in my local woods (they have a big compound & recreated a huge Saxon meeting hall there!)
https://regia.org/about.php
(Once you’ve read the books the 4 season BBC/Netflix TV show is definitely worth checking out!)

All on Netflix too 😉
There are a few good podcasts on the BBC In Our Time covering Danelaw etc. There's a good one on Alcuin of York from a little earlier too - Northumbrian monk who became advisor to Charlemagne, and one on the Picts. I've become a bit obsessed with Medieval history too.

I got the first one as a free ebook from Amazon I think, then bought the rest-great business idea from them! On to the Aubrey-maturin series by Patrick O’Brien now so that will keep me busy.

I’d go through the other Cornwall stuff eg Grailquest and Warlord Chronicles plus the one offs like Agincort.  I also stumbled on The Archers Story on Amazon by Martin Archer.  It’s a long series too and worth a read.

Whilst I enjoy the Last Kingdom on TV it moves too fast and is so far removed from the books in many ways, I feel Cornwell tries to convey life at the time and battles to be relatively accurate (aside from the hero always wins), I don’t even recall a shield wall in the tv series, just armies charging at each other.

I have been re-reading The Baroque Cycle from Neal Stephenson. It's set during the restoration / enlightenment and features real historical characters. Can't speak for the authenticity generally, but I'm pretty keen to read some actual history surrounding that time now to find out more.

The Rest is History Podcast had an episode on Historical fiction which covers a lot of this ground.

I don’t even recall a shield wall in the tv series, just armies charging at each other.

I’ve watched 2 episodes on Netflix but will have to pause until I’ve read all the books - the issue I have is that my mentally imagined characters and the tv series don’t match up, which rather ruins it for me.

Some good mentions here of other things to research, thanks for those. Agree with the Sharpe books, I enjoyed those many years ago.

Conn Iggulden writes books of a similar nature. I dont think he's done a viking / saxon series, but there's Caesar, Genghis Khan and the Wars of the Roses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conn_Iggulden#Bibliography

I think of Bernard Cromwell as a bit of a guilty pleasure. I devoir audiobooks and have done most of his series. But it's only just one up from the male version of chic lit - and that's a pretty tenuous claim. A kind of Biggles for adults level of ambition. Especially the Sharpe series. Still, it was good for listening to whilst doing other things that require a little bit of head space left.

I only did the first 4 books of the Last Kingdom series, updated and read by Jonathan Keeble in 2019. After that Audible reverts back to the original Matt Bates read versions who I find excruciating to listen to so returned book 5 and gave up.

Very similar - Ken Follett, The Evening and the Morning and The Pillars of the Earth trilogy.
Saxons, Vikings and then onwards a bit.
977 start.

Different period but I have really enjoyed the Harry Gilmour novels by David Black. Six books following a submariner in WW2

David Gemmell - Troy series was a good read

Harlequin by Cornwell is good.

Really enjoyed the Last Kingdom.

I've read (and enjoyed) Bernatd Cornwell's Uhtred books. I like the Sharpe series too.

A different author ( with a different historical period) worth a read is Ben Kane and his Roman legion/ era books, particularly the Eagles series featuring Centurion Tullas.

In a similar vein I've just read the first of Simon Scarrow's Roman legion series and enjoyed it too.

ANother shout out for the Conn Igulden book- thought that Ceasar and Ghengis Khan were really good.

With an 'English' education (even living on the northern border) I understood that the Saxons were mostly always in charge and the Danes/Norsemen (and women) were soon chased out or paid off and then the Normans took over. There's a rich Viking heritage up here. I'm finding the history of 'Vikings' in Scotland fascinating too - the Hebrides etc - along with the Celts/Gaels, and Picts. The Frayed Atlantic Edge by David Gange gives a very different perspective, looking at history from the sea inwards.

If they taught history properly we might not have to suffer all this Engerlaand nationalist sh1te. Alfred the Great and his fake news 'Chronicle' largely to blame?

You have to read his Warlord Chronicles, even he says they are his best books and for me are way better than the last Kingdom although I do really enjoy that.

