Rooted in the Past

Get historical with books rooted in the past! Try one of the titles listed here for fictional takes on real events and historical figures. You can also ask a friendly Ledding librarian to show you nonfiction books on a historical subject, person, or era. Plant a seed, read!

Updated May 3, 2026
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Daughter of Egypt
Benedict, Marie
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER INSTANT INDIE BESTSELLER Known for her "delightful blend of historical fiction and suspense" (People), New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict, returns with a sweeping...
The Mitford affair : a novel
Benedict, Marie
Paper Book
"Plunges readers into a world of glamorous, charismatic young British debutantes and then turns that shiny world on its head...the most delicious storytelling." --Allison Pataki, New York Times bestselling author of The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post From New York Times bestselling...
The Jackal's mistress : a novel
Bohjalian, Chris
In this Civil War love story, inspired by a real-life friendship across enemy lines, the wife of a missing Confederate soldier discovers a wounded Yankee officer and must decide what she's willing to risk for the life of a stranger, from the New York Times bestselling author of such...
All the broken places
Boyne, John
Paper Book
Girl with a pearl earring
Chevalier, Tracy.
Paper Book
In seventeenth-century Delft, there's a strict social order -rich and poor, Catholic and Protestant, master and servant -and all know their place. When Griet becomes a maid in the household of the painter Johannes Vermeer, she thinks she knows her role: housework, laundry, and the care of his six...
All the light we cannot see
Doerr, Anthony
Paper Book
An Instant New York Times BestsellerA Pulitzer Prize WinnerA blind child, Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint...
Atomic Love
Fields, Jennie
Paper Book
"A novel of science, love, espionage, beautiful writing, and a heroine who carves a strong path in the world of men. As far as I'm concerned there is nothing left to want."--Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House "A highly-charged love story that reveals the dangerous energy...
A column of fire
Follett, Ken
Paper Book
In 1558, the ancient stones of Kingsbridge Cathedral look down on a city torn apart by religious conflict. As power in England shifts precariously between Catholics and Protestants, royalty and commoners clash, testing friendship, loyalty, and love.Ned Willard wants nothing more than to marry...
The good shepherd
Forester, C. S.
Paper Book
Now a major motion picture Greyhound on AppleTV+, a WWII naval thriller of "high and glittering excitement" (New York Times) from the author of the legendary Hornblower series The mission of Commander George Krause of the United States Navy is...
The last heir to Blackwood Library
Fox, Hester
Paper Book
 "Weaves a spell of darkness that's mysterious and magical, and binds it with a knot of deathless love." --New York Times bestselling author Susanna Kearsley on A Lullaby for Witches In post-World War I England, a young woman inherits a mysterious library...
I, Claudius : from the autobiography of Tiberius Claudius, born 10 B.C., murdered and deified A.D. 54
Graves, Robert
Ebook
The nightingale
Hannah, Kristin
Paper Book
A #1 New York Times bestseller, Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year, and soon to be a major motion picture, this unforgettable novel of love and strength in the face of war has enthralled a generation. France, 1939 - In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne...
The women
Hannah, Kristin
Paper Book
A #1 bestseller on The New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times! From the celebrated author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds comes Kristin Hannah's The Women--at once an intimate portrait of coming of age in a...
The book of lost names
Harmel, Kristin
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Inspired by an astonishing true story from World War II, a young woman with a talent for forgery helps hundreds of Jewish children flee the Nazis in this unforgettable historical novel from the New York Times bestselling author...
News of the world : a novel
Jiles, Paulette
Paper Book
Now a Major Motion Picture National Book Award Finalist--Fiction In the aftermath of the Civil War, an aging itinerant news reader agrees to transport a young captive of the Kiowa back to her people in this exquisitely rendered, morally complex, multilayered...
Orphan train : a novel
Kline, Christina Baker
Paper Book
