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 11, 2026
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
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
Paper Book
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER * #1 BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER * USA TODAY BESTSELLER * 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...
Book Club kete. All the broken places
Boyne, John
Paper Book
Ninety-one-year-old Gretel Fernsby has lived in the same mansion block in London for decades. She leads a comfortable, quiet life, despite her dark and disturbing past. She doesn't talk about her escape from Germany over seventy years before. She doesn't talk about the post-war years in France with...
True history of the Kelly gang
Carey, Peter
Paper Book
“I lost my own father at 12 yr. of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silences my dear daughter you are presently too young to understand a word I write but this history is for you and will contain no single lie may I burn in Hell if I speak false.” In True...
Girl with a pearl earring
Chevalier, Tracy.
Paper Book
The New York Times bestselling novel by the author of A Single Thread and At the Edge of the Orchard Translated into thirty-nine languages and made into an Oscar-nominated film, starring Scarlett Johanson and Colin Firth Tracy Chevalier transports...
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...
A column of fire
Follett, Ken
Paper Book
#1 New York Times Bestseller "Absorbing . . . impossible to resist." --The Washington Post As Europe erupts, can one young spy protect his queen? Ken Follett takes us deep into the treacherous world of powerful monarchs, intrigue, murder, and treason with...
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...
I, Claudius : from the autobiography of Tiberius Claudius, born 10 B.C., murdered and deified A.D. 54
Graves, Robert
Paper Book
A modern classic of historical fiction written in the form of Claudius's autobiography. Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus lived from 10 B.C. to 54 A.D. Despised as a weakling and dismissed as an idiot because of his physical infirmities, Claudius survived the intrigues and...
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
WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR FICTION In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel's New York Times bestselling Wolf Hall is "a darkly brilliant reimagining of life under Henry VIII. . . ....
Augustown
Miller, Kei
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE OCM BOCAS PRIZE FOR CARIBBEAN LITERATURE SHORTLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE, THE GREEN CARNATION PRIZE, and the HISTORICAL WRITERS AWARD 'Miller's storytelling is superb' SUNDAY TIMES One April day in Augustown, Jamaica. Ma Taffy,...
Hamnet : a novel of the plague
O'Farrell, Maggie
Paper Book
The lost apothecary : a novel
Penner, Sarah
Paper Book
The book woman of Troublesome Creek : a novel
Richardson, Kim Michele
Paper Book
RECOMMENDED BY DOLLY PARTON IN PEOPLE MAGAZINE! A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A USA TODAY BESTSELLER A LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER The bestselling historical fiction novel from Kim Michele Richardson, this is a novel following Cussy Mary, a packhorse librarian and her...
China Dolls : a novel
See, Lisa
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "A fascinating portrait of life as a Chinese American woman in the 1930s and '40s."--The New York Times Book Review   "Superb . . . This emotional, informative and brilliant page-turner resonates with resilience...
Salt to the sea : a novel
Sepetys, Ruta
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A journey to freedom is rocked by an epic disaster in this masterpiece of historical fiction that shines a light on one of World War II's most devastating--yet overlooked--tragedies. WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL "Masterfully crafted."--...
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
Paper Book
The confessions of Nat Turner /William Styron
Styron, William
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE In 1831 Nat Turner awaits death in a Virginia jail cell. He is a slave, a preacher, and the leader of the only effective slave revolt in the history of 'that peculiar institution'. William Styron's ambitious and stunningly accomplished novel is Turner's...
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...
Ghost girl, banana
Wharton, Wiz
Paper Book
*** SHORTLISTED FOR THE DIVERSE BOOK AWARDS 2024 *** *** LONGLISTED FOR THE AUTHORS' CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD *** A GRAZIA BOOK CLUB PICK, Ghost Girl, Banana is a powerful debut novel about the family secrets unearthed by a surprise inheritance....
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
Williams, Pip
Paper Book

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.