Good historically related books in general you have read.

[Cyclops]

There's something about works by actual ghistorical players: they are not to be trusted any more than other historians, but the fact they were there has to count for something. I recall enjoying Mes Reveries by de Saxe (the 18th century french marshal) but the detail slips my mind: it was chiefly interesting that he wrote it before his career had really begun and its fascinating to see how he aplied the principles of his work.

The Classical World - Robin Lan Fox
A history of Homeric Greece to the Roman Empire under Hadrian. I'm still not finished it yet but I am enjoying it thoroughly

Is it more about the classical eras in Hellas and Roma (ie from the rise of the city state to the rise of the principate)?

Very solid accomplished review of the period. He likes the gay aspects of ancient Greece and gives a somewhat excited acount of the prevalence on man-boy and military love.

That issue aside he gives a balanced account AFAIK and some quite masterful summaries.

[LestaT]

I prefer historical fictions so my all time favorite is Simon Scarrow's The Eagle Series..

Currently looking for good book during Crusades era. Just read Robyn Young Crusades (the first book).

Any other suggestions ?

[Gaius Scribonius Curio]

The Eagles series is very entertaining. Something in the same vein is Conn Iggulden's series about Rome (Gods of War). A really good series, but not necessarily up everyone's alley, is The Masters of Rome series by Colleen McCollough. Fantastic!

[BerkeleyBoi]

The Search for Modern China: Jonathan D. Spence

One of the best books ever written about China's history from the end of the Ming Dynasty to 1999.

[Cyclops]

A couple of the older authors do some fine historical fiction.

Dumas' Three Musketeers is a smashing yarn and has some juicy historical characters thrown in (IIRC the names of all the musketeers were actual noms-de-guerre of french soldiers albeit from the 1680's). There's plenty of other great material, Chico the Jester/Queen Margot etc about Henri IV. The books are stuffed with brilliant thumbnail portraits of pivotal political figures, none finer than Richelieu. The bit parts of Cromwell, William the Silent, Villiers (Duke of Buckingham) Charles (Stewart) II and so on are rather dramatic but not unsympathetic. Plus D'Artagnan bangs the maid even while he's on with the handmaiden!

Sir Walter Scott wrote yards and yards of books of historical fiction, mostly about Scotland. He footnotes his work extensively, and tells you when he changed the facts. The prose is heavy as a suet pudding but there's some decent writing amongst it all. I learnt heaps about Scottish history through him, it made the straight histories much more comprehensible.

Of course he falls into the pattern of his own era: rejecting presbyteriansism as too radical, and Catholicism as an anachronistic dead end, he's a high church episcopalian, but with a lot of sympathy for the passionate and intriguing Scots characters of all persuasions.

His caricatures of "foreigners" like the Irishmen, Spanish, French and Dutch tend to the ridiculous (although he sketches a chilling portrait of Louis XII the spider king of France). He has a complex and sometimes surreptitiously antipathetic feeling toward England. For example in Ivanhoe he describes the Saxons as good hearted but brutish swine, and the Normans as arrogant and cold hearted but beautifully cultured, and observes that the English have combined the qualities of the two. He surely means the best qualities (good hearts/good manners) but it occured to me there's a touch of bleak humour there and it could be he meant the worst qualities (rude and bad hearted).

[General Aetius]

Three musketeers by Dumas, though somewhat unhistorical, are good but you should also read the sequels- twenty years after, the vicomte de bragalonne(sorry for spelling), Louise de la valliere and the man in the iron mask.

I also enjoy sir Walter scott's historical fiction and when I was younger I enjoyed G A Henty's books.

if you're looking for real history than Tacitus' books-Germania, and annals, and Cicero's commentaries, letters and other stuff are quite interesting.

general aetius

[Watchman]

My most recent reading:

Viking: Weapons and Warfare by J. Kim Siddorn - a book on diverse Viking war gear by a veteran re-enactor. Includes interesting insights into how they actually behave in mass combat (withing the confines imposed by re-enactement safety consideration, natch) and accounts of some pretty nifty tests made with first-rate lab equipement on the resiliency of armour and shields.

The Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust by Heather Pringle - a fascinating study on the Ahnenerbe, the SS think tank conceived by Himmler to "research" ancient history and adapt their findings to the use of the Nazi cause. Exhaustively researched. Contains strange, colourful and often crackpot personalities, lunatic ideas and theories (the "World Ice Theory" has to be the nuttiest thing I've read for a while), Nazi nastiness (many of the human experiments in the camps were carried out by Ahnenerbe scientists after the outfit branched off to applied sciences), and a lot of interesting period detail. Also traces the innocent enough history of the concept of "Aryans" in European parlance before it mutated into its toxic German ultranationalist form.
...and I got this one as a Christmas present. Oughta tell a bit about my family...

That Sweet Enemy: Britain and France - The History of a Love-Hate Relationship by Robert & Isabelle Tombs - "The French and the Britsh from the Sun King to the present", as the opening page sums it up. A hefty account of the turbulent history between the two great powers, how they and their inhabitants saw each other, what they learned from each other, and why. Lucid and well articulated, gave me at least a considerable amount of new insight to many important events and developements in European history.