Here are 100 books that Vikings at War fans have personally recommended if you like
Vikings at War.
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I’ve always loved history, especially European history, and fell in love with the Vikings and their mythology after reading the first book of the Last Kingdom Series by Bernard Cornwell. One of the reasons I wanted to write Viking fiction is because I was keen to learn more about these amazing people who had such a large influence on European history, but had been stigmatized by the Christian religion. I really wanted to learn about who they were as a people and how they saw their world through their religion and their interactions with Christian nations around them.
This was one of the first books I read when I decided to write about Vikings and I found it a treasure trove filled with information about the daily lives of the Scandinavians, away from raids and the shield walls.
It told me everything I needed to know about what Vikings wore, what they ate and how they cooked their meals. I learnt about the hierarchy of the ruling classes and how they traded with the nations of the Middle East. It is filled with information about their religion, how they felt about life and death, and much more.
The Vikings maintain their grip on our imagination, but their image is too often distorted by myth. It is true that they pillaged, looted, and enslaved. But they also settled peacefully and traveled far from their homelands in swift and sturdy ships to explore. The Age of the Vikings tells the full story of this exciting period in history. Drawing on a wealth of written, visual, and archaeological evidence, Anders Winroth captures the innovation and pure daring of the Vikings without glossing over their destructive heritage. He not only explains the Viking attacks, but also looks at Viking endeavors in…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
Have you ever done something on a whim and fallen in love with it? That was how I found Old Norse literature. I was taught the Norse language by reading the prose and poetry of medieval Iceland. In reading their literature, I discovered a rich, vibrant society filled with complex, passionate people. Here were doomed romantics, poets, and philosophers–along with chieftains and priests facing complex political and religious change. I undertook a PhD to study their literary craft. I hope, if nothing else, that my novel might encourage readers to go off and read the sagas themselves. And, if I am really lucky, they may just enjoy my stories too.
Want to know where Marvel comics got many of its ideas? Then, read this book.
Snorri Sturluson is an Icelandic national hero. Historian, poet, and politician, he was a chieftain during a civil war in Iceland facing encroaching Norwegian expansion. In the middle of all of this, it is argued that he wrote The Prose Edda.
In this book you will learn about the original myths and legends of medieval Iceland written in an accessible and engaging manner.
The most renowned of all works of Scandinavian literature and our most extensive source of Norse mythology
Written in Iceland a century after the close of the Viking Age, The Prose Edda tells ancient stories of the Norse creation epic and recounts the battles that follow as gods, giants, dwarves and elves struggle for survival. In prose interspersed with powerful verse, the Edda shows the gods' tragic realization that the future holds one final cataclysmic battle, Ragnarok, when the world will be destroyed. These tales have proved to be among the most influential of all myths and legends, inspiring works…
I’ve always loved history, especially European history, and fell in love with the Vikings and their mythology after reading the first book of the Last Kingdom Series by Bernard Cornwell. One of the reasons I wanted to write Viking fiction is because I was keen to learn more about these amazing people who had such a large influence on European history, but had been stigmatized by the Christian religion. I really wanted to learn about who they were as a people and how they saw their world through their religion and their interactions with Christian nations around them.
I’ll admit, this book is a monster of a read, but I found it worth every minute I spent reading it. The Viking Anthology gives you everything you will ever need to learn about Norse mythology and the Scandinavian people.
I loved reading about the different gods, even some of the more obscure ones, their origins, and why they were worshipped. Even more valuable for me is the Icelandic sagas, which can also be found in this book. From these I learned so much about the daily lives of the Icelandic people and found many interesting ideas that I used in my novels.
The Comprehensive Collection of Viking and Norse Literature
This vast ebook Anthology is exploding with masterpieces of world literature, ranging from the peerless Icelandic Sagas, to the Norwegian 'Heimskringla', or the 'Chronicle of the Kings of Norway'.
As well as these original texts (in English Translation), are several accompanying great works of scholarship which are an essential companion to the texts - assisting the reader in their understanding of Viking, Norse and Icelandic culture and beliefs - from their complex creation myths, to their huge array of Pagan Gods to rival the pantheons of Ancient Greece or Rome.
The Year Mrs. Cooper Got Out More
by
Meredith Marple,
The coastal tourist town of Great Wharf, Maine, boasts a crime rate so low you might suspect someone’s lying.
