History

History is best told as a story, the kind of book readers say keeps them up late even though they know how it ends. This shelf runs from the American Revolution and Churchill's London to shipwrecks, Antarctic survival and the Great Migration. There are big sweeping books and small, close-up ones about a single crew or a single town. A few of them come with a point of view, and I flag that in the review so you can pair them with something else if you want balance. Some cover painful chapters, like Nazi Germany or the Osage murders, and I note when a book is heavy going. Pick the era that pulls at you and start there.