10 books like The Viking Way

Another book by Bernard Cornwell, and this one is a bit of cheat as it's set more in Dark Age Britain than the Viking Age, but the Saxons antagonists are painted as Vikings of a fashion.

This is a version of the Arthurian legends. It is the first of the Warlord Chronicles, followed by Enemy of God, and Excalibur. I was blown away by this book when I first read it, the description of the period feels so authentic and is totally different to any other novel about Arthur. The characterization of Merlin and Nimue are stunning, as are the battles.

The series is a tragic tale of the downfall of the Britons so shot through with sadness that it brought a tear to my eye...

It’s impossible to separate Orkney’s history from the Vikings and the mark they left on the culture and settlement of the land. While Price’s book doesn’t focus specifically on Orkney, it does offer a detailed look into the impact Vikings had on numerous regions, especially during the greatest period of Scandinavian expansion and their maritime power. I appreciated Price's focus on the context of the world the Vikings existed in, which grounded the research in something other than romanticized hero worship. A true heavy haul of a book, but worth every second spent reading and cross-referencing.

There are many books that aim to provide a succinct, coherent introduction to the subject of Norse mythology. Few, however, manage to so with the clarity and authority of Professor Carolyne Larrington’s The Norse Myths: A Guide to the Gods and Heroes. This book deals with all of the critical aspects of the mythos: from Ginnungagap (‘the howling void’) to Ragnarök (‘the doom of the gods’) by way of Yggdrasil the world-tree, the divine families (the Æsir and the Vanir) and the giants who opposed them, as well as the doings of human heroes like Sigurd the Volsung. This is an excellent introduction to the subject that includes retellings of many of the most important myths alongside illustrations and vital historical and literary context. If you are just beginning your journey into this realm of monsters and gods, there are few better places to start.

For serious readers of Norse mythology, its origins in literature and early culture the Byock translation of the 13th-century text by Snorri Sturluson presents the Viking equivalent of Heroditus’ Histories of the Ancient Greeks and the religious texts of the Abrahamic religions. It’s a thrilling read and forms the basis of all modern versions of Viking legend. I still refer to this, years after first reading it.

Dr Barraclough not only traces Viking voyages north, south, east and west, she has followed in their footsteps. She was knighted with the penis-bone of a walrus by the Polar Bear Society of Hammarfest, saw the runestones commemorating those who “died in the east with Ingvar,” and mapped saga accounts of Newfoundland. Grisly information about Icelandic “necropants” and the Greenland hero “Corpse-Lodin.” This book has particularly beautiful color plates.

‘Viking’ really refers more to an activity than an ethnicity, and has developed an unhelpful amount of baggage in modern times. This book, however, is about vikings red in tooth and claw who fought, raided, and conquered across Britain, but did so as conscious and coherent historical figures rather than an aggressive force of nature. Through delicate source-work that traverses several linguistic and cultural divides, Downham traces the activities of a powerful Scandinavian dynasty that played a formative role in the history of Britain and Ireland across the ninth and tenth centuries.

Dr Arnold’s book begins with the grisly cenotaph discovered at Repton, which may well be the burial-site of Ívarr the Boneless. His book combines historical, literary and archaeological sources to give a balanced and comprehensive survey of the Vikings, briefly and at an affordable price. The best book to put into a student’s hands.

The Lord of the Rings is a deep dive into the expansive world of Middle-earth in unwavering great detail.

While it can be a challenge to read the entire volume all at once, it is well worth the effort as JRR Tolkien brings Frodo, the Shire, orcs, elves, dwarves, and the Fellowship vividly to life. It is one of the greatest epic tales of all time, both within the pages and on the screen.

For me, I was captured by the themes of friendship, sacrifice, love, loss, redemption, and the darkness of envy and power. As an author, it was also a masterclass in world building that has stood the test of time.

Snorri did not write his Edda in a vacuum, and the mythological and heroic poems collected in the thirteenth century Codex Regius (and a handful of other manuscripts) provide a snapshot of the sort of raw material from which his book was constructed. The apparent antiquity of these poems (quite how old remains a matter of debate) led to them being labelled the ‘Elder’ Edda and, although in their preserved form they are products of the Middle Ages, they powerfully evoke the strange and esoteric world of northern antiquity. In content the mythological poems encompass, amongst much else, Völuspá (the prophetic vision of a sorceress revealing the breaking and rebirth of the world at Ragnarök and the events that will precipitate it), Hávamál (the gnomic wisdom of Odin, including an account of his self-mortifying pursuit of occult knowledge) and Lokasenna (in which the god Loki provides a definitive example of… show more.

Despite its rather misleading title, Chris Abrams’s Myths of the Pagan North is not a retelling of the Norse myths or a primer to the worlds they describe. It is instead a detailed and sustained exploration of how the myths as we know them developed, what evidence exists for the Norse mythos outside the major compendia of thirteenth-century Icelandic prose and poetry (Snorri’s Edda and the so-called Elder Edda), and what function these stories played in the societies of the Viking Age and medieval north. With chapters exploring the historical context in which the myths developed, the full range of sources that can shed light on them (including runic inscriptions, picture stones, and skaldic verse) and the relationship of the myths to the religious worldview of the pagan and Christian societies that shaped them, this is a book for those who want to go beyond the stories themselves and… show more.