What is something you've learned while reading historical fiction?

For March 2018 we will be reading historical fiction books
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BriennaiJ
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Re: What is something you've learned while reading historical fiction?

Post by BriennaiJ »

Cswrawr wrote: 13 Apr 2018, 22:08
BriennaiJ wrote: 13 Apr 2018, 20:30
Cswrawr wrote: 13 Apr 2018, 19:27 I was always terrible at history in school, barely slid by every year. I didn't truly appreciate learning history until I read Gone with the Wind. It totally changed my outlook and now I dig into either historical fiction or first person accounts of historical events as often as I can.




@regency romance, I completely agree. It's incredibly frustrating when browsing for a historical fiction to read and all the lists are unresearched stories that the author just inserted into a time period for the sake of the stable hand on the cover. :roll:
I have disliked nearly every history class I have taken in my school because the teachers usually never give personality to the time period. Only one of them actually spent the time relating our material to news events in current life! These are both important to making a history class bearable. I also hate when authors don't do any research about the time period. I have found a few good ones, but most of the Regency romance just leans more towards romance than actual historical fiction.
There's an interesting documentary called "The Revisionaries" that illustrates what goes into writing US public school text books, particularly history text books and why they are written to be so bland. There's actually a committee that sits around voting to strike out any subject, or even single words, that they find too controversial.
Which good ones have you found? Do you have any recommendations?
I'm definitely going to have to check out that documentary.

One particularly good historical fiction author that I found was a woman named S.R. Mallery. One of her books called Trouble in Glamour Town really delved into the behind the scenes life of movie actors in the 1920s. She's also written books about other time periods, and every one that I have read has been well-researched and very informative along with having a great plot.
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Cswrawr
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Post by Cswrawr »

BriennaiJ wrote: 14 Apr 2018, 10:47
Cswrawr wrote: 13 Apr 2018, 22:08
BriennaiJ wrote: 13 Apr 2018, 20:30

I have disliked nearly every history class I have taken in my school because the teachers usually never give personality to the time period. Only one of them actually spent the time relating our material to news events in current life! These are both important to making a history class bearable. I also hate when authors don't do any research about the time period. I have found a few good ones, but most of the Regency romance just leans more towards romance than actual historical fiction.
There's an interesting documentary called "The Revisionaries" that illustrates what goes into writing US public school text books, particularly history text books and why they are written to be so bland. There's actually a committee that sits around voting to strike out any subject, or even single words, that they find too controversial.
Which good ones have you found? Do you have any recommendations?
I'm definitely going to have to check out that documentary.

One particularly good historical fiction author that I found was a woman named S.R. Mallery. One of her books called Trouble in Glamour Town really delved into the behind the scenes life of movie actors in the 1920s. She's also written books about other time periods, and every one that I have read has been well-researched and very informative along with having a great plot.
Thanks! I looked up a couple of her books on Goodreads and they sound interesting, I've added them to my want to read list :)
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Post by elivia05 »

DancingLady wrote: 03 Mar 2018, 23:25 I learned so much from historical fiction as a homeschool kid that when I entered a private HS, I breezed through world history without having to put much time into it, which was a big surprise to me as I expected HA to be hard.

I would also have to credit Number the Stars as a very important book in my life, continuing to today. Quo Vadis is by far the most life changing historical fiction I’ve ever read. Others that were incredibly educational include The Russians series by Judith Pella and the Zion Covenant/Zion Chronicles series’s by Bodie Thoene.
I agree that historical fiction books are some of the greatest teachers that you can have.
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