10 Books For People Who Like A Little Truth With Their Fiction

This week's Top Ten Tuesday topic, chosen by The Broke and the Bookish, is 10 books every X should read (ballet-lover, feminist, history buff, etc.). These broad topics are fun but sometimes difficult to compile, and especially tough to make creative and original. After browsing through my Goodreads read list, I decided to go with:

10 Books For People Who Like A Little Truth With Their Fiction

or

10 Fact-Based Novels

These novels are all inspired by real-life people or groups of people. I love non-fiction that reads like novels, and I love fiction -- like these selections -- that subtly gives me facts and teaches me about a real-life issue while providing a thoroughly interesting and enjoyable reading experience. Do you have any recommendations for fact-based fiction? I could always use more books in this genre!

"Circling the Sun" is about the extraordinary Beryl Markham, the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from England to the U.S. She grew up in early 1900s Kenya, trained race horses, and was a woman utterly ahead of her time. (review)

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Ernest Hemingway's first wife Hadley is the focus of "The Paris Wife," which provides rich descriptions of the couple's time in Chicago, Paris and Spain. (review)

"The Lady Elizabeth" is a wonderfully gripping novel of the life of Queen Elizabeth I. (review)

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Similarly, "Innocent Traitor" focuses on the life of Lady Jane Grey, the "Nine-Day Queen," a teenage girl who found herself caught up against her will in the machinations of Tudor England -- and ultimately lost her head for it.

"Euphoria," a riveting novel of three anthropologists caught in a love triangle in 1930s New Guinea, is inspired by pioneering anthropologist Margaret Mead. (review)

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While I was ever so slightly disappointed in "Girl Waits With Gun," it was an interesting peek into the life of Constance Kopp, one of America's first female sheriff's deputies. (review)

 I found "The Dud Avocado" to be a lovely blend of riotous good time and poignant coming-of-age story. It was inspired by the author's exploits as a young American in 1950s Paris. (review)

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"Half Broke Horses," a 5-star read for me, is a fictionalized account of the Walls' grandmother's life. Lily Casey Smith was a fascinating, persevering, good-humored woman who survived many hardships and experienced many joys. (review)

One of my favorite novels, "Molokai," is about a group of people rather than just one, but I feel like it fits well in this category. Brennert spins a heartbreaking, amazing novel of the lives of the exiles at the Kalaupapa leper colony on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. (review)

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Like "Molokai," "Orphan Train" is a gut-wrenching, well-researched account of a marginalized, little-known group of people, in this case the parentless children forced to ride "orphan trains" to the Midwest to be adopted (i.e. oftentimes forced into indentured servitude) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Bonus!

I just finished an advance-read copy of "Fever at Dawn," which comes out today. It's based on the true story of how the author's parents -- two concentration camp survivors -- met and fell in love as penpals while they were recuperating in different hospitals.

 And two on my to-read list: