Lev Grossman's 6 favorite books that explore the Middle Ages

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Lev Grossman's new novel, "The Bright Sword," follows a young knight who arrives in Camelot just after the fall of King Arthur. Below, the author of the best-selling "Magicians" trilogy recommends six great books about medieval times.

'Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages' by Dan Jones (2021)

Jones begins his kaleidoscopic account with the sack of Rome in 410 and never slows down. A tireless, virtuosic storyteller, he's constantly in search of evocative details and fresh themes — climate change, the interconnectedness of East and West — to illuminate the darkness. Buy it here. 

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'A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century' by Barbara Tuchman (1978)

There has been much scholarly ink under the bridge since Tuchman wrote this account of Europe at its most wondrous and tormented, but somehow no one since has conjured the mood and the contradictions of that moment with the same vividness — the terrible weather, the decadent feasts, the relentless cruelty, the longing for divine mercy. Buy it here. 

'Nicked' by M.T. Anderson (2024)

A dreaming monk and a hard-boiled relic hunter attempt the heist of the millennium: stealing the body of St. Nicholas from its tomb. Nicked is a love story, a cracking good buddy comedy, a medieval thriller, and much more besides, set in a meticulously drawn portrait of 11th-­century Europe. Buy it here. 

'The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization' by Jonathan Lyons (2009)

At a time when Europeans were still trying to figure out when Easter was, Arab scholars were doing spherical geometry, performing surgery with sharpened fish bones, and calculating the circumference of Earth. We're still waking up to how much of the Western world rests on foundations built in the East. Buy it here. 

'The Once and Future King' by T.H. White (1958)

It's still the greatest modern telling of the legend of King Arthur, in all its majesty and melancholy. In a towering feat of the imagination, White remade the stiff, formal figures of the body of literature known as the Matter of Britain, endowing the characters with new humor, warmth, and longing, making the ancient tales sing. Buy it here. 

'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' (1300s)

A winter's day; a strange traveler; a brave knight; a fatal game. Written by an unknown hand, it's the most elegant and approachable medieval adventure, starring the most charming and human of all Arthur's knights. Buy it here. 

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