BOTM: S. Sturluson, The Prose Edda (c.1220)
R. Adams, The savage mountains (1979)
R. Adams, The patrimony (1980)
R. Adams, Horseclans Odyssey (1981)
R. Adams, The death of a legend (1981)
P. J. Farmer, To your scattered bodies go (1972)
P. Fitzgerald, The golden child (1977)
T. Penn, The brothers York (2020)
A. Szerb, Oliver VII (1942)
R. Zelazny, This immortal (1966)
I wanted this to be Thomas Penn's book. I really liked his book on Henry VII, and this one was great on the narrative of the Yorkist kings, and really emphasises the complete dissipation of the dynastic potential in the 1470s and 80s. If either Clarence or Richard III had been able to set aside their own stratospheric ambition then there would have been no Tudors. And it's great on that, and as a detailed narrative. It's too long though, and needed an analytical chapter or two. John Gillingham's book does this really well.
So, instead, I'd recommend you read the Prose Edda. It was excellent and short. The slightly weird framing is clearly an attempt to put a Christian wrapper around it in the thirteenth century. But the core, it gives the bones of Norse mythology, and it's a fantastically bleak mythos. It's good for us to read these things.
