100 books like Burning Bright

I love how Rowntree riffs on real history while keeping the tone thrilling and funny. The "Miss Sharp’s Monsters" series is set in the Bete Epoque (a late Victorian Europe ruled by monsters), and Liz Sharp is a lovably reckless amnesiac bodyguard to an English princess.

I would absolutely want Liz on my side if our tea party were attacked. I’d pour the tea and let her take care of the monsters.

Isabella Farrah is one of the funniest, most exasperating leading ladies in literature. I was surprised and delighted by this loose retelling of Beauty and the Beast with murder, cake, pretty dresses, magic, intrigue, and Isabella’s hilarious brand of ladylike mayhem.

I would probably choke on my cake laughing if I ever had tea with Isabella (and maybe she’d slip something into my tea), but it would be worth it.

I have fallen in love with the sweet chaos of Emma’s ongoing journals, chronicling her life in the daft parish of St Crispian’s in an off-kilter version of 1880s London. Emma lives in the tiny garret of her house because her mad Cousin Archibald has stolen the rest of the house.

This witty and scapegrace young woman’s coming-of-age story will give you all the found-family and deeply cozy platonic friendships you could ask for, along with an amazing community of fans.

I loved the soft and quiet governess Elaine and the way she uses her unique magic. The surprising 1820s post-apocalyptic setting draws you in immediately, and the allusions to The Lady of Shallot are perfect.

I’d like to share a nice cup of tea with Elaine, and with her magical abilities, we would always have fresh water for the teapot. 

There are many biographies and other narratives of Jane Austen, with many published since 1997, when Professor Park Honan updated his original book. Even so, his biography is still, in my opinion, the best. It is comprehensive, detailed, and accurate, with copious endnotes. The author also had unparalleled help from descendants of Jane Austen. His writing style is straightforward, and he is excellent at depicting the overall context of her life and how it influenced her writing, from her two brothers in the Royal Navy to productions in the London theatres.

It is an extraordinary fact that no one had written a book on the naval war after 1803 for nearly two hundred years.

In the same time period, hundreds of books have covered Trafalgar and Nelson, and some good books have appeared on parts of the war. But until James Davey’s extensive documentary research in this book, nobody had seen it as a whole. Engagingly written, full of telling stories, this tells the story of a worldwide war.

After almost 80 years you might think that there was nothing new to say about the Battle of the Atlantic.  This volume shows the scholarship remains vigorous and ongoing. 

It highlights the multi-faceted nature and complexity of the Atlantic campaign the understanding of which goes well beyond traditional images of U-Boats hunting convoys in the mid-Atlantic. The team of scholars writing for this study provides fresh perspective on the Battle and the struggle for control of Britain’s sealines of communication between 1939 and 1945

In 1789 Lieutenant Fletcher Christian and 18 mutineers turned on the “insufferable” Captain Bligh of the HMS Bounty and set him and 18 loyal crew members adrift in the South Pacific.

The story has loomed so large in popular imagination it has inspired at least 14 books and five films. But the late British journalist, historian, and diver Alexander McKee brought the disparate elements of the story together in perhaps its most accurate, entertaining, and coherent form–way back in 1962.

There’s always more than one side to a story and McKee interrogates them ruthlessly. The journalist in me applauds his efforts to comb through historical records, personal journals, and every piece of flotsam and jetsam he finds to present one of the most compelling true, sea stories ever written.

Not one of villains and heroes, but of the burdens of leadership and the fraying bonds of loyalty within one of… show more.

Stumpf was an ordinary seaman in the German Imperial Navy.

He tells the story of the war at sea from a personal perspective. His autobiography shows how the gap between officers and men, poor food, a sense of inferiority to the Royal Navy and limited scope for naval action all contributed to the decline of the morale of the Imperial Fleet, leading to mutiny in 1918. It is necessary reading if you want to begin to understand the war at sea from a non-British perspective.

During the Battle of the Atlantic, it was the Merchant Seamen of many nations that kept the flow of supplies running across the Atlantic despite attacks from ship, submarine, and aircraft, together with all the normal hazards of storm and sea.

Civilians from diverse backgrounds, multi-ethnic, multi-national, and multi-faith they came together as crews to fight their ships through. This is a sympathetic study that takes us into their world to understand why and how, by dogged determination, they withstood the constant dangers to bring their cargo home.