The Making of England series by Stewart Binns was very good, addictively so.
On a similar theme look at the work of James Wilde, all very accessible with good characters.
+1 for the Ken Follett books.
I've just restarted The Last Kingdom on Netflix as I started watching it on the BBC years ago and then it was taken off iPlayer.
There's a fair few other Vikingy series on TV atm too.

Yeah, Cornwells Arthur books are great. I rather enjoyed the American civil war books too- at the time I remember thinking the third one was one of his best, but haven’t read it in years.

I also really like the Simon Scarrow books as an easy read in the sharpe model. His ‘Generals’ quartet about Wellington and napoleon was interesting too.

Another fan of The Last Kingdom books here. Just gets a bit bizarre when you realise Uhtred is about sixty and still fighting and winning battles.

I must read the books as I enjoyed The Last Kingdom tv series despite the cheesy main lead. Sharpe is great viewing also, especially when Liz Hurley shows up *ahem*

Harry Gilmour novels by David Black

@jimw - good man! I'd read the first three and then forgot to look out for the sequels. Just bought Book 4.

Read all of the CJ Sampson series set in the time of Henry VIII.  First 3 were the best, but I found them very immersive. Good stories too if you like a bit of intrigue and mystery.

Harry Gilmour novels by David Black

Adam Sandler was quite good in the movie version.

Fantastic thread!

Really enjoyed the Last Kingdom TV series and also Vikings on Amazon, especially when they started to intertwine a bit. Definitely piqued my interest and this is exactly what I was looking for.

Adam Sandler was quite good in the movie version.

Err, I think that was Happy Gilmore

Whoooosh!

I was going to add CJ Sansom but Alex got in before me. In addition to the Shardlake series also try Dominion and Winter in Madrid.

If you've not watched Norsemen, it's well worth a watch, as a very humorous take on it all.
Norsemen

I'll chip in. Cornwell's Warlord trilogy - his retelling of the Arthurian legends as they might actually have been - is superb. His American civil war series (there were four) is very good too.

Head and shoulders though the best historical fiction I've read is the Flashman books by George Macdonald Fraser. Brilliant adventure stories, funny, clever, superbly written and with a genius plot device. The fact that they're all written as if they're the actual memoirs of Flashman is so cleverly done that when the first was published in the 60s many reviewers thought it was real.

Also mentioned above are the CJ Sansom books and specifically the Shardlake ones. Again brilliant historical books and great detective/murder mystery novels in their own right.

Different genre of historical fiction, but well worth checking out, are the James Clavell books. In particular Shogun (loosely based on the true story of a British sailor/adventurer/pirate who was shipwrecked on the shores of feudal Japan in the 1600s and eventually became a Samurai and chief advisor to Toranaga, one of the great Shoguns) is a superb adventure story and great insight into the Japanese way of thinking at that time. Also Tai Pan is brilliant on the Opium wars with China and the founding of Hong Kong

The Warrior of Rome series by Harry Sidebottom is well worth a read too 👍

In particular Shogun

I remember borrowing that from my Dads bookcase many years ago in my early teens. A massive book IIRC, but very very good.

In a similar perhaps controversial fashion I borrowed a Sven Hassell book from my dad at the age of 13 and after reading the whole collection borrowed from the library, was fixated by ww2. A few years later I passed a major History milestone at school with my in depth knowledge of the Tiger (tank) which served of no use at all as I was growing up....

I’m going to have to make a note of some of these for when I get back to commuting.  Though I need to read the 2 most recent last kingdom books still.  Think I’ll revisit the Warlord books too.

I'm the same as spin above, I got to book 8 or 9 before realising that I kept hearing 'I am Uhtred, son of Uhtred' every time my mind went a bit empty.

Try Adrian Goldsworthy - wrote some fiction books roman Britain based around Hadrians Wall

And Max Adams - proper history books but combines the histroy with the local palces names eg King of the North - give you a real inssight into that local hillfort you cycled past and wondered WTF. bring places to life.

Series 5 of Last Kingdom just added to Netflix today….

Conn Iggulden does some good historical series - I particularly liked the Genghis Khan series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conn_Iggulden#Emperor_series

The REAL King Alfred's Way....

