99 books like Lancelot

By Giles Kristian,

Here are 99 books that Lancelot fans have personally recommended if you like Lancelot. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Winter King

Murray Dahm Author Of Finis Britanniae: A Military History of Late Roman Britain and the Saxon Conquest

From my list on thinking about King Arthur.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always loved stories about King Arthur–what’s not to love–Arthurian stories are about the underdog triumphing, destiny, knights and quests, swords (and stones, or lakes), great heroes and villains, and magic. My university studies made me into a military historian (among other things–including an opera singer and a historian of film), and I loved revisiting my love of Arthur in various guises. I have sung him on stage, played him in roleplaying games and miniature wargames, and I have written articles and books about him in film and history. I hope my list of recommendations provokes you to think about King Arthur in new ways!

Murray's book list on thinking about King Arthur

Murray Dahm Why did Murray love this book?

There have been too many novels featuring the story of King Arthur to count; this is my favorite. I found it (and the following two books in the series) really captured the idea of who Arthur was, why he was needed, and why he did what he did at the time for me.

It was the first Cornwell novel I read, and he has become my favourite novellist. I think he writes battle scenes better than anyone–he puts you in the middle of the action and makes you feel the visceral nature of combat (especially in his Arthurian and medieval books). If anyone is looking for a place to start with Arthurian fiction but doesn’t know where to begin, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this book and series. 

By Bernard Cornwell,

Why should I read it?

13 authors picked The Winter King as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Uther, the High King of Britain, has died, leaving the infant Mordred as his only heir. His uncle, the loyal and gifted warlord Arthur, now rules as caretaker for a country which has fallen into chaos - threats emerge from within the British kingdoms while vicious Saxon armies stand ready to invade. As he struggles to unite Britain and hold back the Saxon enemy, Arthur is embroiled in a doomed romance with beautiful Guinevere.


Book cover of The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia

Lilith Saintcrow Author Of A Flame in the North

From my list on European history books for writing Western epic fantasy.

Why am I passionate about this?

Like any writer, I’m fascinated with what makes people tick and why they act the way they do. Naturally, this means I read a lot of history. I love reference reading; I love researching arcane questions for a tiny detail that will bring a character or their world to life. Creating epic fantasy is an extension of both my drives as a reader and a writer. Pouring myself into characters who inhabit different settings is a deeply satisfying exercise in both craft and empathy, and each history book has some small bit I can use to make my settings more compelling, more enjoyable for readers, and more real.

Lilith's book list on European history books for writing Western epic fantasy

Lilith Saintcrow Why did Lilith love this book?

This is a pretty dense scholarly work, but that very density makes it a cornucopia for anyone interested in how a specific historical culture regarded magic.

I appreciated that while academic, Price is never boring or needlessly obscure; he does a very good job of not only explaining the historical record but also the best guess at how it can be interpreted.

Not only did it teach me a great deal about the Vikings, but it also taught me other strategies and ways of thinking about other cultures’ magical practices, and for a fantasy writer, that’s pure gold.

By Neil Price,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Viking Way as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Magic, sorcery and witchcraft are among the most common themes of the great medieval Icelandic sagas and poems, the problematic yet vital sources that provide our primary textual evidence for the Viking Age that they claim to describe. Yet despite the consistency of this picture, surprisingly little archaeological or historical research has been done to explore what this may really have meant to the men and women of the time. This book examines the evidence for Old Norse sorcery, looking at its meaning and function, practice and practitioners, and the complicated constructions of gender and sexual identity with which these…


Book cover of The Lord of the Rings

Claudia Amendola Alzraa Author Of The Transformational Path: How Healing, Unlearning, and Tuning into Source Helped Me Manifest My Most Abundant Life

From my list on completely transforming your life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve known I was “special” since I was a child. I saw, felt, and heard things that others did not. Eventually I embraced my clairaudient mediumship gifts and turned it into a thriving business, allowing me to live a life of purpose: helping others find their passions and live their most joyful lives. But the journey never ends; I am always on a mission to transform. Consistently, literature has been where I turn when I am seeking wisdom on becoming the best version of myself. I also pursued certification as a Book Therapist - the first thing I’ll recommend to friends, family, or clients is the best book for their dilemma!

