Here are 100 books that Heroes fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have three lifelong passions, the first was reading, then writing, and then archaeology/history. To this end I studied and trained as an archaeologist before I sat down and decided to write stories set in the past as a way of bringing it to life. Of course, there had to be an adventure, a bit of a mystery, and a dash of magic to bring it all together. The books on my list are just a few of those that I have enjoyed reading during my hunt to get to know the past in intimate detail – on my own time travelling journey.
I have read a lot of history and archaeology books and more often than not they can be a little dull, dry and in some cases work better than a sleeping tablet.
Not with this book, here you learn about parts of medieval England you just wouldn’t think about, written from a more personal point of view its less about political stuff like kings, queens, and those pesky archbishops and much more on the practicalities of living in medieval England.
Would you know what to eat, wear, or where to go to the toilet? Would you know how to address a lord or lady? Would you know what to do if you got sick? This is a vital guide for all time travelers!
The past is a foreign country. This is your guidebook. Imagine you could get into a time machine and travel back to the fourteenth century. What would you see? What would you smell? More to the point, where are you going to stay? Should you go to a castle or a monastic guest house? And what are you going to eat? What sort of food are you going to be offered by a peasant or a monk or a lord? This radical new approach turns our entire understanding of history upside down. It shows us that the past is not…
I have three lifelong passions, the first was reading, then writing, and then archaeology/history. To this end I studied and trained as an archaeologist before I sat down and decided to write stories set in the past as a way of bringing it to life. Of course, there had to be an adventure, a bit of a mystery, and a dash of magic to bring it all together. The books on my list are just a few of those that I have enjoyed reading during my hunt to get to know the past in intimate detail – on my own time travelling journey.
My interest in the Vikings initially arose out of seeing the Lewis Chessmen at the British Museum, they have such interesting faces, full of life and mystery. For me, the chessmen are the reason for my writing journey and in this small and perfectly formed book is the story of their discovery on the Isle of Lewis and their journey to the present day.
Written by the marvelous storyteller Irving Finkel who is the Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian script, languages, and cultures in the Department of the Middle East in the British Museum – which is something of a mouthful (check out his YouTube videos).
It is an easy read that transports a person back into time, wondering who the chessmen belonged to, why did they end up on a Scottish beach and what do those funny little carved characters make of it all?
The Lewis Chessmen were found on the Isle of Lewis in mysterious circumstances. Consisting of elaborately worked walrus ivory and whales' teeth in the form of seated kings and queens, bishops, knights, warders and pawns, this curious chess set is strongly influenced by Norse culture. Of the 93 pieces known to us today, 11 pieces are in Edinburgh at the National Museum of Scotland, and 82 are in the British Museum, where they have delighted generations of visitors with their wonderfully expressive details. In this engaging story, Irving Finkel follows the many adventures of the chessmen after they came to…
I have three lifelong passions, the first was reading, then writing, and then archaeology/history. To this end I studied and trained as an archaeologist before I sat down and decided to write stories set in the past as a way of bringing it to life. Of course, there had to be an adventure, a bit of a mystery, and a dash of magic to bring it all together. The books on my list are just a few of those that I have enjoyed reading during my hunt to get to know the past in intimate detail – on my own time travelling journey.
Going even further back in time this book looks to the archaeological evidence and asks, what was life like in the very distant past, in deep prehistory?
Was it short, violent, and miserable as we are often led to believe, or is there a different story? Here Francis Pryor examines the evidence to test this question and finds that actually, much like today, life was complex and yet a place where home and hearth lay at the center of our ancestors’ lives.
Francis Pryor writes from the heart, with empathy and imagination. I found it an easy read given it deals with what can be very dry pieces of archaeological evidence. If you are interested in early prehistory, this is a must read.
In Home Francis Pryor, author of The Making of the British Landscape, archaeologist and broadcaster, takes us on his lifetime's quest: to discover the origins of family life in prehistoric Britain
Francis Pryor's search for the origins of our island story has been the quest of a lifetime. In Home, the Time Team expert explores the first nine thousand years of life in Britain, from the retreat of the glaciers to the Romans' departure. Tracing the settlement of domestic communities, he shows how archaeology enables us to reconstruct the evolution of habits, traditions and customs. But this, too, is Francis…
I have three lifelong passions, the first was reading, then writing, and then archaeology/history. To this end I studied and trained as an archaeologist before I sat down and decided to write stories set in the past as a way of bringing it to life. Of course, there had to be an adventure, a bit of a mystery, and a dash of magic to bring it all together. The books on my list are just a few of those that I have enjoyed reading during my hunt to get to know the past in intimate detail – on my own time travelling journey.