Series 5 of Last Kingdom just added to Netflix today…

Bugger, as if I haven't got enough to watch already...

Whaaaaaaaaaat!! Awesome!

Two pages on historical fiction and no mentions of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy? Let me correct that - absolutely brilliant.

Two pages on historical fiction and no mentions of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy? Let me correct that – absolutely brilliant.

Two pages on PULP historical fiction. Considering that James Clavell, Ken Follett and even Sven Hassell were all suggested before any actual history books (Max Adams was my first thought as well, even though they get a little repetitive), I'd suggest that Hilary Mantel might be a little highbrow for this thread. 😀

Sven Hassell was a great favourite from the 2nd hand book stall in the market when my friends and I were 13. I sometimes see his stuff around and wonder about how bad it could be..

+1 for Pillars of the Earth, I can't quite explain it, I'm pretty convinced it's actually really badly written but even so I loved it. Shame World Without End is basically the same book.

Bit leftfield maybe but Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson. Now it's all alternative history, but it's ridiculously compelling alternative history that made me look again at the real world equivalents. It's a bit too ambitious really but still awesome.

Two pages on historical fiction and no mentions of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy? Let me correct that – absolutely brilliant.

I really, really wanted to like these, I soldiered on till about page 100 of the first book- just couldn’t cope with her writing style at all. Really disappointed and aware that it’s my problem not hers as everyone else raves about them.
On the other hand the BBC adaptation was wonderful
If you are looking for novels in the Tudor period, The Shardlake series by C.J. Samson are worth a look, as are those by S.J.Parris.

I enjoyed Wolf Hall but I think that rather than being a good gateway into the history, I was a bit held back by the fact that I didn't know the history. It feels like it's written with the assumption that you grew up learning divorced, beheaded, died and all that, like my mum did and like I didn't.

Shardlake- loved the first few but Heartstone kind of jumped the shark a bit in terms of credibility for me, it finally became too obvious that he was going to turn up at every major event like Forrest Gump.

I really, really wanted to like these, I soldiered on till about page 100 of the first book- just couldn’t cope with her writing style at all.

Fair. Constantly referring to Cromwell as "he", as well as using "he" for various other characters does mean I have to read some of the sentences more than once to figure out who's saying what.

There's very few books that make me laugh out loud these days though, but Wolf Hall managed it ("Call Me") and so did The Mirror and the Light ("would that be the pain in your b0ll0cks?")

If you like Vikings and Arthurian legend then I'd throw in Giles Kristian. Couple of different book series, great books.

David Churchills William the Conqueror books also very good. Leopards of Normandy is the first in a trilogy.

As much as I love David Gemmell the Valerio Manfredi Alexander books are much better.

Conn Igguldens Genghis and the Caeser books are the pick of the bunch. The war of the roses ones are good too but I'd read the other two first.

And as mentioned Pillars of the earth is really good, don't be put off by the blurb. But again as mentioned the follow up books are pretty much the same story. The Century books are excellent too though more modern.

If you prefer the politics rather than the hack and slash then Robert Harris's Rome stuff is worth a look.

It feels like it’s written with the assumption that you grew up learning divorced, beheaded, died and all that, like my mum did and like I didn’t.

I've got to disagree with that. I'm sure that you knew that Henry had several wives, and that Anne Boleyn at least was beheaded. The vast majority of people who know 'divorced/beheaded/dies/whatever' couldn't tell you much more than that phrase about the history of Henry's court, and before Mantel wrote these books, probably couldn't tell you anything about Cromwell other than maybe his involvement with the dissolution of monasteries.

The novels are about a person - Cromwell - who doesn't figure at all in popular history (or at least, not very much) and his imagined relations with the court etc. Does it really alter the way you read the book if you know/don't know that several of the major characters die? Does Cromwell's relationship with the Boleyn family depend on foreknowledge of her death? Of course it doesn't.

I enjoyed World without End, admittedly I read it during lockdown,and the storyline linked to the plague I found eerie to read as it had been written 12 years or so beforehand.

I'd agree with fd3chris on page 1. Last kingdom stuff is good, but the warlord trilogy is better.