Books by Iain Pears
Stone’s Fall
by Iain Pears
Stone’s Fall, by the popular historical novelist Iain Pears, is a page-turner set in Europe in the decades before World War I. It was recommended by Ruth Harris, Professor of Modern History at Oxford University, in her interview on the Dreyfus Affair and the Belle Epoque. One caveat she mentions: “I’m going to confess right away that this is a novel written by my husband. The reason I chose it is that I know it so well and that he would be the first to say that much of it was taken from ideas that I have been thinking about for the last 25 years, and which he had rendered in fictional form.”
“This one is really complicated – maybe I just like them complicated. Pears is also a really intelligent man and has oscillated between writing fiction for entertainment and academics. He’s lived in Italy and he’s a professor and this book sort of speaks to all of those things. On the face of it, it’s about a murder in 17th-century Oxford, but quite amazing things are going on that are creepy yet fascinating. There were things I hadn’t thought about before like body stealing to learn dissections and anatomy. There is a lot about this rudimentary science, well, rudimentary to us but very exciting and magical to them. The first part of the book is told by one character and you feel you’ve learned the story. You get to the next part and it’s one of the other characters telling the same story but from his point of view and it’s really different. There are four characters who each tell it and each time you learn something new. Then you’re thinking it’s a clever game, but with the final story it suddenly becomes something different. I don’t want to give the story away but it’s a very moving and strange story with these religious overtones and it’s just amazing. It really blows you away.” Read more...
Vanora Bennett, Historical Novelist
Interviews where books by Iain Pears were recommended
The Best Historical Novels, recommended by Vanora Bennett
Which are the best historical novels? Bestselling author Vanora Bennett recommends her top five.
The best books on The Dreyfus Affair and the Belle Epoque, recommended by Ruth Harris
The Belle Epoque combined a preoccupation with the noblesse of the old regime with the seeds for modernism, says Oxford history professor Ruth Harris, author of an award-winning book on the Dreyfus affair. She picks the best books on a golden period in France before the outbreak of World War I.
