World History Through Fiction

So I'm trying to get a broad range of history by reading fiction but I'm having a hard time finding any books, preferably good ones, that take place in the Mid East during the Ottoman Empire or China/Far East for any time period. Any recommendations?

For the Far East, I highly recommend The Journeyer by Gary Jennings, the story of Marco Polo (1254-1324). Jennings novels are well researched with lots of historical detail and interesting characters.

I enjoyed Empress Orchid by Anchee Min, a novel about the Chinese Imperial family on the edge of collapse as Western powers forced their military and merchants into the country. Min's novels are really well-researched with lots of details. She even snuck into old archives in Beijing to read old imperial documents even though it was illegal. I definitely felt like I learned something.

I learned most of my recent Chinese history from Wild Swans by Jung Chang. It is non-fiction but reads like fiction. Chang chronicles the experience of 3 generations of her family (herself included), who lived through WWII, the civil war, and Mao's famines and purges. What makes the book so powerful is that you can see how historical events affected the lives of ordinary people. That's what imprinted the events so indelibly in my mind.

The Court of the Lion by Eleanor Cooney and David Altieri is a good read about 8th century T'ang China and the rebellion of An Lu Shan. I found it compelling enough to buy some of the source material in order to read up on it in more detail.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See takes place in China in the 1800's. While for the most part women where sheltered from most of the politics of the day some of it filters through especially during the Taiping Rebellion.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie also takes place in China but this time in the Cultural Revolution of the 1960's.

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi while not fiction tells the story of how a group of women related the changing atmosphere of Iran to various western novels that were banned by the regime.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini also goes into some of the history of Afghanistan around the time that the Taliban took over.

This one may not be exactly what you're looking for, but I quite liked Creation: a novel by Gore Vidal. It follows the life and times of the supposed grandson of Zoroaster who winds up a diplomat travelling as far afield as India, China and Greece.

There's The Sultan's Harem, which isn't one of my all time favorites or anything, but it does give a pretty decent view of the Ottoman empire.

I read Dream of the Walled City by Lisa Huang Fleischman a few years ago, which takes place in China before and during the rise of Mao Zedong, and found it very enjoyable and felt like I learned a lot.

Also, some of Amy Tan's books have bits that take place in China around the time of WWII, as I recall. And a very long time ago I read the memoir Bound Feet and Western Dress, which reads like a novel, and thought it was great.

(edited to fix touchstone)

A noble endeavour!

You can find some Ottoman history in the books of Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, such as My Name is Red and The White Castle.

I would also recommend the books of Finnish author Mika Waltari, both The Dark Angel and The Wanderer, the sequel to the equally wonderful The Adventurer. The first is set in Constantinople during the final Turkish siege of the city in 1453, while the last two take place during the 1520s, when Ottoman power was at its zenith, culminating with the siege of Vienna in 1529. Waltari's books are generally very good, although somewhat misogynistic, and if you have not read Sinuhe, set in Ancient Egypt during the reign of Akhenaten, well, just go ahead. He didn't have a much more positive view of men than women, by the way, but he was an extremely entertaining writer - almost unknown today, but the world's bestselling novelist in the late 1940's.

A novel set in a less well-known part of the Far East is The Enchantress by Han Suyin, which takes place in 18th century Switzerland, China and the old Thai capital Ayutthaya - at the time one of the largest and richest cities of the world.

For the far east, of course, you could also try the novels of James Clavell, such as Shogun and Tai-Pan.

You certainly can't go wrong with any books by Pearl S. Buck -- my particular favorite is Imperial Woman, about the last empress of China. In my opinion, it's superior to Empress Orchid.

Conn Iggulden's Wolf of the plains is a rip roaring read all about the early life & rise to prominence of Genghis Khan.

I would treat Conn Iggulden with caution. I haven't read Wolf of the Plains, but I have read three of his four novels about Julius Ceasar and was unimpressed with his depiction of Roman Society and Military Organisation.

Cheers

A favourite of mine is the French-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf.

His The Crusades through Arab eyes is not fiction, but reads almost like a novel, and gives a good look at the Crusades from the Muslim point-of-view.

His novels Samarkand, The Gardens of Light and Leo Africanus all have actual historical figures as their protagonists, and are quick, intelligent, mesmerizing reads.

I also enjoyed the aforementioned Creation - where the main character through a long life as a traveller and diplomat meets such important religious and philosophical thinkers as Zoroaster, Confucius, Buddha, Lao Tsu, Mahavira and Socrates.