Book Lists Historical Fiction Novels & Stories

Wow. I was drooling. It wasn't just a room with books. It was a sanctuary. Floor-to-ceiling shelves packed with hardcovers, a rolling ladder, a massive fireplace that looked like it hadn't been used in decades. The scent of old paper and leather hit me, comforting and familiar. I ran my finger along the spines. ‘The Art of War’, ‘Sun Tzu’. ‘Histories of the Roman Empire’. Biographies of kings and conquerors. Heavy stuff. Interspersed with them were fiction classics. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dumas.

He would have, right? I shook my head again and concentrated on the book placed on my lap. It was one of the British, historical romance fictions set during the World War Two. I had randomly picked it up at the bookstore and somehow felt myself drawn towards it. Sappy novel with mopey dialogues and dragged out bits, it still provided me with much needed solace.

Some of them read multiple times judging by the cracking of the binding. History. Military strategy. Economics. Law. Psychology. Philosophy. One entire shelf of biographies of powerful men across different centuries and continents. And then something that surprised me. Fiction. A whole section of it tucked into the far corner like something private. Novels. Some of them old enough that the titles had faded. I pulled one out carefully. A Russian novel. Thick. Dense. The kind of book that required patience and silence and the willingness to sit inside discomfort for extended periods.