“History is boring.”

Every time I hear this sentiment, I die a little inside. To me, few things are as exciting as history, at least when it’s really well told. People have done amazing things throughout history and gone interesting places and set in motion ideas and events that would change everything that followed. But when history is presented as “On date X, Bob did thing Y. Then on date A, Susan did thing B,” I can see why folks don’t get as excited as I do.

But history can be amazing when the writing matches the events and personalities being described. (See Barbara Tuchman’s famous opening paragraph to her Pulitzer Prize winner The Guns of August for a great example.) Below are 10 books of history as compelling to read as any novel, featuring real people living lives even the best authors couldn’t invent. These books span millennia and continents and writing styles, but all of them are supremely readable, and if you’ve ever found history dull, I challenge you to give one of these books a try on the Libby app.

Alexandria: The City that Changed the World by Islam Issa

This glorious and ancient Egyptian city is the star of Issa’s wonderful new history book. Situated at the junction of three continents and founded by arguably the most famous man in history, Alexander the Great’s town sprang up on the shores of the Mediterranean to quickly become a center of learning and culture. Men from Aristotle to Napoleon shaped the city, as did fire, plagues, the sea, and war. One of the first modern cities, Alexandria welcomed scholars from around the world from the time of its founding to the current day. Issa sweeps the reader along through this history, as well as the myths and legends that shape this marvelous and unique city.

Saving Michelangelo’s Dome: How Three Mathematicians and a Pope Sparked an Architectural Revolution by Wayne Kalayjian

Michelangelo had a dream of creating a dome for the new St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome that would rival the famous dome designed by Brunelleschi in his hometown of Florence. While he designed the dome, the great artist died before it could be built. Not long after the dome’s completion, though, cracks began to show. The cracks continued to worsen until the middle of the 18th century, when it was in danger of imminent collapse. A new pope, Benedict XIV, who also happened to be a scholar from Bologna, decided to tackle the problem with the help of three mathematicians. This is the story told by Kalayjian, a structural engineer with a gift for explaining the intricacies of this architectural marvel and the race to save it.

African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan by Thomas Lockley and Geoffrey Girard

This is the story of Yasuke, an African man who as a boy was forced into slavery and taken first to India and then Japan by Portuguese Jesuit missionaries. Japan was in the midst of a civil war when he arrived, and the Jesuits introduced him to some of the most important warlords of the day. When the missionaries returned to their homebase in Nagasaki, Yasuke remained in Kyoto. He served the local warlord, who gave him clothes, a home, and servants. And soon, Yasuke was named a samurai. He was witness to and a participant in some of the most thrilling and momentous events in Japanese history, and historian Lockley and novelist Girard make his adventures impossible to put down.

The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook by Hampton Sides

In 1776, one of the great mapmakers and sailors of the Age of Exploration set out on his final voyage. Captain James Cook is a man of complex legacy — remembered equally as an extraordinary navigator and the harbinger of colonialism. Who was this man, noted for his leadership and cordial relations with the indigenous people he met on his voyages, but who seemed to have a sudden cruel streak revealed on his final, tragic journey? Sides is an author well-versed in nautical history (check out In the Kingdom of Ice), and his writing style is narrative nonfiction at its best. His books are so readable, in fact, you could be excused for thinking you’d picked up novel, except that truth is so much stranger than fiction.

Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s Hidden Histories by Amitav Ghosh

When novelist Ghosh researched his Ibis Trilogy (which begins with Sea of Poppies and earned him comparisons with Sir Walter Scott, Alexandre Dumas, and Leo Tolstoy), he had to dig deep into the history of opium in Indian and China. Not only did he learn of the drug’s role in international relations and British colonialism, but he also found links to his own family. He also realized what a huge impact the 19th century trade in opium had on the growth of global markets that can still be felt today. Gathering his research, he turned his writing prowess to this history of opium, in which he examines opium and poppies in every light, from horticultural to economics to war.

Sailing the Graveyard Sea: The Deathly Voyage of the Somers, the U.S. Navy’s Only Mutiny, and the Trial That Gripped the Nation by Richard Snow

In 1842 the U.S. Navy experienced its first and only mutiny aboard the USS Somers. The captain was an experienced sailor, bestselling author, and in-law to the famous commodores Matthew and Oliver Perry. The ringleader of the mutiny was a young midshipman, Philip Spencer, whose father was the Secretary of War. Deciding that Spencer and two of his conspirators were too dangerous to keep on board until they reached an American port, a makeshift court martial found the men guilty and they were executed on board the Somers. The aftermath divided the government, navy, and public. Snow’s book takes you through the ship’s fateful voyage and the inquiry and court martial that followed. It tries to untangle what really happened and explores if hanging a restless 18-year-old midshipman was necessary to save the ship.

Flee North: A Forgotten Hero and the Fight for Freedom in Slavery’s Borderland by Scott Shane

Thomas Smallwood was born into slavery. But by the 1840s, he'd bought his freedom and set to work as a shoemaker in Washington, DC — not far from the Capitol building. Then he was approached by a white abolitionist who wanted to know if Smallwood would like to help him rescue people from slavery. Over the years, Smallwood helped hundreds escape the horrors of slavery in the Washington and Baltimore area via, what he was the first to call, the underground railroad. Shane is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and his telling of this remarkable story, and lives changed, will have you flipping pages late into the night or trying to find some extra audiobook time.

The Last Ships from Hamburg: Business, Rivalry, and the Race to Save Russia’s Jews on the Eve of World War I by Steven Ujifusa

Without the ships leaving Hamburg, Germany for America between 1890 and 1921, we might never have known the music of George Gershwin, the sweet swing of Hank Greenburg, or the legal mind of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. All of these Jewish-Americans descended from immigrants fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe, their escape made possible by three businessmen: Albert Ballin, Jacob Schiff, and J. P. Morgan. These men helped fuel the largest migration across continents in human history, including the relocation of 2.5 million European Jews in America. These immigrants had a huge impact on American life and world history. Ujifusa’s lucid writing and thorough research make this a gripping and enlightening read.

Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia by Gary J. Bass

There were very few “best of” lists from 2023 that didn’t include Judgment at Tokyo, and for very good reason. Following the end of WWII, the Allies held trials of Japan’s military leaders to punish those responsible for atrocities such as the Rape of Nanking and the Bataan death march. But more came out of these trials than simple punishment. It marked more than two years of legal struggles to convict war criminals, as well as building resentments between the countries and peoples of Asia that reverberate to this day. It’s part courtroom drama, part war story, part stage setting for the Cold War to come, but all of it expertly told by Bass, a Pulitzer finalist.

Fear Is Just a Word: A Missing Daughter, a Violent Cartel, and a Mother’s Quest for Vengeance by Azam Ahmed

Miriam Rodríguez once had a quiet, fulfilling life in San Fernando, Mexico. Yes, there was crime, but ordinary people could keep their heads down and go about their lives in relative safety. But then there was a shake up in the drug cartels of the area, and suddenly, no one was safe, including Miriam’s daughter, Karen, who was abducted and murdered. After this tragic loss, Miriam went on a quest to get justice for her daughter, vowing to see everyone responsible arrested or dead. Journalist Ahmed tells the moving story of the Rodríguez family and history of cartel violence in Mexico in heartbreaking and page-turning fashion. It’s not the easiest read on this list, but entirely worthwhile.

*Title availability may vary by library & region.

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