Nevertheless, jobless empty nester Mallory Cooper has become increasingly reclusive and fearful. Careful to keep the red wine handy and loath to leave the house, Mallory misses her happier self—and so…
I’ve always loved history, especially European history, and fell in love with the Vikings and their mythology after reading the first book of the Last Kingdom Series by Bernard Cornwell. One of the reasons I wanted to write Viking fiction is because I was keen to learn more about these amazing people who had such a large influence on European history, but had been stigmatized by the Christian religion. I really wanted to learn about who they were as a people and how they saw their world through their religion and their interactions with Christian nations around them.
This was another one of my favourites for learning about the Norse gods and the Norse religion. I found the information about the different gods, where their names came from, and how they were worshipped invaluable, as well as the detailed information about the different worlds the Vikings believed in and those who lived on those worlds.
This book was great for learning about how the Scandinavian people viewed their religion and how it affected their lives and their views on magic and the cosmos. I found it useful to learn about their afterlife and how the Vikings viewed it. It’s another book I regularly revisit when writing my novels.
In the Viking age, one could not escape destiny, and so it is with William and Reynir, men from two vastly different fields who met by chance and shared a passion for discovery. Their research on Viking combat has led to many groundbreaking discoveries and never before done testing. Their work has been accepted by leading museums, universities, and professional societies, and they regularly share their research findings in lectures, classes, and presentations at these venues. The National Museum of Iceland recently opened a special exhibit that features their research. In many ways, their work has changed our understanding of Vikings and shown a new approach to Viking research.
In order to understand the combat of the Vikings, we must be familiar with the physical tools used for delivering violence, as revealed in the archaeological sources. Swords of the Viking Age is one of the better books in that category. It explores the material aspects of swords, one of the key tools of violence during the Viking age.
This beautifully illustrated work fills a gap in the literature in English on the swords made and used in northern Europe during the Viking age, between the mid eighth and the mid eleventh centuries. Ewart Oakeshott outlines the significance and diversity of these ancient heirlooms; co-author Ian Peirce, who handled hundreds of swords in his research for this book in museums across northern Europe, selects and describes sixty of the finest representative weapons. Where possible, full-length photographs are included, in addition to illustrations of detail; an illustrated overview of blade types and construction, pattern-welding, inscription and handle forms and their…
Else Roesdahl has a life-long passion for Vikings. She is emerita professor of Medieval Archaeology at Aarhus University, Denmark, and has travelled all over the Viking world and taken part in many excavations. She has also organized major international Viking Exhibitions and published academic as well as popular books, for which she has been awarded several prizes.
The Vikings’ lively, intriguing, and carefully executed art is one of their great achievements. This handsome and lavishly illustrated book provides a survey of the development and meanings of Viking art, as well as examples of how the art was used – on ships, buildings, memorials, jewelry, textiles, weapons, and much else. It was an art based on animals in various guises, but plant ornament gradually also came into use, and in recent years many more pictures of human (and semi-human) beings have come to light.
This book distils a lifetime's study of Viking art. Written by a leading authority, it introduces all the intricate and beautiful art styles of the Viking age. It ranges in time from the first major Viking expeditions overseas around AD 800 to the general establishment of Christianity in Scandinavia some 300 years later. The opening chapter introduces the geographical and historical background to Viking culture; thematic chapters then describe and illustrate the six main Viking art styles, showing how they emerged from and interacted with one another. Delicate metalwork, elaborate wood-carvings and the famous Gotland picture-stones are all discussed. Viking…
Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side of…
I developed a passion for history as a child in Warrington, Cheshire. I would lose myself in tales of Achilles, Alexander, King Arthur, and King Alfred the Great. My love of the Viking Age became nurtured through visits to Viking exhibitions like the Yorvik centre in York, and Dublinia in Dublin. The catalyst for my first book, Viking Blood and Blade, was a trip to the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark. That museum holds a full-size Viking warship, which is truly breathtaking. I have published seven historical fiction novels set in the Viking Age, and I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have…
There absolutely has to be a book from Cornwell’s Saxon series in any list concerning the Viking Age.
Each book in the series is brilliant, but this one is my favorite. Uhtred of Bebbanburg is a brutal, unforgiving character and in this book he is truly put to the test. The characters are earthy and well-drawn, and the adventure is absorbing and unparalleled.
Bernard Cornwell is the master of the Historical Fiction war/adventure genre and his skills are brilliantly deployed in Lords of the North.
