We asked eight authors to each recommend a historical book they’d love to receive for Christmas 2021, and one they would give as a Christmas gift. They include many of the best books published this year. We hope these suggestions inspire you, whether you’re looking for ideas for presents or planning to curl up in […]
Historia interviews, 2021 Crown Awards shortlists: Linda Colley
Historian Linda Colley is the fifth interviewee in Historia’s 2021 HWA Crown Awards series. Her latest book, The Gun, the Ship & the Pen, was shortlisted for the Non-fiction Crown Award. Subtitled Warfare, Constitutions, and the Making of the Modern World, it begins in Corsica in 1755 and moves through every continent, showing how constitutions […]
Historia interviews, 2021 Crown Awards shortlists: Stuart Turton
Stuart Turton, author of The Devil and the Dark Water, talks to Historia for the third in our series of interviews with authors whose books have been shortlisted for HWA Crown Awards. His novel, which is up for the Gold Crown Award, is described by the judges as “Holmes and Watson on a 17th-century Dutch East […]
Historia interviews, 2021 Crown Awards shortlists: Mick Finlay
Mick Finlay talks to Historia for the second in our series of interviews with authors whose books have been shortlisted for HWA Crown Awards. Mick’s novel, Arrowood and the Thames Corpses, follows the investigations of William Arrowood and Norman Barnett, private inquiry agents in London who get the cases – and clients – that aren’t […]
Historia interviews, 2021 Crown Awards shortlists: Ellen Alpsten
In the first of our interviews with authors shortlisted for the 2021 HWA Crown Awards, Historia talks to Ellen Alpsten, whose novel, Tsarina, is in the running for a Debut Crown Award. It retells the ‘ultimate Cinderella’ story of the tumultuous rise of a peasant girl, Marta Helena Skowrońska, who became first the wife of […]
Books for history lovers: summer reading 2021
It’s a good year to plan your summer escape in the bookshop or library, since most of us will be taking our break at home or somewhere in these beautiful but rainy islands and may need books to journey any further. We asked historical writers, both fiction and non-fiction, for their suggestions for books for […]
Remembering Culloden
The battle of Culloden was fought 275 years ago, on 16 April, 1746. While the date of the battle may not be as well known as 1066 or 1314, the battlefield itself, just outside Inverness, is an important tourist destination. Apart from this year’s being a major anniversary, Frances Owen asks, why and how should Culloden […]
Five surprising facts about Charles Edward Stuart
It’s the 300th anniversary of his birth Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie, if you insist) was born 300 years ago on 31 December, 1720 (New Style), in the Palazzo Muti complex in Rome. Why is this surprising? Because, although ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ is one of the most recogisable names in UK history, featuring […]