Are there any good starter books that are educational about the Vikings?

by milkdelayer

Are there any books that are somewhat easy to read and are educational about the Vikings/Saxons/any of that stuff? I watched The Last Kingdom awhile ago and I find the history of it to be intriguing but I’m not sure that the actual representation part is accurate, and I’d love to learn more about it.

y_sengaku

Hello, sorry for really late response.

The following are copy & paste (sorry again) from a post compiled by me for a while ago in: Seeking Book Recommendations: Anglo-Saxon england.

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/u/BRIStoneman (who is the real expert in this field of research), /u/Steelcan909 and I posted a relevant book list for a while ago in: Could somebody recommend me some books on England 850-1066?

I suppose you can check some of the books mentioned in the linked list above (Foot's Aethelstan and Lavelle's Alfred's War are especially my personal recommendations).

In addition to the works mentioned in the linked thread above, Dawn M. Hadley, & Julian D. Richards, Viking Great Army and the Making of England. London: Thames & Hudson, 2021: has also just been published. It is also a good book, but the focus of the work might be a bit too narrow in accordance with OP's concern (though it certainly employs both written and archaeological evidence).

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The list mentioned in the linked/ copied thread above is intended as a readable but academic introduction of the books on the Vikings in Late Anglo-Saxon England, so it might not meet the exact requirement "educational" in OP.

/u/textandtrowel and I recently also discussed a validity of the books list (including some more casual readings) as well as its possible update as a introduction to the Vikings (thus not limited to those active in the British Isles) in: Is this a legit starter kit for reading about the Vikings?

Especially of the books I mentioned in linked post (in addition to Nordeide & Edwards 2019):

  • Recent special volume of National Geographic and the classic Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings by John Haywood should also be under the categorization of "educational" - while their contents are probably not 100% neither controversial nor really up to date, richly illustrated guides (especially their maps) will be useful as departure points for the topic, especially taken the wide geographical range of the activity of the Vikings (or Viking Age Scandinavians - Norse speaking people) in consideration.

I also add some more introductory books below especially to recommendations for OP: