28 Books Like John Keats

People will tell you Byron produced his best works in later life (not that late, though because he died at the age of 36), his literary prowess capping at Don Juan. That could be true, but there is something beautifully human about Hours of Idleness. It includes my absolute favourite poem, "Lachin y Gair". It’s the poem that rekindled my love of Byron’s poetry after several years of absence, drenched in the poet’s desperation to belong in that history. That same connection with the cultural past is what turned me to writing historical fiction.

But the book is more than just one poem. It’s a youth’s progression into a man, and (as you might expect from Byron) features all the sordidness and bitterness of the emergence of an adult soul.

This book is like looking at the two mirrored sides of the soul. The beauty and simplicity of innocence against the calculated approach of experience. There is one poem in it, "The Little Black Boy", which is a beautiful look through a spectacular naivety at the issue of slavery and racism as it was in the late 18th Century. It features the line:

“When I from black and he from white cloud free.”

And this is where the title of my book came from.

I’m a person with limited interests so, as well as loving history and poetry, I also collect bits of both… Ballads and Lyrical Pieces is one of the only books I can boast about having a first edition of!

I have a lot of time for Walter Scott, not only as a writer, but as a cultural politician and a folklorist. A lot of the pieces in this book are not solely his work, but the reimagining of local ballads. After scooping up these, there’s no wonder he went on to invent the romanticised “Scottishness” we recognise today. This book, 15 years before Scott influenced George IV’s visit to Scotland, shows where his own influences came from.

I’m a sucker for a good primary source, but I’m even more of a fan of the 1.5 sources. I love the sources which are of the time but are influenced as much by rumour as fact. This collection of essays does its best to be objective, but there are people amongst these pages who have been so strongly immortalised in popular opinion, but sometimes facts have been discarded in favour of Hazlitt’s own opinion. But, from the point of view of a historical fiction writer, this is priceless, because it unearths a contemporary viewpoint and opens a window onto the thoughts of a people about The Spirit of the Age!

When a man sets sail on an extended ocean voyage, there is usually purpose, determination, and a goal to reach. Donald Crowhurst likely held these objectives when he embarked upon his round-the-world sailing adventure…but somewhere along the way, he lost sight of those goals, and seemingly with the basic truth of reality. Crowhurst’s story is a  sometimes dark and disturbing account of what the voyage was all about, and what may have actually taken place on this strange and bizarre odyssey. As a man who has felt the pangs, insecurities, and unknowns when on the ocean, miles from land, scared, and facing the challenges that both nature and humanity tossed our way, I can somewhat understand how a man at sea can become so lost, so confused, and so vulnerable.

The Strange Voyage of Donald Crowhurst helped me to understand some of the odd feelings and thoughts that I have… show more.

I love a “Man on the Run” book. Books like The 39 Steps, Odd Man Out, and The Running Man are stories I truly love. There's something exciting about a chase book because the hero has to be resourceful and resilient, and that’s what we have here.

Harry has to prove his innocence. The other aspect of a chase story is all the odd characters a hero on the run has to turn to for help when there is no one else to turn to, even if they can't be trusted, but Harry has to put his faith in them for the few moments he needs them. Great stuff.

Landscapes like the White Cliffs of Dover, the Cotswolds, or the Lake District are celebrated icons of national identity. 

David Matless shows how, in the first half of the twentieth century, these landscapes became sites of contestation between different visions of the nation. For some, committed to landscape preservation but also to a self-consciously modernizing planning ethos, Englishness was about neat, tidy landscapes, free from litter, pollution, and poverty. For others the real England was traditional, hierarchical, and unplanned, exemplified by the great estates with their country houses and landscape gardens. 

The fundamental question this book raised for me, one I’m still turning over in my mind, was whether and how we can find ways to harmonize our sometimes very different visions of the landscapes we care so much about.

This is one of those books that stayed with me long after I finished the last page. I think the author’s choice to tell the story from the point of view of the two dogs and the other animals they meet is powerful. We get to feel their fear, sadness, mistrust, and hope for a better life. 

This story can pose quite a dilemma for a reader because on one hand, we know that we’d never hurt animals, but we also realize that when we purchase products that are tested on animals, we are the villains in the story.

I am recommending this book because I fell in love with it as a child.

First, those beautiful watercolor illustrations of pure whimsy and secondly, I secretly loved the mischievous squirrel Nutkin and his riddles. As an adult, I love cuddling with my family's nutkins and sharing a laugh and a lesson on the sly.

There is just something special about sharing with your grandchildren a book you loved as a child!

The first in Lynch’s long-running DI Kelly Porter series, this book introduces a strongly-written female protagonist, investigating a well-crafted mystery.

This is ideal for readers who want to be transported to a beautiful location (Cumbria and the Lake District). Over the course of the series the characters all grow and develop in interesting ways. I originally started the series three books in and was able to pick up the ongoing storylines with ease, before going back and reading from the beginning.

From a procedural perspective, the books are well-researched and the balance between detail and story-telling is spot-on.