Here are 100 books that Votan fans have personally recommended if you like
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I love history as did my mother and her family. I am English by birth and, so, it is English history I am most interested in. To know who you are and where you are from is, to me, very important. At school history was the subject I excelled at. In my mature years I worked as a Business Unit Manager at a University and took history papers for amusement, but I never continued with a degree as BA papers were too basic and an MA and PhD too expensive. I did, however, write academic peer-reviewed papers that were published.
Harold is one of my heroes. I have many books about him, texts and novels, but this novel I feel captures him best. King Harold was a very complex man and a very competent man. Most remember him for losing at the Battle of Hastings and do not know just what a good organiser and general he actually was and how his previous actions prove this. Harold was a political man who knew when to push and when to stand back, when to compromise and when not to.
I can point you to textbooks and academic papers on Harold, as a man, an Earl, and as King, but Helen Hollick’s book is very well researched, and I am someone who has also done his homework on this period, and indeed produced an educational DD-ROM on the period. But why not let Hollick take all that research and information and weave…
An epic retelling of the tide of events that led to the Norman conquest of England. This saga weaves together the history of a powerful family of noblemen with that of the aggressive bastard of Normandy, culminating in the fierce and tragic battle which changed the course of England's history.
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I love history as did my mother and her family. I am English by birth and, so, it is English history I am most interested in. To know who you are and where you are from is, to me, very important. At school history was the subject I excelled at. In my mature years I worked as a Business Unit Manager at a University and took history papers for amusement, but I never continued with a degree as BA papers were too basic and an MA and PhD too expensive. I did, however, write academic peer-reviewed papers that were published.
Elizabeth Chadwick is one of those authors who is capable of taking the reader behind the obvious of the characters she writes about. The Winter Mantel is about the tragic English hero, and some say saint, Earl Waltheof, who was the only English Earl to continue to rule during the Norman takeover of England, and his complicated, and tragic, relationship with his new Norman masters and, indeed, his Norman wife, Judith.
Waltheof chaffed under the Norman yoke and revolted many times to help English claimants to the throne, but did it just once too often. Chadwick excellently exposes the political and family dynamics driving and even holding back this gifted but flawed hero.
This, again, is from a period I am very familiar with.
Fresh from his defeat of King Harold at the Battle of Hastings, William of Normandy has returned home in triumph, accompanied by the English nobles he cannot trust to leave behind. For Waltheof of Huntingdon, however, rebellion is not at the forefront of his thoughts. From the moment he catches sight of Judith, daughter of the King's formidable sister, he knows he has found his future wife. When Waltheof saves Judith's life, it is clear that the attraction is mutual. But marriage has little to do with love in mediaeval Europe. William refuses to let the couple wed and Waltheof…
I love history as did my mother and her family. I am English by birth and, so, it is English history I am most interested in. To know who you are and where you are from is, to me, very important. At school history was the subject I excelled at. In my mature years I worked as a Business Unit Manager at a University and took history papers for amusement, but I never continued with a degree as BA papers were too basic and an MA and PhD too expensive. I did, however, write academic peer-reviewed papers that were published.
Being British I dislike reading books where we come off second best. The American Revolution (more accurately, The Anglo-American Civil War) is a classic example. Much of my, and I suspect most people’s view of the war, comes from American films and TV programmes. So, why did I read The Fort? Well I love Bernard Cornwell’s style of writing: he manages to bring a lot of background information and knowledge without you noticing what he has done.
The Fort is about American incompetence during said war and shows just how much of their written history is, in fact, inaccurate legend.
Reading it led me to buy and read textbooks about the war and learn just what it was all about and just how wrong American propaganda on the topic is.
The Penobscot Expedition is an extraordinary story, one that has fascinated the author for years, and will now fascinate his readers. Summer 1779, a British force of fewer than one thousand Scottish infantry were sent to build a garrison in the State of Maine. The war of Independence was in its third year and no other British troops stood between Canada and New York. The State of Massachusetts was determined to expel the British, but when they sent a fleet of forty vessels to 'captivate, kill and destroy' they underestimated their enemies, calm in battle and ready for victory. Told…
A poisonous maiden, a Daoist sex cult, and a violent insurgency.
The polyandrous Yan family in China's rural Shaanxi Province takes in two carpenter brothers. When one brother is convicted of murder after killing their neighbor in a dispute, a constable threatens to expose the family's rumored polyandry and extorts…
I love history as did my mother and her family. I am English by birth and, so, it is English history I am most interested in. To know who you are and where you are from is, to me, very important. At school history was the subject I excelled at. In my mature years I worked as a Business Unit Manager at a University and took history papers for amusement, but I never continued with a degree as BA papers were too basic and an MA and PhD too expensive. I did, however, write academic peer-reviewed papers that were published.
