I loved the Berlin Noir trilogy by Phillip Kerr--sort of a hard-boiled detective set in 1930s and 1940s Germany.

Tatiana de Rosnay, Sarah's Key
Olivia Manning, The Balkan Trilogy
Gore Vidal, Washington DC and The Golden Age
Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Connie Willis, Blackout and All Clear
Alan Furst, The Spies of Warsaw (and many others)
Sebastian Faulks, The Girl at the Lion D'Or, On Green Dolphin Street, Birdsong, Charlotte Gray
David Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars
Colm Tóibín, Brooklyn
Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian

Anonymous wrote:Kate Atkinson's Life After Life is set in England and follows a family from before WW1 thru WW2. The main character repeatedly dies and starts her life over again. My explaination isn't doing the book justice, it's very, very good.

Ditto for the sort-of sequel, "A God in Ruins."

I also enjoyed Beautiful Ruins but it is half in the past and half in present day.

Agree with outlander and Tracy chevalier.

Maybe consider The Paris Wife.

Anonymous wrote:Kate Atkinson's Life After Life is set in England and follows a family from before WW1 thru WW2. The main character repeatedly dies and starts her life over again. My explaination isn't doing the book justice, it's very, very good.

+1. Loved "Life After Life."

"We Were the Lucky Ones" - Georgia Hunter
"The Women in the Castle" - Jessica Shattuck
The Flavia de Luce books by Alan Bradley. The first is "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie."

Ken Follet's Fall of Giants (followed by Winter of the World and Edge of Eternity) starts during WWI and ends in the late 20th century. Highly recommend!

I enjoyed Through a Glass Darkly by Karleen Koen, set in early 18th C England.

Sarum (Edward Rutherford), which goes all the way from the Stone Age to the 20th C, is also a great read, as is Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett).

more 20s/30s, but All the Light You Cannot See. Also, Georgette Heyer has some deco-era crime stories that are fun.

I love all Georgette Heyer's Regency books but that may be too far back for what you are looking for. Recommend "The Grand Sophy" and "Cotillion."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rules of Civility was wonderful, btw.

It's a YA book written on the 8-9th reading level.

Proceed with caution OP. I would not be thrilled if my DH bought a kid's book for me.

Mr. Towles’s first novel, Rules of Civility, which was published in 2011, was a New York Times bestseller and was named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the best books of 2011. The book has been translated into over 15 languages, its French translation receiving the 2012 Prix Fitzgerald. In the fall of 2012, the novel was optioned by Lionsgate to be made into a feature film.

Sorry, I know. Wrong quote, it was intended for the original and I meant to highlight the book. Code Name Verity. That's the book I was talking about when I wrote that, not Rules of Civility.

NP. Code Name Verity and its sequel are YA but also are very well-written and moving. My teen DD has introduced me to those and some other YA novels that to me were as good as or better than some of what I've read lately. While there's plenty of YA trash, not all YA novels are created equal and I wouldn't dismiss them out of hand as "kids' books."

Maybe:

City of thieves (Russia during WWII)
The old filth trilogy (England and Asia from 1920s to present but largely during WWII and right after)
The World to Come (NY, late 1930s)

None of these are in the chick-lit genre of historical romance, if that’s what you’re looking for. City of thieves and world to come have more of an adventure story bent but with a focus on character development. The old filth series is more of a meandering character study. All of them also have a pretty good sense of humor.

Silent book club on FB is a great group to join, particularly for book recommendations.

Kate Atkinson's Life After Life is set in England and follows a family from before WW1 thru WW2. The main character repeatedly dies and starts her life over again. My explaination isn't doing the book justice, it's very, very good.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rules of Civility was wonderful, btw.

It's a YA book written on the 8-9th reading level.

Proceed with caution OP. I would not be thrilled if my DH bought a kid's book for me.

Mr. Towles’s first novel, Rules of Civility, which was published in 2011, was a New York Times bestseller and was named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the best books of 2011. The book has been translated into over 15 languages, its French translation receiving the 2012 Prix Fitzgerald. In the fall of 2012, the novel was optioned by Lionsgate to be made into a feature film.

Sorry, I know. Wrong quote, it was intended for the original and I meant to highlight the book. Code Name Verity. That's the book I was talking about when I wrote that, not Rules of Civility.

His Bloody Project

SO good

Anonymous wrote:She might like some of Geraldine Brooks's novels-they are very readable without being trashy. If she's willing to edge into fantasy/scifi, the Connie Willis novels about time traveling historians are really fun and full of historical detail. If she'd be interested in books with a more challenging narrative structure, Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies books are freaking amazing-as a historian I was amazed at the way that she captured the interior life of her characters.

(Also loved the Orphan Master's Son)

Just saw the comment about books set in the 40s and 50s-Connie Willis's books Black Out and All Clear are great, set during the blitz.

Or, Jo Walton's counterfactual novels set in Britain which has made peace with the Nazis.

Sarah Waters, The Night Watch