Must-read authors to add to your Christmas reading list
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The period between Christmas and the return of New Year normalcy can be an excellent time to cozily settle in and read a good book. And I don’t mean a book of the uplifting or educational variety, but rather something that lends itself to escape. A good story that’s intelligently plotted and skilfully rendered can be just what the doctor ordered.
If that proposition fits for you, or someone you know, here are a few suggested authors to add to your Christmas reading list.
Robert Harris
Robert Harris is the English journalist who launched a lucrative second career as a writer of best-selling novels, many of which incorporate real historical figures and events. I did a column about his latest offering, Precipice, last month.
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Beginning in the summer of 1914, the story revolves around the extraordinarily indiscreet affair between UK Prime Minister Herbert Asquith and Venetia Stanley, a woman less than half his age. It’s a good read and well worth a recommendation.
But it’s by no means the only one.
Conclave, an imagining of an intrigue-laden papal election, is also an excellent read. For icing on the cake, you can follow it up by streaming the movie. I’m told that both production values and acting are excellent.
Then there are the two Nazi novels. Munich is set in the days immediately surrounding the infamous 1938 “peace in our time” agreement, and provides an unexpectedly sympathetic perspective on Neville Chamberlain, the hapless British prime minister who negotiated the agreement with Hitler. Fatherland is an alternative history based on a scenario where Nazi Germany wins the Second World War.
Ken Follett
Welsh by birth, Ken Follett is an extraordinarily prolific and commercially successful writer. His breakthrough came with the 1978 spy thriller Eye of the Needle, and since then he’s published at least 23 more novels. Combined sales are north of 160 million.
Follett followed Eye of the Needle with several other best-sellers in the same genre before expanding to historical fiction with 1989’s Pillars of the Earth, the first in what has come to be called the Kingsbridge series. There are now five of them and there’s another on the way for next year.
The series has been described as “an account of the building of a civilization,” in this case, England, ranging from the turn of the first millennium through to the late 18th/early 19th century. And along with Follett’s first-rate storytelling, the series has the advantage that each novel is susceptible to being read on a standalone basis.
My wife is currently finishing The Evening and the Morning, which takes place in the decade between 997 and 1007. It’s a hefty read (913 pages). But once she got into it, she found it difficult to put down.
Although Follett freely acknowledges that his centre-left politics can influence his novels, that’s not a reason to avoid them. After all, he’s writing historical fiction, not history!
Kate Morton
Kate Morton is an Australian who has published seven novels over the last 18 years. And having read all of them, I can recommend the lot.
Morton’s books tend to be long, descriptive of physical surroundings, multi-generational and complicated. Her latest, Homecoming, runs to 560 pages and covers events spanning the period 1959-2018.
Personally, I could do with a bit less on the physical surroundings side, but some people like that sort of thing. However, the complication isn’t a problem. In fact, it’s the selling point.
Morton’s plots are intricate, requiring the reader to stay awake and pay attention. Secrets are gradually revealed and ultimate endings are invariably plausible.
If you’ve never read her, I’d start with her first novel. House at Riverton was published in 2006, takes place in two timeframes (1914 to 1924 and 1999), and unravels a secret concerning a shooting.
Liane Moriarty
Another Australian, Liane Moriarty, debuted in 2004 and now has 10 novels under her belt. I’ve read several of them, but not the latest. Obviously, though, her audience is still very much there. In a bookstore the other day, Here One Moment was unmissable.
Moriarty’s popularity was undoubtedly boosted by the television adaptation of her 2014 book, Big Little Lies. Starring Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, the adaptation switched the story’s locale from Australia to California, which I wish it hadn’t done. But I suppose that’s show business!
And worthy as Big Little Lies is, if I was picking just one Moriarty book I’d plump for its immediate predecessor, The Husband’s Secret. A letter that’s only supposed to be opened in the event of death gets opened anyway, and the consequences are devastating. To discover more, you’ll have to read the book.
Troy Media columnist Pat Murphy casts a history buff’s eye at the goings-on in our world. Never cynical – well, perhaps a little bit.
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