Claudia's book list on completely transforming your life

Claudia Amendola Alzraa Why did Claudia love this book?

J.R.R. Tolkien's masterful storytelling is unmatched, and The Lord of the Rings weaves together moral dilemmas and profound philosophical ideas seamlessly, encouraging me to contemplate the nature of power, the importance of preserving the natural world, and the significance of individual choices.

The book's themes of heroism, friendship, sacrifice, and the struggle between good and evil resonate deeply. In addition, each of his characters feels like an aspect of oneself; the introspection it inspires is brilliant!

The Lord of the Rings instills a sense of wonder, ignites the imagination, and imparts timeless wisdom, which heavily transformed my perspective on life, my values, and my understanding of the human condition.

By J.R.R. Tolkien,

Why should I read it?

54 authors picked The Lord of the Rings as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 14, 15, 16, and 17.

What is this book about?

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins.

From Sauron's fastness in the Dark Tower of…


Book cover of King and Emperor: A New Life of Charlemagne

Angus Donald Author Of The Last Berserker

From my list on Dark Ages and Vikings.

Why am I passionate about this?

I discovered writing in my twenties when I was living alone in a hut in a remote village in Indonesia with no electricity. I began a novel to fill the lonely acres of time and found myself transported by my own imagination. I realised this interior world was one I could happily inhabit for life. It took me years to get there; I was a journalist for 15 years, and 44 before my first novel—Outlaw, about a gangster-ish Robin Hood—was published; but I haven’t stopped writing fiction since. I now have 17 novels under my belt, some of them bona fide bestsellers, and aim to keep writing till I drop. 

Angus' book list on Dark Ages and Vikings

Angus Donald Why did Angus love this book?

Nelson’s masterly biography of Charlemagne is a dense, scholarly but still gripping account of one of the most interesting and influential monarchs in European history. I struggle to think of any figure who has has a greater impact that the King of the Franks and, later, Emperor of the Romans, who drew the boundaries of the continent as we know them today. This was my most reliable go-to source on Charlemagne and his long wars with the pagan Saxons, which is the subject of my own series.

By Janet L. Nelson,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked King and Emperor as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A DAILY TELEGRAPH AND BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019

'A remarkable book: the dramatic story of a truly extraordinary man ... brilliant' Helen Castor, author of She-Wolves

A major new biography of one of the most extraordinary of all rulers, and the father of present-day Europe

Charles, King of the Franks, is one of the most remarkable figures ever to rule a European super-state. That is why he is so often called 'Charles the Great': by the French 'Charlemagne', and by the Germans 'Karl der Grosse'. His strength of character was felt to be remarkable from early…


Book cover of Letters Across the Sea

Chris Humphreys Author Of Plague

From my list on historical lives disrupted by extraordinary events.

Why am I passionate about this?

I fell in love with historical fiction when I was a child. Adventurous tales—especially if they had swordplay in them! And I was fascinated by young people having to choose whether to stand up for what they believed in or run away. Ordinary folk are forced by circumstances—and villains—to do the extraordinary. I empathized and felt like I could be one of them. So when I came to write, I wanted to tell those kinds of stories. I eventually realized what I wrote was 'the intimate epic'—showing how the minor historical players can have a major effect.

Chris' book list on historical lives disrupted by extraordinary events

Chris Humphreys Why did Chris love this book?

This book takes the lives of very ordinary Canadians and throws them into the maelstrom of war. I love that it carefully sets up a world few know about—Toronto in the 1930s—and shows the ambiguity of the times, how anti-Semitism was at home as well as across the water in Europe.

I so enjoyed the Romeo and Juliet love affair at the novel's heart, and I was moved by the trials love is subjected to—as well as shocked by excellent descriptions of war's brutality.

By Genevieve Graham,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Letters Across the Sea as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Inspired by a little-known chapter of World War II history, a young Protestant girl and her Jewish neighbour are caught up in the terrible wave of hate sweeping the globe on the eve of war in this powerful love story that’s perfect for fans of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

If you’re reading this letter, that means I’m dead. I had obviously hoped to see you again, to explain in person, but fate had other plans.

