Monday, July 5, 2010

Summer historical esapism between two covers

A month ago, NPR's Michael Schaub, in "Historical Fiction: The Ultimate Summer Getaway," offered some summer reading suggestions, and now that we've passed the dividing line of July 4th, and the temperature has passed 90 again, it seems the right time to return to his list.

Schaub highlights a sampling of historical fiction set in a wide variety of settings, from the Viking age (a 1941 classic that "remains the literary equivalent of an action- and intrigue-filled adventure movie that won't insult your intelligence"), to 19th-century America (Toqueville in "the book version of both a buddy comedy and a road trip movie")and France (the travails of singer, actress, and poet Marceline Desbordes-Valmore)to World War II Berlin and Civil Rights-era Asian-American California.

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