I missed last week’s topic (historical settings I love/want to see more of), so I’m cheating and doing it this week.

• Roman Britain. What can I say? I am, in Rosemary Sutcliff’s words, at home here—and have been ever since I read The Lantern Bearers for the first time, many years ago. Sutcliff wrote in many other historical settings, but her Roman-Britain books are, I think, her best and most enduring. I have also enjoyed books in this setting by Gillian Bradshaw, Ruth Downie, and others.
• WWII Italy. This is one I’d like to see more of. I’d particularly like to see a novel about the Italian resistance, or about Salvo D’Acquisto, or about the Italian pilots who flew for the Allies after 1943. I wouldn’t turn down a novel set in WWI Italy, either.
• The Eastern Empire. This is a growing area of interest for me. Most of my academic focus has been on the Western Roman Empire, but the East has a rich, fascinating history.
• Revolutionary Algeria—a brand-new interest, sparked by Alistair Horne’s brilliant, devastating A Savage War of Peace.
• The Spanish Civil War—an old interest, sparked by Hemingway.

And, for contrariness’ sake, here are five historical settings which I don’t enjoy all that much. To be clear, I have read and enjoyed books in all these settings. But I don’t tend to seek them out.

• Tudor England. My interest in England pretty much ends with the Plantagenets.
• Victorian anywhere—and I viciously dislike don’t care for steampunk, either.
• Russia, for the purely irrational reason that I have never found Russian history of any period appealing.
• The American Civil War—or, to be honest, any part of American history, especially pre-20th-century.
• Renaissance Italy, perhaps because, like Tudor England, it seems to have been done to death.