[Eperitos]

I recently read The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople by Jason Phillips. Its a popular history of the fourth crusade. Its quite good and fairly well balanced (though personally I wouldn't mind a bit more Catholic bashing ;) ) The book gives a good account of one of the major grievances of the Orthodox east with the Catholic west, which is still to this day one of the major obstacles in the talks of the two churches.

[Agān]

I have to recommend the Crusades Trilogy by Jan Guillou, comprised of The Road to Jerusalem, The Knight Templar and the Kingdom at the End of the Road. Only the second book is strictly concerned with the crusades, but the entire trilogy is truly remarkable. There is also a standalone fourth book, but I don't think that has been translated to English yet.

I'd also like to second the recommendation of Amin Maalouf's The Crusades Through Arab Eyes.

- Agān

[FicusFan]

I have to recommend the Crusades Trilogy by Jan Guillou, comprised of The Road to Jerusalem, The Knight Templar and the Kingdom at the End of the Road. Only the second book is strictly concerned with the crusades, but the entire trilogy is truly remarkable. There is also a standalone fourth book, but I don't think that has been translated to English yet.

I'd also like to second the recommendation of Amin Maalouf's The Crusades Through Arab Eyes.

- Agān

I just looked up the Jan Guillou's books on Amazaon (USA) and only 2 are listed in English: The Kinght Templar, The Road to Jerusalem, and they are out of print. The Knight Templar has 1 used book for sale for $82.00 ! I don't know if they are more available in the UK.

[Agān]

I just looked up the Jan Guillou's books on Amazaon (USA) and only 2 are listed in English: The Kinght Templar, The Road to Jerusalem, and they are out of print. The Knight Templar has 1 used book for sale for $82.00 ! I don't know if they are more available in the UK.

Yes, I went from recommending them in this thread (thinking they had all been translated into English since I can remember seeing The Kingdom at the End of the Road listed on amazon.co.uk, though - admittedly - I think it was going to be published sometime this year) to seeing that the last book wasn't going to be published at all in the Best historical fiction-thread (I really hope they reconsider). As I said in that thread, if you are from one of the Nordic countries or have a good understanding of German or Spanish (or Dutch), you should be able to get hold of the books somewhere. They are so good, I would almost recommend you to buy the book for $81! Almost, but not quite.

I checked amazon.co.uk and they have 1 used The Road to Jerusalem for £15.99 (hc), and 3 used The Knight Templar for between £10-14 (pb) and 13 for between £5-19 (hc). I imagine that you would be able to find them at the library, and if your local library don't have them, they should be able to make a search and order them from any library that does.

This trilogy (+ its standalone sequel) are probably some of my most favourite books, and if you can get your hands on them, you should.

- Agān

[UberDarkLord]

I just read The Crusader by Michael Eisner and I wasn't really impressed. A very small story with much ado about it by some monks. Also, he didn't really made the medieval present in the book. Swords and armor and castles are windowdressing, the characters were just moderns (with some religious bull tagged on, to make them 'behave' like 'middle agers'),
De-recommended.

[Sammie]

I'll second Stephen Lawhead's 'Celtic Crusade' trilogy. Book 1 is called 'The Iron Lance', iirc.

[Radthorne]

Two out of print fiction titles that you might find somewhere are "The Knights of Dark Reknown" and "The Kings of Vain Intent" by Graham Shelby, dating from the early 70's. They cover the period just before and after the Horns of Hattin in the 1180's, and while not superb books they do bring to life many of the historical personages. He also wrote "Wolf in the Fold", about King John; and some other historical novels.

On the non-fiction front, I can highly recommend the three-volume A History of the Crusades by Steven Runciman, published in the U.S. by Cambridge University Press. Well written, engaging, and throughly researched.

[Severn]

I just read The Crusader by Michael Eisner and I wasn't really impressed. A very small story with much ado about it by some monks. Also, he didn't really made the medieval present in the book. Swords and armor and castles are windowdressing, the characters were just moderns (with some religious bull tagged on, to make them 'behave' like 'middle agers'),
De-recommended.

An opposing voice: What UberDarkLord says is true in terms of the setting, however I really liked this novel precisely because it is a character-based write. I suppose it depends on whether you are interested in the Crusades purely for the Crusades sake or not. And monks really is one monk who narrates the story of the central Crusader character, whom I wouldn't exactly call a modern. The monk's tawdry justifications about his desire to move up in the clerical world, at the expense of his knightly friend, were entertaining. I found the central character's story quite moving. But then, I love character-based fiction. So the lack of grand-scale drama didn't bother me in the slightest. I also liked Eisner's sparse, lucid prose.

K