LIT LISTS: The 25 best historical fiction titles of all time

At Oprah Daily Charley Burlock and Bethanne Patrick tagged the twenty-five "most transportive historical novels across eras and continents, from ancient Greece to 1960s Saigon." One title on the list:

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz

Junot Díaz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel might begin in the early 2000s—an era that’s alarmingly close to qualifying as historical—but it earns its place here through its sweeping portrait of the Dominican Republic in the 1940s and the ghastly Trujillo dictatorship. The de León family is doubly cursed: by the supernatural fukú that stalks their bloodline and by the more concrete horrors of colonialism and tyranny. At its center is Oscar, an endearingly awkward, sci-fi-obsessed dreamer from New Jersey, longing for love and a story of his own. Díaz tells it all in an electrifying voice that crackles with street slang, comic-book bravado, and academic footnotes. You’ll fall in love with the characters and come away knowing more about Dominican history—as well as the intricate rules of Dungeons & Dragons.