100 books like The Mask of Apollo

For writers of historical fiction, Eagle in the Snow has attained almost mythical status. First published fifty years ago, the book is still in print mainly through the enthusiastic recommendation of readers. Wallace Breem wrote only two other works and died in 1990, so there will be nothing more from his pen. It adds piquancy to the themes of the story: it’s a tale of the passing of things and the dying of an empire. It’s the tale of a man struggling against the fading of the light, even though he knows the struggle is hopeless. It’s a story of endings in a world that does not understand its mortality.

Scott is an associate professor of classics and ancient history at the University of Warwick and his erudition shines through this comprehensive study of Delphi and, at its heart, the Oracle and Temple of Apollo. Yet this is never a dull, academic book, Scott's obvious love for the place and its history prevents that, as he chronicles the wars and disputes, the judgements and prophesies, as well as how the Oracle, the female Pythia, was set at the very centre of the ancient world. He evokes the place brilliantly, with its spectacular setting, and brings the history up to date with the rediscovery of the ancient site and its re-emergence from the mountainside. It was inestimably useful to me when I wrote Oracle, but it also reinforced my desire to return to what is a very special place.

My journey to specialising in gender and revenge in ancient Athens began when I read this trilogy of tragedies by Aeschylus in the original ancient Greek. These plays captivated me because of their stunningly powerful and breathtakingly beautiful use of imagery and language.

The characters are equally striking, especially the clever and determined queen Clytemnestra, a ruthless and duplicitous killer who murders her husband in the bath. In turn, her son Orestes is faced with the dreadful prospect of killing his own mother to avenge the death of his father. Performing matricide brings forth the terrifying Erinyes, goddesses of vengeance, who demand that Orestes pay the price.

The powerful female characters and the dilemmas of the revenge plot are what make this trilogy one I return to time and time again.

Euripides is the Greek tragedian who, in my humble opinion, appeals most to the modern sensibility. Even in his own time (5th century Athens, BCE) he was regarded as an innovator who questioned the certainties of previous ages. The Bacchae is probably his greatest play, but Ion is the play set in Delphi. It includes the oracle (the Priestess of Apollo), as well as Apollo and Athena, as characters and, in it, the playwright begins to question the legitimacy of the gods themselves. Ion is the result of a divine rape, taken from his mortal mother at birth. The son of Apollo, he believes his parents abandoned him and works as a dogs-body and general helper in Apollo's Temple in Delphi. Then his mother and her husband, childless, arrive for a consultation...

This one's a bit of a cheat, but fun. It's one of the hugely successful Marcus Didius Falco series by Lindsay Davis, set in Flavian Rome (first century), in which she recounts the adventures of the disreputable private investigator Falco as he walks the mean streets of Rome in search of truth, a denarius or two and a loose woman (though not in this book, he's well and truly hitched by then). Raymond Chandler meets Robert Graves. The first in the series The Silver Pigs won the Author's Club First Novel Award in 1989 and it's easy to see why. It spawned twenty more. Delphi is the seventeenth and our heroes only get to the shrine in Part Four. Their passage up the Sacred Way, as they try to rid themselves of a limpet like freelance guide is one of the funniest descriptions I've read of arriving the Temple (and… show more.

There’s a sort of electric thrill on opening a book, reading the first sentence, and realising that you are about to plunge into something strange, wonderful, and expansive. It’s like labouring up a hill towards a distant ridge and then, on cresting the ridge, finding a whole new unsuspected world opening up before you. It was like that for me when first reading Godric. “Five friends I had, and two of them snakes.” That’s the first line in the book. If, like me, you read that and are immediately interested, then read on, for you won’t be disappointed. Godric takes an almost forgotten figure from history, a 12th-century hermit, and, by the magic of an almost alchemical use of language, brings him and his times to life, neither diminishing their strangeness nor distancing him from the reader. 

What’s so neat about this book is that it doesn’t just capture a light-hearted and moving glimpse into English academia; it provides glimpses into a man’s—an institution in himself—relationships with his wife, coworkers, and students.

I enjoyed the progression of time. Several generations of students interact with the aging, albeit the same, “Mr. Chips.”  There’s something neat about that.

Helena is Evelyn Waugh’s most overlooked novel but it is my favourite. I love it for how Waugh depicts Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constatine, but what raises it to a place in any best-of list is a passage of writing that ranks as Waugh’s best - and he sets a very high bar for himself. Towards the end of the book Helena prays for her salvation but, reading it, we realise that Waugh is praying for his own salvation too, for those “who have had a tedious journey to make to the truth, of all who are confused with knowledge and speculation… of all who stand in danger by reason of their talents.” 

I had no idea before I read this book that Jerome K Jerome started his working life as an actor—or rather a would-be actor, as his acting days didn’t last long. This is a highly entertaining account of his days trying to woo corrupt agents and indifferent theatre managers, and how his own lofty perceptions of his talents as an actor were dashed by absconding producers. His experiences of life at the bottom of the acting ladder are also reflected in other actors’ memoirs, some (but not all) of whom went on to bigger things. A must-read for any parent who wants to dissuade their offspring from taking up a life ‘on the boards’.

Few characters in crime fiction are as charismatic as Charles Paris, a struggling actor whose career has more ups and downs than a seesaw. Simon Brett presents us with a fascinating character, a middle-aged man who is endearing even though he is a drunk and a womaniser. 

There is always a murder whether Paris is acting in weekly rep or has a cameo role in a film. So Much Blood involves Paris appearing at the world-famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Brett skilfully weaves in the drama of putting on a show and the dynamism of the Scottish city with Paris’ occasionally amateurish sleuthing as he tries to uncover who committed the crime. Excellent entertainment.