When Ken Follett took a sharp turn from suspenseful spy novels to historical fiction, readers didn’t know what to expect. Little did they know that this twelfth-century adventure featuring a down-to-earth mason, an outlawed witch, and a warm-hearted priest would become one of Follett’s bestselling novels.
The Pillars of the Earth opens with said mason — Tom Builder — searching for a job to sustain his family only to fall in love with the outlawed witch. Eventually, Tom is employed by the priest to build a cathedral, but all doesn’t go smoothly, thanks to a villainous earl and archdeacon who fear they’ll lose their clout if said cathedral gets built. From impressive word-pictures of majestic architecture to dramatic sieges, this novel gives you everything you need to feel like you’ve travelled to medieval England.
First published chapter by chapter in Dickens’s literary periodical, A Tale of Two Cities is set during the French Revolution. It follows the various people in Lucie Manette’s life: her previously imprisoned revolutionary father, her exiled aristocratic suitor, Charles Darnay, and his romantic rival , Sydney Carton — a smart but failing English lawyer.
In 1637, a group of masterless samurai took up arms against the Tokugawa shogunate, aided by the mostly Catholic peasantry who farmed tJapan’s Shimabara Peninsula. The shogun cracked down hard on the rebels, leaving more than 27,000 dead. In the aftermath, Japan’s Catholics went underground, worshipping their God in secret.
The submerged history of the Kakure Kirishitan, or “hidden Christians,” forms the backdrop to Shusaku Endo’s Silence. The Portuguese Jesuit Sebastião Rodrigues arrives in Japan looking for a senior colleague who’s rumored to have turned his back on the church. He’s greeted by an atmosphere of dread: Tokugawa officials, determined to enforce a state ban on Christianity, roam the countryside looking for followers of the forbidden religion.
The mid to late nineteenth century was a chaotic time for Europe, as modernization heightened the ugly disparity between the rich and the poor across the nations. Darnay’s disavowal of his family and Carton’s determination to address injustices emerge as heroic acts that only highlight the horrific inequality of the time.
You’ve very likely heard of this historical epic — Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace is a pillar of classic literature that’s known and studied all across the world. Set in a Tsarist Russia under attack by Napoleon and his mighty army, the book follows a cast of characters from all walks of life. There’s Pierre Bezukhov, the bastard son of a famous count, who struggling to understand his position in society; Natasha Rostova, the romantic and vivacious countess who lives in the moment; and Andrei Bolkonsky, the high-born prince who rejects the safety provided by his status to join the war effort against the French.
No one is spared from the suffering caused by a war that’s focused on protecting the empire and not its people — a poignant reflection that comes through thanks to Tolstoy’s thorough research of the period. This colossal masterpiece is no easy read, but it’s a gem that history buffs should not skip over.
This Gwyneth Paltrow-approved Goop pick shines a light on the Chinese immigrants who found their way to California in the 1840s, drawn by the promise of gold. Lucy and Sam are the children of one such prospector. But when their father dies suddenly one night, they’re left alone, in a ramshackle mining town where their very existence makes them unsafe.
How Much of These Hills Is Gold centers on Sam and Lucy’s quest to give their father a proper burial. This isn’t an easy book to read: after all, we’re tracking two children, neither of them into their teens, as they drag a corpse around a desert landscape teeming with threats. But thanks to C. Pam Zhang’s lovely narrative style, this novel rewards as much as it devastates.