I’m already so obsessed with this narrative and poetic style that I’ve added the book to my top 5 for My Taste before even finishing it.

I’ll be the first to say that I’m being quite the downer for pointing this out, but I just can’t get over it and I’m sure there are others out there that feel the same. Simply put, a lot of the books on this list do not take place in “Medieval Times”.

Historical periods are constructs just like any label for anything really, however I feel that when pop culture conflates massively different eras purely based on vibes, misconceptions and incorrect interpretations of narratives can damage the modern social perception of our past. I’m not talking about the books that stray more into myth and fantasy on here - such as The Salt Grows Heavy or The Pilgrim. Instead, sadly so, it’s the more popular and loved books on this list: Hamnet, Year of Wonders, The Other Boleyn Girl, etc. Generally speaking, the Renaissance/Early Modern Period (whatever you’d like to call it, obviously the latter lasts much longer), begins around 1450. So Shakespeare, the Tudors, and a plague in 1666 are decidedly no longer in “Medieval Times”.

With that being said, it would be a shame if I were just a critic and not a contributor, so here are my bids for period accurate additions: The Buried Giant, When Christ and His Saints Slept, The Once and Future King, and Here Be Dragons.