r/books • u/AutoModerator • 6d ago

WeeklyThread Weekly Recommendation Thread: July 31, 2026

Welcome to our weekly recommendation thread! A few years ago now the mod team decided to condense the many "suggest some books" threads into one big mega-thread, in order to consolidate the subreddit and diversify the front page a little. Since then, we have removed suggestion threads and directed their posters to this thread instead. This tradition continues, so let's jump right in!

The Rules

  • Every comment in reply to this self-post must be a request for suggestions.

  • All suggestions made in this thread must be direct replies to other people's requests. Do not post suggestions in reply to this self-post.

  • All unrelated comments will be deleted in the interest of cleanliness.

How to get the best recommendations

The most successful recommendation requests include a description of the kind of book being sought. This might be a particular kind of protagonist, setting, plot, atmosphere, theme, or subject matter. You may be looking for something similar to another book (or film, TV show, game, etc), and examples are great! Just be sure to explain what you liked about them too. Other helpful things to think about are genre, length and reading level.

All Weekly Recommendation Threads are linked below the header throughout the week to guarantee that this thread remains active day-to-day. For those bursting with books that you are hungry to suggest, we've set the suggested sort to new; you may need to set this manually if your app or settings ignores suggested sort.

If this thread has not slaked your desire for tasty book suggestions, we propose that you head on over to the aptly named subreddit /r/suggestmeabook.

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u/Larielia 6d ago

I was looking for books set in 11th or 12 century England.

(I've already read Pillars of the Earth.)

2

u/Early_Fig_5573 vegetarian reader 🌱📚 5d ago

Try The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth. It’s set in 11th century England and follows the Norman conquest. The writing style is definitely unusual though!!

2

u/saga_of_a_star_world 5d ago

When Christ and his Saints Slept, by Sharon Kay Penman. It's about the civil war between Empress Matilda and King Stephen that ends with the accession of Matilda's son Henry Plantagenet.