Between 1854 and 1929, so-called orphan trains ran regularly from the cities of the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest, carrying thousands of abandoned children whose fates would be determined by pure luck. Would they be adopted by a kind and loving family, or would they...
Wolf Hall : a novel
Mantel, Hilary
Paper Book
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe oppose him. The quest for the king's freedom destroys...
Augustown
Miller, Kei
Paper Book
11 April 1982: a smell is coming down John Golding Road right alongside the boy-child, something attached to him, like a spirit but not quite. Ma Taffy is growing worried. She knows that something is going to happen. Something terrible is going to pour out into the world. But if she can hold it off...
Hamnet : a novel of the plague
O'Farrell, Maggie
Paper Book
The lost apothecary
Penner, Sarah
Paper Book
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER -- OVER A MILLION COPIES SOLD! "A bold, edgy, accomplished debut!" --Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Rose Code A forgotten history. A secret network of women. A...
The book woman of Troublesome Creek : a novel
Richardson, Kim Michele
Paper Book
The hardscrabble folks of Troublesome Creek have to scrap for everything except books -- thanks to Roosevelt's Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project and traveling librarian Cussy Mary Carter. Last of her kind, Cussy's skin is a shade of blue unlike most anyone else. Not everyone is keen on her family...
China Dolls : a novel
See, Lisa
Paper Book
The New York Times bestselling author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, and Shanghai Girls has garnered international acclaim for her great skill at rendering the intricate relationships of women and the complex meeting of history and fate. Now comes Lisa See's highly anticipated new...
Salt to the sea
Sepetys, Ruta
Paper Book
#1 New York Times bestseller and winner of the Carnegie Medal! "A superlative novel . . . masterfully crafted."--The Wall Street Journal Based on "the forgotten tragedy that was six times deadlier than the Titanic."--Time ...
The killer angels : a novel of the Civil War
Shaara, Michael.
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The "remarkable" (Ken Burns), "utterly absorbing" (Forbes) Civil War classic that inspired the film Gettysburg, with more than three million copies in print--now in a 50th anniversary edition featuring a new introduction by...
Maus : a survivor's tale
Spiegelman, Art.
Paper Book
The definitive edition of the graphic novel acclaimed as "the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust" (Wall Street Journal) and "the first masterpiece in comic book history" (The New Yorker) * PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * One of Variety's "Banned and...
Angle of repose
Stegner, Wallace
Audiobook
The confessions of Nat Turner
Styron, William
Paper Book
The story that inspired the major motion picture The Birth of a Nation (2016) In the late summer of 1831, in a remote section of southeastern Virginia, there took place the only effective, sustained revolt in the annals of American Negro slavery... The...
The clay girl
Tucker, Heather
Paper Book
"It is the voice of the characters, the kindness of strangers, and the ingenuity and determination of our protagonist against terrible forces that make this story sing." -- San Francisco Chronicle "[An] unbelievably accomplished first novel." -- NOW Magazine...
Tiananmen Square
Wen, Lai
Paper Book
An epic, deeply moving coming-of-age novel about young love and lasting friendships forged in the years leading up to the Tiananmen Square student protests, for readers of The Beekeeper of Aleppo and The Night Tiger. As a child in Beijing in the 1970s, Lai lives with her family in a lively...
Ghost girl, banana : a novel
Wharton, Wiz
Paper Book
Set between the last years of the "Chinese Windrush" in 1966 and Hong Kong's Handover to China in 1997, a mysterious inheritance sees a young woman from London uncovering buried secrets in her late mother's homeland in this captivating, wry debut about family, identity, and the price of belonging...
The underground railroad : a novel
Whitehead, Colson
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * "An American masterpiece" (NPR) that chronicles a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. One of The New York Times's 10 Best Books of...
The dictionary of lost words : a novel
Williams, Pip
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK * "Delightful . . . [a] captivating and slyly subversive fictional paean to the real women whose work on the Oxford English Dictionary went largely unheralded."--The New York Times Book Review "A marvelous...

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