Historical Fictionistas discussion

I have just found Goodreads, and it looks wonderful! I prefer to read historical fiction/period fiction so I'm happy to find this group too!
What I'd like to ask you all is how to narrow my criteria in searching listopia (Or anywhere, google included). Libraries are particularly evasive, giving me results nothing like the keywords I searched.
Can I, on listopia, choose one list and then narrow it by keyword? My particular interest right now is "stories set in England in the 1950s", such as Call the Midwife type stuff from the East End. I am not interested in midwifery though, so while I enjoyed that series very much I don't want my goodreads recommendations based on Jennifer Worth's wonderful work only because it would pick up on the nursing/midwife keyword. I'd like to choose a category of England Historical Fiction (or similar) and be able to narrow it by period to mid twentieth century. Then I'd want to rule out murder mysteries or the like; that kind of thing. Is this possible, here or in any other search engine for books you can point me to? Thanks so much for any help!

You could probably do a key word search in Worldcat and on Google, but Listopia is very limited in searchability. At least I find it far too broad as some lists are very specific and narrow in what is included while others are much broader. For example, you may have a list about WWII artillery, which is pretty focused, while a Top 100 list, or an award list won't be subject based.


ETA: your best bet is probably to ask for recommendations, listing your criteria.

Thanks; I did list a request for 1950s period fiction set in England - or do you mean posting here in this forum too?

I have tried Worldcat on occasion - and sometimes get lovely hits for books thousands of miles away. Then I hit up Abebooks to see if I can buy a copy. It's a slow process.

Thank you for your response!

Yes, here, too. In effect, you already have.

This group has a large number of very well-read people who seem to be able to recommend books on just about anything.

I can’t think of any stories set in England in the 1950s but not murder mysteries right off the bat, but I am sure someone can. And I am sure I have read some, so they will return to my brain in due course.

Welcome to Goodreads!

I'm not positive about the 50s in particular, but you might want to check out Andrew Taylor's work. He writes crime fiction, primarily. HF. All in England, as far as I know. And I believe one of his series is based in the 50s, I'm just not positive.

Another place to look is http://historicalnovelsociety.org/cen...

It can't be narrowed down more than by century, although there are other search options, but I'm not sure they'd be as suitable, plus each search is individual. Either by topic, genre or time period. But as C.P. said, others in this group will surely know.

The only 1950s/England I know of is a mystery series, so I'm afraid I can't help with your search.

Try Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Allan Sillitoe - they did make this in to a film with Albert Finney

This author has a number of other books set in the 50's

Thanks so much all! Marking Sillitoe's book to read and I'll check out Taylor and the other website too.

One issue is that the 1950s are just barely HF at the moment. If you are willing to consider WWII, there are many more titles. England in the 1950s is also something of a dead zone, it seems (although if you will consider nonfiction, you may enjoy Stone Of Destiny).

There are novels written in the 1950s, of course, but those are not, strictly speaking, HF.

C.P. wrote: "One issue is that the 1950s are just barely HF at the moment. If you are willing to consider WWII, there are many more titles. England in the 1950s is also something of a dead zone, it seems (altho..."
Dead Zone ?? Not sure what you mean, after all we had
Elizabeth Jane Howard
Kinglsey Amis
Graham Green
J.R.Tolkien
Dylan Thomas
William Golding
John Arden
Ian Fleming
to name a few authors who published during the 50's. If you mean history of Britain in the 50's -
there was political turmoil- Churchill's return, Festival of Britain, Coronation, spies (cold war), invasion of Suez, Korean war, winds of change through Africa with the Mau Mau etc, Hungarian uprising, which generated a new influx of refugees - heaps of subjects to use as resources for HF fiction from today's viewpoint - but many books were written of the 50's in the 50's
Fleming wrote seven (I think) of his James Bond books in the 50's where the characters reflected the times - very un-pc for today, (which makes one wonder about today's PC because the films are so popular today :-o) ).
If you move to authors of the 60's they often set their fictional world in the 50's. The John le Carrie's 1963 novel, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold reflected the late 50's attitude, created by the Cold War.
Perhaps I've missed your point about the 'dead zone', if so please ignore the above :-o)

I meant that by the Historical Fictionistas definition an HF novel about the 1950s would have to be written in 2000-2010 (50 years later). I personally do not know of many novels that fit that criterion—which may reflect nothing more than my ignorance.

Of course, people wrote good books in the 1950s! But those are not historical fiction. They are contemporary fiction written at the time. Even books written in the 1960s but set in the 1950s are not HF according to the standard definition.

Sorry C.P I misunderstood your comment - apologies :-o)

No problem! :) Happy to clarify.

GR also has some pretty nifty recommendation tools.

If you create a shelf called 1950's England and put some of the books that you have liked from that period. You can ask GR for recommendations based on that shelf and the odds are that you might get some more books. It keys on the books on the shelf, not the shelf name.

Also, on a book's main page, on the right hand column there is a "people liked similar works" section. If you know an author specializes in this period, then you can look at similar authors (a tiny link on the author's main page).

For any of these recommendation to work, you have to have a starting point which may not help as much. Also, all of the recommendation tools are based on data of what other readers liked and made connections so there may be some anomalies :-D