Loads of people want to be writers and the dream can come true! It did for me. So, I want to tell people about the books that have helped to turn me into a novelist. Initially, I wrote journalistic pieces about bizarre leisure activities for various British newspapers and magazines: I lay on a bed of nails, walked on red hot coals, met people who collect bricks as a hobby...and even lost my underpants while performing on the flying trapeze! (No kidding!) But my ultimate goal was always to become a novelist. Then, one day, I discovered the subject I just had to turn into a novel. And the result was...Death and Mr. Pickwick.
This novel was a massive influence on me. Rutherfurd takes the city of London as his subject, and follows the life of the city through the centuries, taking in Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Normans etc…right through to modern times. I don't have quite such a huge canvas in my book, but I do follow a series of historical events in a manner which is somewhat reminiscent of Rutherfurd. Rutherfurd takes you on a wonderful journey.
“A TOUR DE FORCE . . . London tracks the history of the English capital from the days of the Celts until the present time. . . . Breathtaking.”—The Orlando Sentinel
A master of epic historical fiction, Edward Rutherford gives us a sweeping novel of London, a glorious pageant spanning two thousand years. He brings this vibrant city's long and noble history alive through his saga of ever-shifting fortunes, fates, and intrigues of a half-dozen families, from the age of Julius Caesar to the twentieth century. Generation after generation, these families embody the passion, struggle, wealth, and verve of the…
This is a wonderful book. It makes the case for Cicero’s continuing importance to us all, especially in an era in which democratic values are under threat.
Written in a clear accessible style that avoids technical jargon and any need to have a detailed knowledge of Roman history, this is a book that will appeal to anyone interested in either today’s political situation or the legacy of Rome.
Why Cicero Matters shows us how the Roman philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius, better known as Cicero, can help realize a new political world. His impact on humanitarianism, the Enlightenment and the Founding Fathers of America is immense. Yet we give Julius Caesar all our attention. Why? What does this say about modern politics and political culture?
This book gives us Cicero as an antidote to the myth of the strong man of history. Reading Cicero's On Duties alongside two more introspective philosophical texts, On Friendship and On Old Age, we see how Cicero turned politics into a higher, intellectual…
Although published posthumously in 2021,Silverview was substantially written, then set aside, some time before John le Carré died. His son Nick Cornwell (aka novelist Nick Harkaway), who edited the book for publication, speculates in an afterword that this was because its view of British Intelligence was more disenchanted than any of Le Carré’s previous novels.
I wonder whether there were two further reasons, one profound and one prosaic: that the novel is suffused with death and would therefore make an appropriately elegiac swansong, and that as his shortest novel in nearly 40 years, it would better bookend his 1961 debut, Call for the Dead.
Whatever the reason, it’s a classic Le Carré tale of loyalty and betrayal - and a book that will always be one of my favorite reads in any given year.
Korean edition of [Silverview] by John Le Carre. An instant New York Times bestseller. In his last completed novel, John le Carré turns his focus to the world that occupied his writing for the past sixty years--the secret world itself. A mesmerizing story of an encounter between innocence and experience and between public duty and private morals. Korean edition translated by Jo Yeong Hak.
I am the author of theByzantine Trilogy (in 4 parts). These books depict the difficult beginning, decadent apogee, and sad end of the Byzantine empire. I think it is important to make historical fiction vivid, to immerse the reader in a distant time and place, with all its sights, smells, sounds, and tastes, as experienced by someone who was really there. I am also interested in what people believed, and why. For that reason, my historical novels are all first-person narratives, stories told by the people who lived through them. Here are some of the fictional memoirs that inspired me to start writing.
Boldly venturing into territory already claimed by Robert Graves, Allan Massie gives us the life of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Full of authentic detail, both witty and serious, bawdy and censorious, this book makes ancient Rome thoroughly believable to modern readers. Augustus vividly describes his ruthless rise to power following the assassination of Julius Caesar, and reflects on his life and achievements, justifying his schemes, deceptions and crimes. Would we have done the same in his place? Maybe, if civilization depended on it.
I particularly like the two Prefaces, in which author, citing fake scholars and non-existent institutions, persuades us that this work of fiction has been translated from an ancient manuscript found in a monastery. I have used the same trick myself.
Augustus was the founder of the Roman Empire, adopted son of Julius Caesar, friend and later foe of Mark Antony, patron of Horace and Virgil. Frank and forceful, this putative autobiography tells his story from the assassination of Caesar, through his military, political and personal struggles to his final days as Emperor in everything but name.