1933

At eighteen years old, Molly Ryan dreams of becoming a journalist, but instead she spends her days working any job…


Book cover of Birds Without Wings

Chris Humphreys Author Of Plague

From my list on historical lives disrupted by extraordinary events.

Why am I passionate about this?

I fell in love with historical fiction when I was a child. Adventurous tales—especially if they had swordplay in them! And I was fascinated by young people having to choose whether to stand up for what they believed in or run away. Ordinary folk are forced by circumstances—and villains—to do the extraordinary. I empathized and felt like I could be one of them. So when I came to write, I wanted to tell those kinds of stories. I eventually realized what I wrote was 'the intimate epic'—showing how the minor historical players can have a major effect.

Chris' book list on historical lives disrupted by extraordinary events

Chris Humphreys Why did Chris love this book?

I often admire writers, and it is very rare for me to be outright jealous of one. But I was with this astonishing book. It was intimately epic in the complete sense. We focus on a wonderful cast of characters who lived in a small village in southern Turkey in the early 20th century for many years.

You fall in love with them, and they make you laugh out loud. Then, you are heartbroken as their world is destroyed by ceaseless war. Brutal, romantic, hilarious, and completely tragic, this novel pulls you apart. I felt I knew them all well and was bereft when I finished the book. I missed these flawed, funny, sad people. I still do!

By Louis De Bernieres,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Birds Without Wings as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Set against the backdrop of the collapsing Ottoman Empire, Birds Without Wings traces the fortunes of one small community in south-west Anatolia - a town in which Christian and Muslim lives and traditions have co-existed peacefully for centuries.

When war is declared and the outside world intrudes, the twin scourges of religion and nationalism lead to forced marches and massacres, and the peaceful fabric of life is destroyed. Birds Without Wings is a novel about the personal and political costs of war, and about love: between men and women; between friends; between those who are driven to be enemies; and…


Book cover of The Scottish Prisoner

Chris Humphreys Author Of Plague

From my list on historical lives disrupted by extraordinary events.

Why am I passionate about this?

I fell in love with historical fiction when I was a child. Adventurous tales—especially if they had swordplay in them! And I was fascinated by young people having to choose whether to stand up for what they believed in or run away. Ordinary folk are forced by circumstances—and villains—to do the extraordinary. I empathized and felt like I could be one of them. So when I came to write, I wanted to tell those kinds of stories. I eventually realized what I wrote was 'the intimate epic'—showing how the minor historical players can have a major effect.

Chris' book list on historical lives disrupted by extraordinary events

Chris Humphreys Why did Chris love this book?

Diana Gabaldon is one of the best writers of 'intimate epics': tales of more or less ordinary people drawn into the flow and flood of real historical events. I especially enjoy her Lord John novels.

Making her protagonist at odds with the morality of his time—Lord John is an unapologetic (though necessarily closeted) homosexual—creates extra tension in a work that sets John—and in this case, Jamie Fraser as well—against the backdrop of the Jacobite conspiracy's death throes and the prickly honor code of the British Army.

Passionate, humorous, adventurous—all things that keep me turning the pages until the wee hours! 

By Diana Gabaldon,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Scottish Prisoner as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the international bestselling author of the Outlander series, the terrific new novel featuring the ever-popular Lord John.

1760. Jamie Fraser is a paroled prisoner-of-war in the remote Lake District. Close enough to the son he cannot claim as his own, his quiet existence is interrupted first by dreams of his lost wife, then by the appearance of Tobias Quinn, an erstwhile comrade from the Rising.

Lord John Grey - aristocrat, soldier, sometime spy - is in possession of papers which reveal a damning case of corruption and murder against a British officer. But the documents also hint at a…


Book cover of Hounds of the King

Chris Humphreys Author Of Plague

From my list on historical lives disrupted by extraordinary events.

Why am I passionate about this?

I fell in love with historical fiction when I was a child. Adventurous tales—especially if they had swordplay in them! And I was fascinated by young people having to choose whether to stand up for what they believed in or run away. Ordinary folk are forced by circumstances—and villains—to do the extraordinary. I empathized and felt like I could be one of them. So when I came to write, I wanted to tell those kinds of stories. I eventually realized what I wrote was 'the intimate epic'—showing how the minor historical players can have a major effect.