The third book in the epic and bestselling series that has gripped millions.
A hero will be forged from this broken land.
As seen on Netflix and BBC around the world.
The year is 878 and the Vikings have been thrown out of Wessex. Uhtred, fresh from fighting for Alfred in the battle to free Wessex, travels north to seek revenge for his father's death, killed in a bloody raid by Uhtred's old enemy, renegade Danish lord, Kjartan.
While Kjartan lurks in his formidable stronghold of Dunholm, the north is overrun by chaos, rebellion and fear. Together with a small…
In the Viking age, one could not escape destiny, and so it is with William and Reynir, men from two vastly different fields who met by chance and shared a passion for discovery. Their research on Viking combat has led to many groundbreaking discoveries and never before done testing. Their work has been accepted by leading museums, universities, and professional societies, and they regularly share their research findings in lectures, classes, and presentations at these venues. The National Museum of Iceland recently opened a special exhibit that features their research. In many ways, their work has changed our understanding of Vikings and shown a new approach to Viking research.
Sadly this book is now out of print, but hopefully, Snorri will create an updated and expanded edition in the near future. This book is a look at the Sagas of Icelanders, and particularly the combat in the sagas, from the perspective of a slaughterhouse worker, a perspective that only a butcher would have. In researching Vikings and their combat, one must intently look for experts who often are far outside one’s own field of expertise. Snorri’s book shows the benefits of an approach from a different perspective.
Nancy Marie Brown is the author of seven books about Iceland and the Viking Age, including The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women, The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman, and the award-winning Song of the Vikings: Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths. Her books combine extremes: medieval literature and modern archaeology, myths and facts. They ask, What have we overlooked? What have we forgotten? Whose story must not be lost? A former science writer and editor at a university magazine, she lives on a farm in northern Vermont and spends part of each summer in Iceland.
Why do the Vikings seem so modern? Tom Shippey thinks it’s their attitude toward losers. They “knew that in the real world, conditions aren’t fair.” Heroes are trapped, outnumbered. Their luck runs out. “That doesn’t make you what we call ‘a loser,’” he writes. “The only thing that would make you a loser would be giving up.”
The Vikings showed their spirit by refusing to take death seriously. “What was best was showing you could turn the tables, spoil your enemy’s victory, make a joke out of death,” Shippey writes, and in Laughing Shall I Die: Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings he shares dozens of examples.
Viking death-jokes are “often marked by Bad Sense of Humour,” Shippey admits. But they explain a lot about why this culture continues to fascinate us.
In this robust new account of the Vikings, Tom Shippey explores their mindset, and in particular their fascination with scenes of heroic death. The book recounts many of the great bravura scenes of Old Norse literature, including the Fall of the House of the Skjoldungs, the clash between the two great longships Ironbeard and Long Serpent and the death of Thormod the skald. The most exciting book on Vikings for a generation, Laughing Shall I Die presents them for what they were: not peaceful explorers and traders, but bloodthirsty warriors and marauders.
I study and write about the Early Medieval period, and in a series of books about its most important characters, its archaeology and landscapes, I've tried to share my lifelong passion for this most obscure and tantalizing period of our history – what we still call the Dark Ages. From the two most shadowy centuries after Rome's fall (The First Kingdom) to Northumbrian King Oswald (The King in the North), who brought Christianity into pagan Anglo-Saxon England, and a walking, riding, sailing tour of Britain's Dark Age lands and seas (In the Land of Giants), I see a continuity of rich cultures, vibrant politics and regional characters that help us to understand how and why we are like we are.
Every subject needs a really sound, comprehensive introduction – and Parker's book is just that: a big, chunky history of the Vikings in all their guises, as traders, raiders, explorers, and entrepreneurs. It's very well illustrated with photos and maps, lucidly written, and with a passion for the subject that is infectious. If you're looking for just one book to see you through the Vikings, make it this one.
The Northmen's Fury tells the Viking story, from the first pinprick raids of the eighth century to the great armies that left their Scandinavian homelands to conquer larger parts of France, Britain and Ireland. It recounts the epic voyages that took them across the Atlantic to the icy fjords of Greenland and to North America over four centuries before Columbus and east to the great rivers of Russia and the riches of the Byzantine empire.
One summer's day in 793, death arrived from the sea. The raiders who sacked the island monastery of Lindisfarne were the first Vikings, sea-borne attackers…