Born and raised in New Zealand I got hooked on history as a child and began university life as an ancient and medieval double major studying everything from the classical Greeks and Romans to Charlemagne and the Crusades. By the time I came to Oxford to write my PhD, I had decided that my greatest interest lay in the dramatic transformation which saw classical antiquity evolve into medieval Christendom. I've been fortunate enough to write and teach many different aspects of that transformation, from the Roman Republic to early Christianity and the Goths, and I'm currently Associate Professor in Ancient and Late Antique History at Royal Holloway, in the University of London.
Named for the river that Julius Caesar crossed when he invaded Italy and began the civil war which brought the Roman Republic to its knees, this book offers a sweeping account of the Republic’s fall and has been rightly described as narrative history at its best. All the major characters are vividly presented, from Marius and Sulla to Pompey, Cicero and Caesar, in prose that manages to remain readable and fast-paced while spanning almost 400 pages. Tragedy is arguably more apparent than triumph, understandably in a book devoted to the collapse of the Republican order. But the glory of the Republic does also shine through, and the story is told on a larger scale than my book would have allowed.
The Roman Republic was the most remarkable state in history. What began as a small community of peasants camped among marshes and hills ended up ruling the known world. Rubicon paints a vivid portrait of the Republic at the climax of its greatness - the same greatness which would herald the catastrophe of its fall. It is a story of incomparable drama. This was the century of Julius Caesar, the gambler whose addiction to glory led him to the banks of the Rubicon, and beyond; of Cicero, whose defence of freedom would make him a byword for eloquence; of Spartacus,…
Born and raised in New Zealand I got hooked on history as a child and began university life as an ancient and medieval double major studying everything from the classical Greeks and Romans to Charlemagne and the Crusades. By the time I came to Oxford to write my PhD, I had decided that my greatest interest lay in the dramatic transformation which saw classical antiquity evolve into medieval Christendom. I've been fortunate enough to write and teach many different aspects of that transformation, from the Roman Republic to early Christianity and the Goths, and I'm currently Associate Professor in Ancient and Late Antique History at Royal Holloway, in the University of London.
The title of this book, written by one of my colleagues at Royal Holloway, recalls the classic work of Ronald Syme, whose The Roman Revolutionappeared in 1939 against the backdrop of the rise of Nazi Germany. Alston narrates in detail the crucial period from Caesar’s murder on the Ides of March 44 BC through to the death of the first emperor Augustus (Caesar’s adopted son) more than half a century later. This was the time of Brutus, Antony, and Cleopatra which so appealed to Shakespeare, and Alston disentangles skillfully the complex political and military events and demonstrates the achievement of Augustus who claimed to restore the Republic while establishing the Empire which ruled the Mediterranean world for the next 400 years.
Novelized, televised, and endlessly scrutinized by scholars, the fall of the Roman Republic marks one of history's great turning points. Historians have studied the descent of the Republic into civil war as a great political tragedy, a warning from the past about the unsustainability of empires; political scientists have labeled it a parable about militarism, populism, moral decay, or the inevitable corruption of political systems. Yet the familiar story of the Roman Republic's downfall continues to be the story of its elites. What if we started thinking about Roman politics not from the perspectives of Caesar and Cicero, but from…
I’m an Egyptologist by training and a storyteller by nature. Fascinated by the origins of patriarchy since I was a small girl raised by strong women in a patriarchal context, I turned to Greek and Roman history for answers. I earned an MA and a richer understanding of the civilizations that influenced the classical period, which led to the study of Egypt and Mesopotamia and finally to a Ph.D. in Egyptology. At heart, I’m more creative than scholar. Telling stories that bring ancient Egypt to life and leave readers better informed of the challenges women have faced, and sometimes overcome, is my passion.
I’m a sucker for a first-person narrative that pulls you close. And, of course, it’s hard to find a more fascinating protagonist than Cleopatra. But I suppose the real reason this one makes my top five list is that when I read it years ago, it left a mark on my mind—a mark that convinced me maybe I, too, could write historical fiction about badass women in the ancient world.
Written long before the many brilliant feminist retellings of recent years, this is an oldie but a goodie and a book that influenced my own trajectory.
The mesmerizing story of Queen Cleopatra in her own words - by bestselling novelist Margaret George, author of The Autobiography of Henry VIII and Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles.
