Here are 99 books that Z fans have personally recommended if you like
Z.
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Ever since I was a child, I’ve been dismayed by the humdrum monotony of everyday life. Of course, that is why one is drawn to books. The books on this list are historical fiction with otherworldly wonder. The world of the imagination is not an escape; it’s a portal to a new view of life. I’ve written four books set in the Italian Renaissance and two set in ancient Britain. Because of the depth of research, each one has taken about eight years. I’m constantly astonished at how imagination can fill the gaps history leaves. Striving always for plausibility, it is encouraging to count historians and archaeologists amongst my readers, cheering me on.
Another bell-ringer is this wonderful novel which upturned everything I’d thought about Shakespeare’s wife.
It so deftly weaves what is known with what is imagined. Away with Anne Hathaway! Meet Agnes Shakespeare. The ending of the book was terrific, and they managed to capture that in the film.
WINNER OF THE 2020 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION - THE NO. 1 BESTSELLER 2021 'Richly sensuous... something special' The Sunday Times 'A thing of shimmering wonder' David Mitchell
TWO EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE. A LOVE THAT DRAWS THEM TOGETHER. A LOSS THAT THREATENS TO TEAR THEM APART.
On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a sudden fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home?
Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London.
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I love 19th century novels and strong heroines. I have spent so much of my life reading and living in the worlds of these novels, sometimes I feel as much (or more) a native of that world than our own 21st century. I also love vibrant, intelligent writers who know how to put a sentence together and create an atmosphere and characters who pop off of the page. If you want to get lost in a book, and hang out with incredible women, I warmly recommend these five novels.
This is a lovely, quiet book literally set in Jane Austen’s own, private world.
It centers around her surviving sister, Cassandra, and explores what it means to be part of a sisterhood that is close and intimate, and then to lose one half of that pair. Cassandra seeks to do what she believes is best, on her sister’s behalf and to preserve (or craft, perhaps?) the memory of that sister’s life.
It is about everyday people and life (yes, there was a time when Jane Austen was simply the not-well-off daughter of a vicar in rural England). A moving read. I have not yet watched the miniseries, starring Keeley Hawes, which is available via PBS streaming.
The Sunday Times bestselling novel, set to be a major TV drama ________________________ 'You can't help feeling that Jane would have approved.' OBSERVER
'So good, so intelligent, so clever, so entertaining - I adored it.' CLAIRE TOMALIN ________________________ Throughout her lifetime, Jane Austen wrote countless letters to her sister. But why did Cassandra burn them all?
1840: twenty three years after the death of her famous sister Jane, Cassandra Austen returns to the village of Kintbury, and the home of her family's friends, the Fowles.
She knows that, in some dusty corner of the sprawling vicarage, there is a cache…
I’ve been a reader and writer of historical fiction for as long as I remember. As a writer, my goal is to bring these figures from the past alive again. These were real people and I want my readers to see that they are not just photos or stories in a history book.
This is an incredible story about Edgar Allen Poe’s wife told through the eyes of his mistress. Very well done and it really gives a look into Mr. and Mrs. Poe and their marriage. But it also gives us a sense of the passionate romance between Poe and his mistress.
Inspired by literature's most haunting love triangle, award-winning author Lynn Cullen delivers a pitch-perfect rendering of Edgar Allan Poe, his mistress's tantalizing confession, and his wife's frightening obsession in this new masterpiece of historical fiction to which Sara Gruen says, "Mrs. Poe had my heart racing...Don't miss it!"
And make sure to check out the captivating new novel from Lynn Cullen-Twain's End-where the acclaimed author tells a fictionalized imagining of the relationship between iconic author Mark Twain and his personal secretary, Isabel Lyon.
1845: New York City is a sprawling warren of gaslit streets and crowded avenues, bustling with new…
Sine, a professor of creative writing, accompanies Sam, a neuroscientist, on a conference trip to a Hotel Castle. Sam wants to present a new device, the "monitor." Sine hopes to recover from tending to her mother who just passed away.
When they arrive, Sine is in a dream-like state. Real…
I grew up exploring the worlds of the Brontës, Dickens, Braddon, Hardy, and more. So, for my Master’s in literature from the University of Oxford, it was the 1800-1914 period I focused on. When I started writing fiction, I chose the nineteenth century as my setting and a scandal that rocked the lives of the Bronte siblings as my topic. I hold myself to a high standard of historical accuracy when writing about real people (e.g. I cut moonlight from a scene in Brontë’sMistress when I realized it would have been a new moon that night!). And I love discovering and sharing other novelists who take the same approach.
