Five of the best books about the Crusades

Justin Cartwright's novels include the Booker-shortlisted In Every Face I Meet, the Whitbread Novel Award-winner Leading the Cheers and the acclaimed White Lightning, shortlisted for the 2002 Whitbread Novel Award, The Promise of Happiness, winner of the 2005 Hawthorden Prize and the acclaimed The Song Before It Is Sung. His Other People’s Money was named Spear’s Book Award Novel of the Year and included in Kirkus Reviews’ Best of Fiction Top 25. Cartwright's new novel is Lion Heart.

For the Telegraph, he named his five favorite books about the Crusades, including:

With three books about Richard the Lion Heart, Professor John Gillingham is his supreme biographer. On balance, Gillingham’s judgment in Richard I (1999) is that Richard was not gay. Gillingham explains Richard’s cold treatment of his wife, Berengaria, as the product of dynastic marriage and no more. Gillingham has a formidable knowledge of Latin, German and old French in all its forms, and his research is profound.

Read about another book on Cartwright's list.

--Marshal Zeringue