Told in the first person - from the young queen's earliest memories of her father's tenuous rule to her own reign over one of the most glittering kingdoms in the world - this is an enthralling saga of ambition and power.
It is also a tale of passion that begins when the twenty-one-year-old Cleopatra, desperate to return from exile, seeks out the one man who can help her: Julius…
I have written about the environment as a journalist since 2005, for magazines and newspapers including National Geographic,The New York Times, and Outside. For my last book, I wanted to write about animals as individuals—not just as units in a species, the way they are often thought of by conservationists. Diving into research about animal selfhood was an amazing journey. It helped shape my book, but it also changed the way I see the world around me—and who and what I think of as “people”!
I don’t read very much fiction (although I want to read more!) but I thought it would be interesting to check out some novels where animals are main characters.
I read several, and this is the one I still think about all the time. The main character is a crow and although the book is a fantastical mytho-poetic adventure through time and space, it is also a wonderful exercise in cross-species empathy.
While you are reading, you really feel like you understand what it means to be a crow. It really stuck with me; I found it really rich and wondrous.
“Ka is a beautiful, often dreamlike late masterpiece.” —Los Angeles Times
“One of our country’s absolutely finest novelists.” —Peter Straub, New York Times bestselling author of Interior Darkness and Ghost Story
From award-winning author John Crowley comes an exquisite fantasy novel about a man who tells the story of a crow named Dar Oakley and his impossible lives and deaths in the land of Ka.
A Crow alone is no Crow.
Dar Oakley—the first Crow in all of history with a name of his own—was born two thousand years ago. When a man learns his language, Dar finally gets the…
I’m a professor of Roman history who teaches and writes about the social world of the ancient Romans. I’m drawn to the topic of ancient Rome because it seems simultaneously familiar and alien: the people always “feel real” to me, but the many cultural differences between Rome and modern America prod me to contemplate those aspects and values of my own world that I take for granted. I enjoy the high moral stakes of the political machinations as well as the aesthetic beauty of the artistic creations of Rome. And the shadow of Rome still looms large in American culture, so I find the study of antiquity endlessly instructive.
I think this is the single best edition of Julius Caesar’s original compositions: the footnotes, maps, battle diagrams, and appendices offer a treasure trove of information for the Roman history buff without overwhelming the casual reader.
(I had a particular interest in Appendix C, on “Roman Calendars, Dates, and Time,” where I learned that the main reason winter operations rarely occurred in ancient warfare was the inability to feed their animals.)
The translations struck me as contemporary sounding yet never sacrifice accuracy for clarity. I recommend this book as a perfect gateway for the fan of ancient Rome to enter the realm of authentic ancient Roman literature.
The Landmark Julius Caesar is the definitive edition of the five works that chronicle the military campaigns of Julius Caesar. Together, these five narratives present a comprehensive picture of military and political developments leading to the collapse of the Roman republic and the advent of the Roman Empire.
The Gallic War is Caesar’s own account of his two invasions of Britain and of conquering most of what is today France, Belgium, and Switzerland. The Civil War describes the conflict in the following year which, after the death of his chief rival, Pompey, and the defeat of Pompey’s heirs and supporters,…
I am a historian and history teacher in Ohio with a passion for studying the endlessly fascinating Roman Republic. It was a time when many believed the gods walked the earth, when legend and reality mixed. The resulting stories lure us with their strangeness while reminding us of our modern world. For me, no topic in the Republic captures this paradox of strangeness and familiarity more than the political systems of the Republic. Our very ideas about representative democracy come from the Romans. But the legacy is deeper. In Roman politicians’ thirst for votes and victory, their bitter rivalries we can, perhaps, see the dangers of excessive political competition today.
I’ve used this text a number of times teaching courses on the Republic and it is a terrific overview that will expand on many areas. Short, informative, packed with anecdotes and examples and surveying the whole of the Republic. For those interested in a more academic survey, while still very approachable, text on the period of the Republic, Gwynn’s work offers just the right balance of depth and briskness.
The rise and fall of the Roman Republic occupies a special place in the history of Western civilization. From humble beginnings on the seven hills beside the Tiber, the city of Rome grew to dominate the ancient Mediterranean. Led by her senatorial aristocracy, Republican armies defeated Carthage and the successor kingdoms of Alexander the Great, and brought the surrounding peoples to east and west into the Roman sphere. Yet the triumph of the Republic was also its tragedy.
In this Very Short Introduction, David M. Gwynn provides a fascinating introduction to the history of the Roman Republic and its literary…
