I really wish that I had kept track of what I've read over the past few years. I know that I read over one hundred books per year, and usually it's a mixture of historical fiction and classics, but sometimes I'll throw in the random romance novel or Oprah's book club pick...lol. I also have a few books that are pretty much biography's of famous people or historical people that I admire or am interested in.
The oddest in my collection would probably be the romance novels. I used to huge into historical romance, and that's what actually got me interested in historical fiction! I started reading Bertrice Smalls, and she incorporated historical facts in with her steamy sex scenes. However, after awhile, steamy sex scenes get boring, so I ran into a Philippa Gregory novel ( I do believe it was "The Other Boleyn Girl"), and I loved it so I read all of Gregory's books. When I was done with her books I realized that I wanted to read more books that were similar to hers, so then I found Robin Maxwell, Jean Plaidy, Alison Weir, Carolly Erickson, etc.
Another random would be the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series by George R.R. Martin. I wrote about his first book "A Game of Thrones" in here. I never thought I would enjoy anything that was fantasy based, but his books are so well written that you can actually believe the things in the novel have actually happened hundreds of years ago! It almost seemed like I was reading historical fiction, but with a crazy twist! I'm actually re-reading his second book right now. The books are massive, like 800 pages, but they are so well written and exciting that it's hard to put it down, so you fly through the books. It's definitely nice to have his books on hand lately since I've been subbing a lot in the high school, and having a good read makes the day go by sooo much faster!
