Welcome back to Book Break! In this video I'm going to recommend you some books based on true
stories from history that you might not already know. So some of them are inspired by specific
strange but true events. Some of them are set in periods of history that aren't as commonly talked
about, or at least not on the history curriculum that a lot of us here in the UK grew up with.
So a lot of these parts of history I really didn't know anything about before. So starting with one
of those strange but true stories, I have here one of the most beautiful books I have ever seen.
This is The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex. It's just gorgeous. Everyone at work is so excited
about this book. I was actually sent some fudge to go with it because the book is set in Cornwall,
so I would show you but I already ate it. But I can show you a picture of the Book Break dog Hippo
looking very adorable next to it. The Lamplighters is inspired by a true mystery: the Flannen Isles
mystery, when three lighthouse keepers vanished mysteriously without a trace from a lighthouse.
So Emma Stonex has taken that mystery and created this whole incredible story around it. She's moved
the action to Cornwall in the 1970s instead of Scotland in 1900, but you will find the same
mysterious disappearance there, along with some of the most haunting details, like the stopped clocks
in the lighthouse. And Emma Stonex has also added in this parallel timeline 20 years later, where we
follow the women left behind. Kolono Hill by Neema Shah is set during the expulsion of Ugandan Asians
from Uganda, which is not a period of history I ever learned about. So in 1972 a decree was
issued: all Ugandan Asians must leave the country within 90 days, taking only what they could
carry. They had to give up all of their money and never return. So against this terrible backdrop,
Neema Shah tells the story of a family forced to leave their home and move to England. A young
married couple who have to give up the family business they've been working so hard to save,
and the husband's mother who has to say goodbye to the house that has been her home for decades.
But also hanging over the family's heads is this terrible secret threatening to tear them apart.
The War of the Poor by Eric Vuillard is nice short little book that takes us behind the scenes of one
particular brutal uprising in history that isn't often taught. So it's set in 16th century Europe
during the protestant reformation. Peasants are still being told that they will achieve equality
in heaven, but they start to ask themselves why can't we have equality here now on Earth. So this
book is about the violent struggle that followed, escalated by a man called Thomas Muntzer,
who addressed the poorest members of society directly, asking them to think about why a god
who apparently loves the poor seemed so much to favour the rich. I recently read The Shadow King
by Maaza Mengiste, which is really interesting because I remember when I was learning history,
which was a long time ago, we were taught about the Abyssinian crisis but very much
from the European perspective, whereas in this book we get to meet a group of Ethiopian
soldiers - men and women - who all contribute to the resistance in so many different ways.
And the book really explores the horror of the Italians treatment of the Ethiopians. Another
part of history that I really didn't know anything about is the Japanese annexation of Korea. And so
I recently read Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, which was fantastic. It's a multi-generational story,
we get to follow a family, a Korean family, who moved to Japan. It's absolutely heartbreaking,
but wonderful. We learned so much about how the relationship between Korea and Japan
changes and adapts through the generations, and what life was like for Koreans living in
Japan through those decades. Okay an author you will love if you like reading about particular
strange little events from history is Hannah Kent. And I've got two books here to show you.
So Burial Rites is about Agnes Magnusdottir who was the last person to be formally executed in
Iceland before the death penalty was abolished. So this book imagines her final months. She's sent
to live on this farm and it's all about the isolation that she faces with this stark landscape
and the family that she's living with being too afraid to even come near her. And Hannah Kent is
also the author of The Good People which is set in Ireland in 1825. And is inspired by the true
story of a woman who is charged with abusing a young boy in her care, but she insisted that the
boy was not her grandson at all but a changeling. Emma Donoghue is also wonderful at these kind of
books inspired by real stories that captured her imagination. I've got just two of her many here
to show you. So Frog Music is inspired by the murder of a cross-dresser called Jenny Bonnet
in San Francisco. She was murdered in 1876, and in this book Emma Donoghue imagines her last few
days of life, and gives her own answer to this actually unsolved mystery. And The Wonder is
set in 1850s Ireland, it's about a young girl who claims to have stopped eating entirely,
but is miraculously still alive. And we follow the nurse who is sent to investigate the truth
of this story. And this one's inspired by quite a few different stories of similar fasting girls,
for example Mollie Fancher who was an American girl who claimed to have abstained from eating for
14 years. The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave is inspired by the true story of a terrible storm
in 1617 that completely devastated the male population of the Norwegian island of Vardo.
And rumours of witchcraft surrounding the women soon began to spread. So Kiran Millwood Hargrave
was inspired by the story of this storm and the terrible witch trials that followed, in which
80 women were burned as witches, and she brings these women to life, imagining this community
that existed for so long as a place of women. On Wings of Eagles is a classic Ken Follett thriller
inspired by the true story of a real-life rescue of two Americans captured in Iran, with the U.S.
government refusing to help. So Ken Follett has brought to life a fictionalized version of the
real-life colonel who came out of retirement to lead a secret raid to rescue these prisoners, and
the terrifying chase to the Turkish border that followed. The Dead Girls by Jorge Ibarguengoitia
is inspired by the gritty gruesome real-life story of two serial killing sisters Delfina and Maria
de Jesus Gonzalez, who owned a brothel and were eventually charged with the murder of at least
80 women. This book is a dark comedy - very dark, as you can tell by that premise. It's presented
as a police report and it ultimately exposes the justice system as hopelessly broken. And finally,
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James was the Man Booker prize winner in 2015.
It's inspired by the true story of the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in Jamaica in 1976.
I've included this one on the list even though that is obviously a more well-known story,
just because of the level of detail that Marlon James has brought to life in this book that people
may not know. This book doesn't just tell the story of that attempted assassination,
it brings this period of history in Jamaica startlingly, brutally, to life. It is a very
gritty and violent novel, it spans so many different characters, I think there are 76
or more different voices, each of them so distinct. It's an incredible achievement.
So for more historical fiction recommendations, I will link here to a whole playlist of all of
our historical fiction videos we've made, and I would love to hear your recommendations for
books like these based on parts of history that you might not have known. See you next time!