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
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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All the broken places
Boyne, John
Paper Book
John Boyne's acclaimed quartet, THE ELEMENTS, is available now. 'Beautifully told and gripping from first page to last' Sunday Express 'An incredible feat of storytelling... and an old-fashioned page-turner' Donal Ryan 'Gripping and well...
True history of the Kelly gang
Carey, Peter
Paper Book
This story is the song of Australia, and it sings its protest in a voice at once crude and delicate, menacing and heart-wrenching. The author gives us Ned Kelly as orphan, as Oedipus, as horse thief, farmer, bushranger, reformer, bank-robber, police-killer and as his country's Robin Hood.
Girl with a pearl earring
Chevalier, Tracy.
Paper Book
OVER FIVE MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE 'A phenomenon' Jessie Burton 'Dazzling' Daily Mail 'Truly magical' Guardian Those eyes are fixed on someone. But who? What is she thinking as she stares out from one of the world's best-loved paintings? ...
All the light we cannot see
Doerr, Anthony
Paper Book
NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX SERIES WINNER OF THE 2015 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR FICTION A beautiful, stunningly ambitious novel about a blind French girl and a...
Atomic Love
Fields, Jennie
Paper Book
Chicago, 1950 Rosalind Porter has always defied expectations - in her work as a physicist on the Manhattan Project to design the atomic bomb, and in her passionate love affair with coworker Thomas Weaver. Five years after the end of both, her guilt over the results of her work...
A column of fire
Follett, Ken
Paper Book
The saga that has enthralled the millions of readers of The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End now continues with Ken Follett's magnificent, gripping A Column of Fire. Christmas 1558, and young Ned Willard returns home to Kingsbridge to find his...
I, Claudius : from the autobiography of Tiberius Claudius, born 10 B.C., murdered and deified A.D. 54
Graves, Robert
Paper Book
Despised for his weakness and regarded by his family as little more than a stammering fool, the nobleman Claudius quietly survives the intrigues, bloody purges and mounting cruelty of the imperial Roman dynasties. In I, Claudius he watches from the sidelines to record the reigns of its emperors-...
The women
Hannah, Kristin
Paper Book
The instant Number One Sunday Times bestselling novel, soon to be a major motion picture. The Women is the essential story of the women who answered the call of the Vietnam War and paid a price that was heartbreakingly unique. This is a novel of epic...
The book of lost names
Harmel, Kristin
Paper Book
Perfect for readers of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, The Librarian of Auschwitz and The Book Thief, this is an astonishing story of bravery, resilience and hope from an internationally bestselling author.
Wolf Hall : a novel
Mantel, Hilary
Paper Book
Now a major TV series Winner of the Man Booker Prize Shortlisted for the the Orange Prize Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award `Dizzyingly, dazzlingly good' Daily Mail 'Our most brilliant English writer' Guardian England, the 1520s. Henry VIII is...
Hamnet : a novel of the plague
O'Farrell, Maggie
Paper Book
The no. 1 bestseller that inspired the major film starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal WINNER: BEST PICTURE (DRAMA) AND BEST ACTRESS AT THE GOLDEN GLOBES WINNER: OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM AND BEST ACTRESS AT THE BAFTAS NOMINATED FOR EIGHT ACADEMY AWARDS,...
The lost apothecary
Penner, Sarah
Paper Book
The book woman of Troublesome Creek : a novel
Richardson, Kim Michele
Ebook
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
Ebook
It's 1938 and the exclusive Oriental nightclub in San Francisco's Forbidden City is holding auditions for showgirls. In the dark, scandalous glamour of the club, three girls from very different backgrounds stumble into each other lives. All the girls have secrets. Grace, an American-born Chinese...
Salt to the sea
Sepetys, Ruta
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE CILIP CARNEGIE MEDAL 2017 It's early 1945 and a group of people trek across Germany, bound together by their desperation to reach the ship that can take them away from the war-ravaged land. Four young people, each haunted by their own dark secret, narrate their...
Tiananmen Square
Wen, Lai
Paper Book
'An extraordinary book. Truly important' - William Boyd A stunning, deeply moving novel about growing up in Beijing in the 1970s and 80s and taking part in Tiananmen Square protests It is Beijing in the 1970s, and Lai lives with her parents, grandmother and younger brother...
Ghost girl, banana : a novel
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. Set...
The underground railroad : a novel
Whitehead, Colson
Paper Book
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. All the slaves lead a hellish existence, but Cora has it worse than most; she is an outcast even among her fellow Africans and she is approaching womanhood, where it is clear even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a slave recently arrived from...
The dictionary of lost words : a novel
Williams, Pip
Paper Book
'An enchanting story about love, loss and the power of language' Elizabeth Macneal, author of The Doll Factory Sometimes you have to start with what's lost to truly find yourself... Motherless and irrepressibly curious, Esme spends her childhood at...
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