A Greek bureaucrat is accompanied by two old members of the Varangian Guard escorting money from one part of the Byzantium Empire to another. Each night he has to put up with one or the other Norsemen telling him about the discovery of America: one thinks the other is his best mate when in fact the man hates him and spends most of the adventure trying to get away from him. Accompanying them is a young put-on squadie who, in later years, became known as Harald Hardrada, Christendom’s greatest warrior who spread war and fear throughout the north sea lands.
I found it all so funny and it encouraged me to stick quite a bit of humour in my all own writings, not that I needed much encouragement.
In 1037, a senior civil servant of the Byzantine empire faces a tedious journey to Greece, escorting the Army payroll. His only companions are a detachment of the Empire's elite Guard, recruited from Viking Scandinavia. When the wagon sheds a wheel, he passes the time talking with two veterans, who have a remarkable story to tell; the Viking discovery of America.As he records the story, years later, he also considers its effect on the fourth member of the party; a young Norwegian guardsman who went on to become King Harald Hardradi, who died invading England in 1066 ...
J.D. Foslan is the author of Loki’s Saga: A Novel of the Norse Gods and has been a practicing Polytheist and mystic for over a decade. The author’s other interests include the Frisian language spoken by roughly a half-million people in the Netherlands.
This richly detailed book explores the worship of Odin and his wife, providing information from Continental sources as well as surviving Norse lore. It paints a different and more complete picture of a major goddess, and also brings to light older sides of Odin that have nothing to do with our modern images of Viking berserkers.
For more than a millennium, the people of Northern Europe venerated an Earth goddess, which evidence attests is the oldest known Germanic deity. Called by a number of names, when the accounts are compared, common traits emerge. During Yule, she rides among her people in a wagon inspecting homes, rewarding the industrious and punishing the lazy. With her husband, she leads the fearsome Wild Hunt, riding through the winter skies, cleansing the air of evil. Most often identified as Odin's wife, the ancients called her "Mother Earth", "Queen of Heaven", and the "Mother…
I got started as a writer through writing fiction intended to accompany a hobby, to deepen worldbuilding, and breathe life into the miniatures in a table-top wargame. I have always been fascinated by the worlds that grab our attention, that yank at our nostrils and dare us to make something more, to tell our own stories in this grander universe. So, I put together this list of books to accompany you as you dream of other worlds and build something with that hobby, whether it is painting miniatures for your friends, knitting, or whatever keeps your hands occupied. Here is a list of books to keep you company.
Jackson Crawford’s lectures on Norse mythology make a wonderful accompaniment to any bit of hobby-doing. It fits, I think, with the venue these stories would have originally been told, something to pass the time, to make work of the hand and eye go by a bit faster. What better to help inspire some fantasy making, like painting miniatures or knitting something more elaborate than stories of gods and heroes of a bygone age, when magic was real, and the gods and giants battled around us? I started with Dr. Crawford’s YouTube lectures on all things Old Norse and came to appreciate his engaging style and masterful depth of the subject. He brings the stories to life and reveals the language as it may have been spoken. He puts the myths in their contexts. I view any day that I haven’t learned something new as a bit of a waste and…
Thor, Odin, Loki, Freyja, the Valkyries, Valhalla, Ragnarok — many of the places we encounter these and other names, places, and events from Norse mythology in daily life and pop culture are connected to the medieval sources in name only.
Join Jackson Crawford, a translator of Old Norse, for a rousing introduction to the original stories, characters, and themes of Norse mythology in these 24 lectures. Packed with gods, anti-gods, magical figures, human heroes, religious practices, and literary devices, this course lays bare the reasons for our enduring fascination with these undeniably dramatic tales. It also connects the dots to…
Big Ideas... For Small Businesses
by
John Lamerton,
Big Ideas… for Small Businesses is a straight-talking, no-nonsense guide to growing a small business without sacrificing your lifestyle. Written by a former civil servant turned entrepreneur, the book challenges hustle culture and instead champions the idea of an "ambitious lifestyle business" - one that provides freedom and financial stability,…
I’ve been immersed in Norse Myth for more than a decade and writing books about the Gods I’ve always wanted to read. My Fate of the Gods trilogy is a mythic mash-up of Biblical, Norse, Greek, and Egyptian myth, and writing as Amalia Carosella, my book Daughter of a Thousand Yearsis Viking age historical fiction about Freydis, the daughter of Erik the Red. Additionally, as a Norse Pagan polytheist myself, finding books that do justice to the Gods in our modern world is that much more important to me than your average reader - I’m always looking to celebrate the books that bring them to life!
Another take on Ragnarok, but wholly different from Norse Code. Set in a post-apocalyptic mini Ice Age—the fimbulwinter that precedes Ragnarok—and following a soldier/mercenary who signs himself up with no real idea of what he’s in for, Age of Odin gives us an action-packed war-driven adventure with fun takes on familiar and less familiar gods along the way—even including Ratatosk, the squirrel who resides upon and spreads gossip all along the World Tree.