Stephen Crane is most famous for his 1893 novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, but it is his lost companion novel, about a male sex worker in late nineteenth-century New York, which is the focus of Edmund White’s Hotel de Dream. White moves between a frame story about Crane’s last days with his “wife” Cora and the story of Elliott, the supposed inspiration for the manuscript. I’m a New Yorker by choice so love reading books set in the city and I very much enjoyed this gritty portrayal of love and sex between men in the past. Crane isn’t the only writer who makes an appearance here—there’s a cameo from Henry James too!
Stephen Crane is writing a new story, and it may be his last. The year is 1900. The famous author of The Red Badge of Courage is travelling to a Black Forest clinic in search of a cure for the tuberculosis that threatens his life. He dictates to his wife, Cora, the story of 'The Painted Boy', inspired by a real-life encounter with a fifteen-year-old newsboy, Elliott, one wintry day in the Bowery. In the story Elliott is both impressionable and elusive. He finds himself the object of the hopeless affections of Theodore, the staid middle-aged banker who sets him…
I’m an author because I was a reader who loved to be transported to a world and land outside my own. My favorite books are the ones that introduce me to a place and time I’ve never been, an immersive read that brings me somewhere new. I believe in the power of story and the magic of its transport. Come along with me and discover a few books that do this very thing.
I’ve only been to Paris one time, but I feel as if I’ve been many times because I toured this city with Paula McLain and the story of Hadley Hemingway, Ernest’s first and most beloved wife. From the cafes to the cobbled streets to the parlors and apartments, I was engrossed.
This is the wild story of Ernest Hemingway’s first wife. Hadley was a quiet twenty-eight-year-old woman who had given up on love until she met Ernest. Their whirlwind romance was ill-prepared for the fast living of Jazz Age Paris. It is a beautiful portrayal of love and loyalty, of art and heartbreak.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A deeply evocative novel of ambition and betrayal that captures the love affair between two unforgettable people, Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley—from the author of Love and Ruin and When the Stars Go Dark
“A beautiful portrait of being in Paris in the glittering 1920s—as a wife and as one’s own woman.”—Entertainment Weekly
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY People • Chicago Tribune • NPR • The Philadelphia Inquirer • Kirkus Reviews • The Toronto Sun • BookPage
Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but…
I have always been intrigued by the Roaring 20s, and specifically in how the lives of women truly began to change during this time. My grandmother loved to boast about how she had been a flapper as a young woman. Her sister-in-law was one of the first female attorneys in Detroit in the mid-20s. The era brought about opportunities and freedoms previously unknown to women. Many women suddenly had options, both in terms of careers and lifestyles. Goals of first wave feminists were beginning to be reached. The research I did for my book furthered my understanding of society at the time, particularly in America.
Read this fascinating historical fiction novel to find out how it was possible for Lindbergh’s wife to wind up intact and capable of love, despite the tragedies that beset her.
Few people realize that she was the first female glider pilot! She became not only his co-pilot, but the pilot of her own life as she got older and pursued her own interests. Anne Morrow proved herself to be—in many ways—more heroic than her husband.
In the spirit of Loving Frank and The Paris Wife, acclaimed novelist Melanie Benjamin pulls back the curtain on the marriage of one of America’s most extraordinary couples: Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
“The history [is] exhilarating. . . . The Aviator’s Wife soars.”—USA Today
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
For much of her life, Anne Morrow, the shy daughter of the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, has stood in the shadows of those around her, including her millionaire father and vibrant older sister, who often steals the spotlight. Then Anne, a college senior with hidden literary aspirations, travels to Mexico…
In an age of splendor, a heretic king strips Egypt bare—forcing his queen to quell rebellion and plunging his children into a conspiracy against the crown.
Salvation in the Sun follows Nefertiti as she ascends the throne beside Pharaoh Amenhotep—soon to become Akhenaten—just as he declares war on Egypt’s ancient…
I have always been intrigued by the Roaring 20s, and specifically in how the lives of women truly began to change during this time. My grandmother loved to boast about how she had been a flapper as a young woman. Her sister-in-law was one of the first female attorneys in Detroit in the mid-20s. The era brought about opportunities and freedoms previously unknown to women. Many women suddenly had options, both in terms of careers and lifestyles. Goals of first wave feminists were beginning to be reached. The research I did for my book furthered my understanding of society at the time, particularly in America.
