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 April 29, 2026
LINCC (Libraries in Clackamas County) Milwaukie Ledding Library
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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!

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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...
All the broken places
Boyne, John
Paper Book
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...
The armor of light
Follett, Ken
Paper Book
The long-awaited sequel to A Column of Fire, The Armor of Light, heralds a new dawn for Kingsbridge, England, where progress clashes with tradition, class struggles push into every part of society, and war in Europe engulfs the entire continent and beyond. The...
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...
Lessons in chemistry
Garmus, Bonnie
Paper Book
#1 GLOBAL BESTSELLER WITH MORE THAN 8 MILLION COPIES SOLD * Meet Elizabeth Zott: "a gifted research chemist, absurdly self-assured and immune to social convention" (The Washington Post) in 1960s California whose career takes a detour when she becomes the unlikely star of a ...
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 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...
Here's to us
Hilderbrand, Elin
Paper Book
Three romantic rivals in one crowded house equals plenty of room for jealousy in this surprising and heartwarming story from New York Times bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand. Laurel Thorpe, Belinda Rowe, and Scarlett Oliver share only two things; a love for the man they all...
News of the world
Jiles, Paulette
Paper Book
A New York Times Bestselling AuthorA #1 LibraryReads Pick2016 National Book Award FinalistIn the wake of the Civil War, a seventy-year-old retired army captain does live readings to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. He is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan, raised by...
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 2009 MAN BOOKER PRIZE WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR FICTION A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by...
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...
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
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...
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 ...
Angle of repose
Stegner, Wallace
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * A "masterful" (Boston Globe) portrait of four generations in an American family and the traditions of our national past "Brilliant . . . Two stories, past and present, merge to produce what important fiction must: a sense of the enhancement...
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...
Flight patterns
White, Karen
Paper Book
Georgia Chambers has spent her life sifting through other people's pasts while trying to forget her own. But then her work as an expert of fine china requires her to return to the one place she swore she'd never revisit. Nothing much has changed since she left the coast of Florida ten years ago. She...
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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