12 Books Like The Friar and the Cipher

Between the Greeks and the Renaissance lie the Dark Ages, so called for the pall of orthodoxy and repression that afflicted civilization for those lamentable centuries. But what was lost was found again, and modern science has been the marvelous result. Those of us alive and well today have much to be grateful for, and Violet Moller tells us how we came to inherit it all.

My copy is a first edition (1961). It was the main text for my history course on World War II at the University of Minnesota 64 years ago. The history of World War II was taught by Prof. Harold Charles Deutsch (1904-1995), who had been a translator at Nuremberg and who astonished us with recitations of conversations with most of the captured senior Nazis. Deutsch was Chief of the Political Subdivision for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. This was the predecessor to the CIA. Imagine reading what Shirer wrote about Hermann Goering on page 557, then going to class to hear your professor correct Shirer, say "when I interviewed Goering, he told me..." I'm an aging professor myself now, but back then I was a kid from a small Minnesota town called "Sleepy Eye," discovering the modern world via… show more.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is a renowned Harvard professor and author of a series of deeply insightful books on African American history. He has also become one of the most recognizable public figures in the nation, from the PBS series Finding Your Roots and Reconstruction to a cameo in Watchmen in which he played the United States Treasury Secretary. It can be easy to forget that “Skip” Gates was raised in the hills of West Virginia, part of a tight-knit, quirky, distinctly African American community. In Gates’ affectionate memoir detailing his growing up, a series of fascinating characters leap from the page—some Churchgoing, some anything but; some strait-laced; some definitely not; some ambitious, some content to do as little as possible to get by.  Everyone we meet in Colored People is both recognizable and a revelation, and Gates has created a moving and nostalgic look at African American culture that… show more.

I think WEB DuBois is one of the greatest scholars ever to live. I recommend this book because DuBois eloquently tackles some of American society's greatest challenges. I like that DuBois is not satisfied with contemporary explanations about racial inequities. I am grateful to DuBois for encouraging American society to explore the roles of race and racism and explaining the experiences of people of African ancestry in America.

The poet Langston Hughes’s autobiography engagingly recounts his travels to Cuba, Haiti, Japan, and Spain during the Civil War. The book's centerpiece is his 1931-1932 trip to the Soviet Union. He visited as part of a contingent of twenty-two African Americans hired to make a film on race relations in the United States.

The film project never panned out, but Hughes took advantage of the situation to visit Soviet Central Asia. He understood that his hosts tried too hard to convince American visitors of the progress made under the Soviet regime. But his autobiography also conveys the wonderful strangeness of being in a country officially committed to antiracism, where people of color had opportunities for education and advancement.  

A brilliant hypnotic novel that almost no one read. Albert French was the victim of a publishing nightmare—his editor and his publisher, both of whom had primed his novel for a major publicity push, left for new jobs before the pub date, after which his book was orphaned and abandoned. For anyone not in the book business, it might seem hard to believe that a terrific novel would be left to languish, but, sadly, such an event is not uncommon in American publishing.

Set in an African American section of Pittsburgh in 1950, I Can’t Wait on God evokes both the day-to-day lives of ordinary people and the striving and hopelessness of African Americans trying to escape the doomed existence to which so many are condemned.  French weaves a tale that is starkly realistic, yet with a mystical overtone that creates a sort of intoxicating haze. The narrative seems straightforward,… show more.

Kenneth Mack, a professor at Harvard Law School, has chronicled the lives and careers of a series of African American lawyers, most totally unknown to white America, who, although forced to ply their trade in a legal system that was totally white and aggressively unwelcoming, managed to permanently impact American jurisprudence. Some, like Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall’s mentor, and the founder of the prestigious Howard University Law School, saw their impact ripple out nationally; others, merely by demonstrating competence and dedication, fought bigotry on a more local scale. Each of these men and women was forced to navigate between loyalty to their cause and a willingness to adopt the demeanor and professional skills of their adversaries in order to succeed, leaving them distrusted on both sides of the racial divide. Their willingness to cut themselves adrift, however, set the stage for the great civil rights battles of the second… show more.

Edward III’s founding of the Order of the Garter was what inspired me to write my book, but I knew little about him.

This true medieval king’s fifty-year-long reign was marked by controversy from the start, but he was also a romantic, a warrior (he instigated the 100 Year War against the French), steered England through the horrific amount of death from the plague in 1348, and was the patriarch to The Black Prince and John of Gaunt, and The War of the Roses came after his reign.

I recommend this fascinating account of his life. 

This book is essential to understanding the feudal system, and how life revolved around the myriad castles dotted throughout the countryside of England and Wales.

They focus on one castle in particular, but the structure of the society around the castle was somewhat universal, with the lord and lady of the castle, to the workers in the castle, the village that was nearby that would take refuge inside the castle walls if necessary during battles.

I found this an essential book when I was researching my book, which features a castle named Wodesley. What would meals be like there, entertainment, daily life?

I bought this book as a house gift before I even had the chance to read it. When I finally did, I was struck by the level of detail of the history of these four sisters.

Most importantly, this book could and should inspire a thousand pieces of fiction with its rich descriptions and characters. While the standard assumption that the rights of medieval women were limited to being decorative and useful pawns who would bear heirs, this was an eye-opening book in the breadth of these sisters’ reach throughout Europe.