Curious about what life was like in the Chicago speakeasies of the 1920s—especially for Black chorus women?
Follow ambitious, yet vulnerable, Honoree Palcour, as she envelops you in her past. Like to feel like what it was like to be alive in an earlier era? You won’t be disappointed by this exciting and well-written tale!
I have always been intrigued by the Roaring 20s, and specifically in how the lives of women truly began to change during this time. My grandmother loved to boast about how she had been a flapper as a young woman. Her sister-in-law was one of the first female attorneys in Detroit in the mid-20s. The era brought about opportunities and freedoms previously unknown to women. Many women suddenly had options, both in terms of careers and lifestyles. Goals of first wave feminists were beginning to be reached. The research I did for my book furthered my understanding of society at the time, particularly in America.
Vera Abramowitz, ‘Dollface,’ was a flapper who got caught up with the mob.
Her two mobster lovers cause her life to take a downward spiral. Read how she puts the broken pieces of her life back together. Realistic and gritty, we see the flip side of the frivolous life of flappers seen in the movies.
America in the 1920s was a country alive with the wild fun of jazz, speakeasies, and a new kind of woman—the flapper.
Vera Abramowitz is determined to leave her gritty childhood behind and live a more exciting life, one that her mother never dreamed of. Bobbing her hair and showing her knees, the lipsticked beauty dazzles, doing the Charleston in nightclubs and earning the nickname “Dollface.”
As the ultimate flapper, Vera captures the attention of two high rollers, a handsome nightclub owner and a sexy gambler. On their arms, she gains entrée into a world filled with bootleg bourbon, wailing…
I’m a historian of Southern Africa who is fascinated by questions of visibility and invisibility. I love probing beneath the surface of the past. For example, why is thisperson famous and renowned, butthatperson isn’t? To me, recognition and reputation are interesting to scrutinize as social categories in their own right, rather than as factual statements. I’ve written two books focusing on the history of religious expression in Southern Africa, and my most recent book is a biography of the forgotten South African writer and politician Regina Gelana Twala.
I love the way in which this fascinating group biography of the female partners of renowned male writers brings these usually ignored figures into the limelight.
Ciuraru argues that behind the careers of many acclaimed literary figures stand the important contributions of their wives. These women offered intellectual as well as practical support.
Many of these literary wives shelved their own creative aspirations to tend to the careers of their husbands.
But after their husbands’ deaths, some of these women found they finally had space for their own literary lives to start blossoming.
"The five marriages that Carmela Ciuraru explores in Lives of the Wives provide such delightfully gossipy pleasure that we have to remind ourselves that these were real people whose often stormy relationships must surely have been less fun to experience than they are for us to read about."-Francine Prose, author of The Vixen
A witty, provocative look inside the tumultuous marriages of five writers, illuminating the creative process as well as the role of money, power, and fame in these complex and fascinating relationships.
"With an ego the size of a small nation, the literary lion is powerful on the…
Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…
I’ve been obsessed with psychological thrillers ever since I was young. The messed-up characters, the unreliability of narrators, and the plot twists gripped me as a young reader. As I’ve grown older, my passions have stayed in this general field, but now with more of an emphasis on the effects of masculinity, power, and relationships (both platonically and romantically). There is something so fascinating to me about the complexity of men: their emotions, their motivations, their violence, etc. I have compiled a list of my favorite novels that delve deep into these interests and, truthfully, fears.
When a wife finds a letter addressed to her from her husband stating that it can only be opened once he is dead because it contains his darkest secret, she decides to open it while he is alive.
What ensues is a journey through deception, shocking truths, and the fallout of the secret being exposed.
With the secret revealed, finishing the novel leaves you wondering if you can truly trust anyone, even the ones closest to you.
SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE—THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF BIG LITTLE LIES AND APPLES NEVER FALL
One of the Best Books of the Year—Entertainment Weekly One of the Top Ten Books of the Year—People
At the heart of The Husband’s Secret is a letter that’s not meant to be read…
My darling Cecilia, If you’re reading this, then I’ve died…
Imagine your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret—something with the potential to destroy not only the life you…