I have always admired people who can bring the past to life in a visual way and in this book, Victor Ambrose draws and paints the lives of people and places from the past.
The text is provided by Mick Aston, a well-known archaeologist of Time Team fame. Many of the places featured in this book were sites investigated by the Time Team. The book is full to the brim with excellent illustrations of places and perhaps importantly they are then peopled with interesting characters (for fans of Time Team, you may recognize a few faces).
This book makes it easy to travel back in time, to visualize what life may have been like for people way back when which is why I recommend it to any potential time travelers.
Since 1994, when the first "Time Team" program was broadcast, archaeology has been brought to life for millions of people by Victor Ambrus and Mick Aston. Victor has produced hundreds of sketches and drawings of archaeological sites and the lives of those who would have inhabited them. For the first time, his drawings of individual excavations have been brought together to provide a dramatic chronological survey of British history—from Stone Age to modern via the Romans, the Vikings, and more. Add to this Mick Aston's lively explanations and photographs, and you have an archaeological collaboration which is guaranteed to delight.
Since I retired from lecturing in Classical Studies I’ve been writing more pieces on women in the ancient world, and also some plays. One of them, 189 Pieces, is about the Portland Vase, a beautiful example of Roman glass whose label in the British Museum tells us that it was owned by the Duke of Portland. This is true—he’d inherited it—but it was bought at great expense by his grandmother, the wonderful Duchessof Portland. Giving women their place in history has been my aim in much of my work. Nowadays I’m obsessed with female footwear, and Cinderella, Goody Two-Shoes, and Carrie Bradshaw take up a lot of my time.
Vernant was an influential scholar when I began writing about women in ancient Greece in the 1990s. His discussions of the social, political and religious institutions of the time, and their relationship with popular mythology, were informed by French structuralist theory. For me his analysis of the role of marriage in a society devoted to virgin goddesses was particularly stimulating.
In this groundbreaking study, Jean-Pierre Vernant delineates a compelling new vision of ancient Greece. Myth and Society in Ancient Greece takes us far from the calm and familiar images of Polykleitos and the Parthenon to reveal a fundamentally other culture ― one of slavery, of masks and death, of scapegoats, of ritual hunting, and of ecstasies.
Vernant’s provocative discussions of various institutions and practices (including war, marriage, and sacrifice) detail the complex intersection of the religious, social, and political structures of ancient Greece. The book concludes with Vernant’s authoritative genealogy of the study of myth from Antiquity to structuralism and…
I have been a complete history nerd since childhood—since I opened a Christmas present to reveal one of the books I recommend here, People in History. Since then I’ve written 21 children’s books, and published more by other authors as the founder of Goosebottom Books. All these books touch on some aspect of history or culture in one way or the other. There’s always an emphasis or insight into custom, time, or place. Even the adult novels I’m currently working on are historical fiction. I’m still completely enthralled by the many worlds of the past. I even listen to history podcasts when I’m doing the dishes!
Closely related to my love for history is my love of mythology—the boundary between the two is porous. This book started that love. There have been many books published that present the Greek myths to children, and this book is not considered one of the classics, but because it was my favorite book when I was six, I have never found another version better. I love the illustrations and how stylized they are. They capture the myths’ mystique, yet you can always see the human. I was clutching this book in the back seat of my family’s car when my mom announced that we would be getting a baby brother. As I was reading about Jason and the Golden Fleece, I suggested Jason as a name. It stuck!
I grew up loving fairytales and still do. In college, my love for folktales grew into a passion for mythology. I pursued these interests at the University of California, Berkeley, received my PhD, and became a classicist and folklorist with a special interest in traditional stories. This interest was the foundation for several books, includingAriadne’s Thread: A Guide to International Stories Found in Classical LiteratureandClassical Mythology: A Guide to the Mythical World of the Greeks and Romans.My work in traditional stories led me to explore the neighboring topic of popular literature, which resulted in my Anthology of Ancient Greek Popular Literature.
The ancient Greeks were not only good at making serious art such as epics and tragedies, they were also good at making fun of them in literature and art.
In the realm of art, the most abundant source of humor is painted vases, which were manufactured mostly for the use of men at symposia, or drinking parties.
Greek mythology was a favorite subject of the vase painters, and Mitchell’s richly-illustrated study of humorous vases provides a fun and unusual window into ancient burlesque treatments of Greek myths and legends.