Gideon Coxall was a good soldier but bad at everything else, until a roadside explosive device leaves him with one deaf ear and a British Army half-pension. So when he hears about the Valhalla Project, it's like a dream come true. They're recruiting former service personnel for excellent pay, no questions asked, to take part in unspecified combat operations.
The last thing Gid expects is to find himself fighting alongside ancient Viking gods. The world is in the grip of one of the worst winters it has ever known, and Ragnaroek - the fabled final conflict of the Sagas -…
At the age of twelve, I found The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, translated by Christopher Tolkien, in Blackwell’s bookstore in Oxford in 1963. I have been immersed in that literature ever since. If you read the five books I have recommended, you will, in a very real sense, have experienced my life. The Eddas and the sagas capture a world that is gone, but one which has much to teach us. In my novel, Cold Hills and Warm Blood, I have tried to convey some notion of what that world was like.
It weaves the whole Norse mythic pantheon into one long, coherent saga. I wanted to live in that world, which I recognized as being far more beautiful than the world in which I lived. Also, the illustrations by Pogany are masterpieces that I would just sit and admire.
When I returned to this book as an adult, I felt all of its charm was still there. The prose is simple but poetic. I was particularly taken by the retelling of the Sigurd legend. The fierce love of Brynhild the Valkyrie and the force of the doom that overtook Sigurd left a lasting impression on me.
Master storyteller Padraic Colum's rich, musical voice captures all the magic and majesty of the Norse sagas in his retellings of the adventures of the gods and goddesses who lived in the Northern paradise of Asgard before the dawn of history. Here are the matchless tales of All-Father Odin, who crosses the Rainbow Bridge to walk among men in Midgard and sacrifices his right eye to drink from the Well of Wisdom; of Thor, whose mighty hammer defends Asgard; of Loki, whose mischievous cunning leads him to treachery against the gods; of giants, dragons, dwarfs and Valkyries; and of the…
I’ve been immersed in Norse Myth for more than a decade and writing books about the Gods I’ve always wanted to read. My Fate of the Gods trilogy is a mythic mash-up of Biblical, Norse, Greek, and Egyptian myth, and writing as Amalia Carosella, my book Daughter of a Thousand Yearsis Viking age historical fiction about Freydis, the daughter of Erik the Red. Additionally, as a Norse Pagan polytheist myself, finding books that do justice to the Gods in our modern world is that much more important to me than your average reader - I’m always looking to celebrate the books that bring them to life!
Dancing around the edges of Ragnarok with a focus on one of the most obscure gods he could find, Norse Code brings us into a world where the gods have adapted and adopted modern technology to gather warriors to Odin’s cause—defeating the forces of darkness and bringing about a new golden age to the world. Because van Eekhout approaches the myth of Ragnarok from Hermod’s perspective (along with a Valkyrie named Mist), he frees himself from the proscribed roles so many other gods are fated to play and offers us a fresh take on a well-known and well-trod story.
The NorseCODE genome project was designed to identify descendants of Odin. What it found was Kathy Castillo, a murdered MBA student brought back from the dead to serve as a valkyrie in the Norse god’s army. Given a sword and a new name, Mist’s job is to recruit soldiers for the war between the gods at the end of the world—and to kill those who refuse to fight.
But as the twilight of the gods descends, Mist makes other plans.
Journeying across a chaotic American landscape already degenerating into violence and madness, Mist hopes…
The problem is not with the actions young women take but with the toxic, sexist conditions they are responding to.
Tanenbaum found, based on six years of interviews with young people ages 14-30, that young women are navigating a culture littered with gendered dress codes, revenge porn, and sexually explicit…
I was introduced to the paranormal and unknown by my father. He was open to all possibilities. I loved being shocked, awed, and traumatized by the depths of dystopia and the heights of Utopian Imagination! I think, because we all live somewhere in between, flowing up and down as life experiences us, riding us ever onward!
I knew the basics of the Norse Gods and Goddesses, but told in the perspicacious words of a master storyteller like Gaiman, really painted the ruined walls with all the color needed!
I love processing what the minds who birthed these Gods must have thought, dreamed, meant, and saw!
Neil Gaiman, long inspired by ancient mythology in creating the fantastical realms of his fiction, presents a bravura rendition of the Norse gods and their world from their origin though their upheaval in Ragnarok.
In Norse Mythology, Gaiman stays true to the myths in envisioning the major Norse pantheon: Odin, the highest of the high, wise, daring, and cunning; Thor, Odin's son, incredibly strong yet not the wisest of gods; and Loki-son of a giant-blood brother to Odin and a trickster and unsurpassable manipulator.
Gaiman fashions these primeval stories into a novelistic arc that begins with the genesis…