Chris' book list on historical lives disrupted by extraordinary events

Chris Humphreys Why did Chris love this book?

I had to go back to a classic from childhood, the first book I remember crying while reading. I didn't know reading could do that! Set against the backdrop of 1066 and the Norman Invasion of England, this takes an ordinary young man who stumbles into a war and chooses to fight for his country and his king. His realization that there are bigger things than himself and causes worth dying for moved me utterly.

This book shaped me as a writer. The idea of sacrifice and redemption is just so well done. 

By Henry Treece,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Hounds of the King as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

How Beornoth Joined King Harold's Body-Guard and Stood with Him in His Last Two Great Battles.


Book cover of Primitive Mythology

Thomas T. Lawson Author Of Carl Jung, Darwin of the Mind

From my list on C.J. Jung and the evolution of culture.

Why am I passionate about this?

A certain idea kept cropping up in my reading, triggered perhaps by Richard Dawkins's conception in The Selfish Gene, of the “meme.” It seemed that the meme had a life of its own. Then I came across Richerson’s and Boyd’s Not by Genes Alone, and they laid it out: cultures evolve. And they evolve independently of the genes—free of genetic constraints in an idea or thought to contribute to its own survival. That is up to the multitude of people who happen to come across it. I now have a new book readying for publication: How Cognition, Language, Myth, and Culture Came Together To Make Us What We Are.

Thomas' book list on C.J. Jung and the evolution of culture

Thomas T. Lawson Why did Thomas love this book?

Campbell, to me, is the dean of writers on myth. I met him once, through a professor at Hollins University who, at her graduation, had awarded Anna, my wife-to-be, the first three volumes of The Hero of a Thousand Faces, as a prize in English Literature (the fourth, Creative Mythology, was yet to be published).

After we met, I learned that Campbell had edited the Penguin Portable Jung – and it is that book that set me on a course of study and writing on myth and literature that I have pursued ever since.

As a final note, Campbell also co-authored A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake, a book that many years later led me into James Joyce’s masterwork, Finnegans Wake – to me, the apotheosis of mythic literature.

By Joseph Campbell,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Primitive Mythology as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The author of such acclaimed books as Hero With a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth discusses the primitive roots of mythology, examining them in light of the most recent discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, and psychology


Book cover of Goddesses in World Mythology

Charlene Spretnak Author Of Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths

From my list on goddess spirituality.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always been interested in cultural history. In my early 30s, I realized that Greek mythology was a late, patriarchal revision of the earlier Goddess-centric myths. After much research, I reconstructed several pre-Olympian myths in my book Lost Goddesses of Early Greece. This was one of the first books of the Women’s Spirituality movement, which began in the 1970s and is still going strong. A few years later, I edited an anthology of 50 voices, The Politics of Women’s Spirituality. Thus I am a foremother of that movement, which is a bountiful exploration of authentic spiritual experience in women’s lives.

Charlene's book list on goddess spirituality

Charlene Spretnak Why did Charlene love this book?

If you try to learn about the cultural history of the sacred female cross-culturally, you are likely to encounter the attitude in our patriarchal society that Goddesses couldn’t really have been widespread or ever been very important. A handy refutation can be found in this book, which contains information on over 11,000 Goddesses, nymphs, spirits, and deified women around the world. Grouped according to geographic regions, each entry gives you not only the translation of the Goddess’s name but also her story. That is, it’s a biographical dictionary because it gives the characteristics and the mythology associated with each Goddess. If you read through the entries for any one region, you will become immersed in a deeply poetic sense of the resonant cultural history underlying later developments.

By Martha Ann, Dorothy Myers Imel,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Goddesses in World Mythology as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This biographical dictionary contains 11,500 entries for goddesses from around the world and throughout time. Each entry contains area location, associated attributes, and a brief description. Many entries also contain brief retellings of the main myth pertaining to that goddess. This book is intended for religion students and scholars; those interested in New Age.


Book cover of The Winter King
Book cover of The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia
Book cover of The Lord of the Rings

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