This book is a comprehensive study of visual humour in ancient Greece, with special emphasis on works created in Athens and Boeotia. Alexandre G. Mitchell brings an interdisciplinary approach to this topic, combining theories and methods of art history, archaeology and classics with the anthropology of humour, and thereby establishing new ways of looking at art and visual humour in particular. Understanding what visual humour was to the ancients and how it functioned as a tool of social cohesion is only one facet of this study. Mitchell also focuses on the social truths that his study of humour unveils: democracy…
There is more than one history of the human world and more than one high culture–but all those histories and cultures may contribute to a unified sense of being and human potential. We need to step outside our immediate world, history, culture, and sensibility to learn–as G.K. Chesterton remarked–that humanity can be great and even glorious under conditions and with beliefs and fancies far different from ours. Knowing this, we may also gain new insight into our familiar local world. We may end, in Kipling’s words, by realizing that in the endless opposition of We and They, We ourselves are only a sort of They!
I first encountered Otto’s book just before going to Oxford University in 1964, and there, I discovered a way of understanding ancient Greek devotion to their gods.
By Otto’s account, those gods were whole worlds of meaning, from sexual joy (Aphrodite) and homicidal fury (Ares) to more subtle visions of the world (Hermes, the traveler in Twilight) and (finally) Zeus as the guarantor of promises, and of hospitality.
He also introduced me to the idea that the Greeks saw “gods” in moments of sudden joy or inspiration: the lucky moment when–in the poet Pindar’s words–a god sheds a shining light on our usual dreamy life.
Appassionante e insuperata ricostruzione dell’universo religioso greco, questo libro avvicina sapientemente il lettore alle figure della religione olimpica – e al loro peculiare modo di manifestarsi – seguendo una duplice da un lato Otto esamina il culto dei dodici dèi olimpici (soffermandosi anzitutto su Atena, Apollo, Artemide, Afrodite, Ermete), dall’altro ce li presenta come esseri che, grazie alle loro divine epifanie – tanto diverse eppure così sottilmente collegate le une alle altre –, vivono una vita inesauribile, compiuta in sé. E ammirevole è la sua prosa allorché si confronta con le più enigmatiche fra le divinità, come nel famoso ritratto…
Since I retired from lecturing in Classical Studies I’ve been writing more pieces on women in the ancient world, and also some plays. One of them, 189 Pieces, is about the Portland Vase, a beautiful example of Roman glass whose label in the British Museum tells us that it was owned by the Duke of Portland. This is true—he’d inherited it—but it was bought at great expense by his grandmother, the wonderful Duchessof Portland. Giving women their place in history has been my aim in much of my work. Nowadays I’m obsessed with female footwear, and Cinderella, Goody Two-Shoes, and Carrie Bradshaw take up a lot of my time.
In this witty and intelligent book, broadcaster and novelist Natalie Haynes applies a woman’s mind to stories that in the past have been told to us mostly by men. She presents us with ten female characters who not only feature in ancient myths, but also have starring roles in later paintings, plays, novels, films, operas, and musicals. They include Pandora, Helen, Medusa, Eurydice, and Penelope: whether traditionally seen as victims or villains, all these women are explored in their ‘difficult, messy, murderous’ complexity.
'Funny, sharp explications of what these sometimes not-very-nice women were up to!' - Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid's Tale
The Greek myths are among the world's most important cultural building blocks and they have been retold many times, but rarely do they focus on the remarkable women at the heart of these ancient stories.
Stories of gods and monsters are the mainstay of epic poetry and Greek tragedy, from Homer to Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, from the Trojan War to Jason and the Argonauts. And still, today, a wealth of novels, plays and films draw their inspiration from stories…
I find “difficult” characters fascinating because their humanity isn’t easily discerned. They’re often complex and richly drawn and show us aspects of ourselves we may not want to admit to others. Examining the ugly, the hidden, can be exhilarating.
Set against a beautiful, violent landscape, The Door in the Mountain is the story of Ariadne, a young princess navigating her culture’s customs and her personal responsibilities. In Ariadne’s world, the course of one’s life is determined by whether one has a “godmark” – a special gift or ability granted by the heavens. Ariadne desperately wants to be godmarked like her brother and parents. That desperation fuels a mean streak that, at times, turns to downright cruelty. Caitlin Sweet is a master of characterization, and as a reader, I can’t help but sympathize with Ariadne’s longing to fit in with her family – to be considered their equal in all aspects – even when her words and actions are despicable to those around her.
Ancient Crete: a place where a beautiful, bitter young princess named Ariadne schemes to imprison her godmarked half-brother deep in the heart of a mountain maze, where a boy named Icarus tries, and fails, to fly--and where a slave girl changes the paths of all their lives forever.
