Fans pick 100 books like Costanza

What’s better than a strong female lead character? A whole cast of them! A group of servants gang together to pull off the ultimate heist, clearing an entire house during a party. How audacious is that?! As soon as I read that premise, I had to find out how on earth they would pull it off.

Rather like an Edwardian, all-women Ocean’s Eleven, the plot has clever twists and turns that kept me turning the pages. I really enjoyed getting to know each one of the gang, too, as they’re all so different, and the book as a whole was such a refreshing take on both historical fiction and the heist genre. 

From the very first page of sublime writing, I knew I would love this story. Set in 1839, it features a lot of gothic tropes that really appeal to me: a creepy house, a cemetery, murder, and a charming man who can’t be trusted. But most of all, I loved the lead character, Bonnie–although I didn’t always like her!

Bonnie is a head-strong young woman whose life has been mapped out for her by men–her father, the ancient rector who ‘fell in love with her’ when he baptized her as a baby, and the charming, dangerous Crawford. I felt her frustration, desire for more, anger at never being listened to, and fear. However, clever, ambitious Bonnie is willing to do whatever it takes to survive–and thrive.

Call me strange, but I love a book that walks a moral tightrope. This book does just that because it tells the fictionalized but true story of Guilia Tofana, the first documented female serial killer in history.

What she does is abhorrent: poisoning men. But it’s why she did it that caught my interest because she killed men who beat and brutalized their wives, and she operated at a time when there was no redress for these women.

All out of options, desperate, and in terror of their lives, they would turn to Guilia. I found myself both repelled by her and drawn to her, and I couldn’t put this book down until the final page…

Complex, clever, and cunning Gruoch is fighting for her survival and the crown of the ancient kingdom of Scotland–and she isn’t going to let anything or anyone get in her way.

She has no one to look out for her, so she must take on the world herself, and no matter what was thrown at her, she kept on, as single-minded as ever–and I kept cheering her for that, despite her villainy.

Bernini shows the culmination of the Baroque era in which the artist himself played a significant part in forming and exposing how art can be an intersection between painting, sculpture, and architecture. The level of detail and expression that he can imbue his sculptures with is an experience in itself. The book also gives insight into his process, internal rules, and definitions of art as well as the historical context behind many of his works. His larger works, along with his smaller, far more personal portrait busts, are all detailed with rich photography showcasing the incredible detail of his work. 

Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition was published by the University of Chicago Press in 1964, which led me to compile the first biography of the renowned British historian, Frances Yates. In her pivotal study of the 16th-century itinerant Catholic priest, who was burned at the stake in Rome in 1600. Yates revealed a strain of an ancient universal creedless spirituality, which was anathema to the established Church. Yet, five centuries later, spoke to this seeking feminist pilgrim, dissatisfied with traditional patriarchal traditions.

I really think this book has also been underappreciated and overlooked by students and enthusiasts.

It contains a remarkable (and again) unsurpassed collection of written sources from the Iron Age in regard to the history, culture, and religions of the Celtic speaking peoples of ancient Europe. In some places it focuses on interactions between the Celts and population groups from the Mediterranean and other parts of ancient Europe.

But it also goes into a great deal of detail about the Celts themselves; where they lived; the names and activities of many of their leaders, warriors, druids, and others; and fascinating information about their cultures, beliefs, and religions... in accurate historical context which makes for a very engaging - and at times a surprising read.

Without a proper understanding of the historical realities, and the context from which information derives... whether Greek and Roman accounts, inscriptions, other written sources, archeology, and… show more.

Osgood details the ancient version of a phenomenon we may recognize: a cold-blooded grift by a charismatic, lawless, leader transmuted into terrorism while posing as patriotism.

Detailing the violent conspiracy of L. Sergius Catilina (63 BCE), Osgood’s elegant translation of Sallust’s The War Against Catiline (c. 43 BCE) emphasizes the danger that political violence and intimidation pose to communal welfare and stability. The Romans never found the recipe for combining individual freedom with equality and political harmony. (Rome’s 450-year-old Republic ultimately devolved into civil war and autocracy.)

Sallust’s tale and Rome’s experience caution us against preserving inequities even as we seek to preserve the rule of law.

Browsing my shelves in preparation for this book list, this one in particular jogged my memory as an important influence on my own book, an influence so internalized that I completely forgot about and never cited it! I remedy that lapse here. 

My copy of the book is heavily underlined with lots of stars in the margin, so I know it was important. You can see from the title that the author is concerned with the same tension between money and empire, he as a historian and me as an economist.

Now that I have finished my own book, I’ll be rereading this early influence to engage with its argument more deeply and directly. 

The supreme classic of western literature and all that, but what fascinates me is the paradoxes. Here is a poem about success, victory, and empire, yet it is suffused with grief and melancholy. It is an imperfect poem written by a perfectionist; it wears a sovereign authority, but no epic poem seems more personal. None ends so abruptly, yet the ending seems entirely complete. Virgil is a ‘civilised’ poet, literary, self-conscious, and controlled, but he is also intuitive and instinctive: he finds dark and wonderful places, and who can match his sense of mystery, his power to evoke the indescribable? Dryden’s translation is an English classic, or if you prefer a modern version, I recommend Sarah Ruden.