The most recommended books on Nero

Yarbro’s tales of the vampire Saint-Germain is one of the most influential and long-running series in horror. This secondary series focuses on Roman matron Atta Olivia Clemons, Saint-Germain’s lover from the age of Nero. In this first installment, she struggles to survive the much different world of 6th Century Constantinople. Full of rich historical detail, it shows that being a vampire is no protection in a world in which women have no rights, rules are rigidly enforced, and spies are everywhere.  If you like history and vampires, you can’t go wrong with Yarbro’s books.

The Nero Wolfe books are the most comforting reading I can do. My family knows that if you’re ever calling the ambulance for me, grab one! Whatever is going on in my life, however stressed I am, I know that Wolfe will go up to the orchids each day, that Fritz will cook dinner, Archie will seat someone in the red leather chair, and the crime will be solved. 

Rex Stout created that world—but maybe the sweetest thing ever—Robert Goldsborough’s mother had read them all, so he wrote some more!

I have read all of them, everyone, but I pick one up and reread as needed. Yeah, life can be rough—bless you both for helping me through!

If you are looking for something slightly different than the standard historical biography, nobody writes about ancient Rome quite like Emma Southon does.

She manages to take everything you think you know, turn it on its head, and make you think about it in an entirely new way, all while cackling involuntarily so hard that you drop the book. Her biography of the empress Agrippina is simultaneously profane and hilarious while still managing to be erudite and authoritative.

She is a truly singular talent.

I love both the Wolfe and Goodwin characters. The obese and brilliant Nero Wolfe reluctantly leaves his New York brownstone to join his leg man, Archie Goodwin, at a Montana dude ranch. They must catch the murderer to exonerate an innocent man. Wolfe, although apparently well out of his element in this rugged environment, succeeds in trapping the culprit.

Wolfe’s bombast and tetchiness are as legendary as his deductive brilliance. Goodwin’s active and intrepid sleuthing, as well as his street, or in this case range, smarts are always exciting.

Did he or did he not fiddle while Rome burned?

In the popular imagination, Nero is the "baddest" Roman emperor of all: megalomaniac, matricide, arsonist, and first persecutor of Christians. The 1951 Hollywood version of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s novel Quo Vadis? summed up the common view: “the Antichrist known to history as the Emperor Nero.”

Historians have voiced doubts, but prejudices are virtually ineradicable. Drinkwater scrupulously examines all the ancient sources, proving that the historical record does not support the Christians’ view of Nero.

But how could anybody have been fiddling when string instruments were plucked but not played with a bow? Fiddle derives from the Latin fidiculae, a name for instruments that included the Greek kithara, which Nero would have used.

Written by a veteran London Times journalist this exciting book reads like a fast paced thriller. What I found most interesting is his detailed description of Nero’s most notorious action, the murder of his mother. He writes “It is in the realm of abnormal psychology that an explanation may lie.” He is clearly unaware that what best explains the spooky full moon melodrama played out on a cosmic stage was the blind faith both Nero and his mother had in astrology (see Nero's astrology chart here). 

This darkly magnificent account of Roman history under the emperors from the time of Tiberius to that of Nero (with some retrospective swipes at Tiberius’ predecessor Augustus) is an ironic masterpiece written by a Roman senator in the early second century CE. Tacitus offers an unflinching analysis of the effects of an autocratic system on the behaviour of rulers—and the ruled. While a handful of individuals dare to speak truth to power, most people, in his account, are caught in the toils of second-guessing how the emperor might want them to behave and what he might want them to say. Tacitus’ hugely influential analysis of what power does to people—and his breath-taking prose—make this a riveting read.  

In spite of weighing in at one-sixth of a ton and never willingly leaving his home, Nero Wolfe disappears completely, arranges employment for his personal chef Fritz Brenner, and leaves man-Friday Archie Goodwin to shift for himself.

This mano-a-mano contest between crime boss Arnold Zeck and the reclusive Wolfe stands out from Stout’s 50-some-odd cases in that it becomes a duel between evil and vengeful. Law and order are non-players, and the ending fully satisfies the reader. Rex Stout ranks with the best and his protagonist amongst the most rude, lazy, and brilliant.

This is a focused survey of the most fascinating period in Rome's history, when the ancient Republic evolved into an empire: the era of Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and the emperors Augustus, Nero, and others. During this period Rome's expansion meant major internal changes and a century of instability, and I know of no better book that explains why and how this happened.

In A.D. 66, Petronius, the author of the food-filled first novel, The Satyricon, has been implicated in an assassination plot to rid the world of Emperor Nero. He now faces a terrible choice: to end his life with honor, or to face an executioner at dawn. The Uncertain Hour is the sumptuous, beautiful tale of Petronius’s last, marvelous feast before he takes his place among the stars in the heavens.