Well, I’m almost back to the real world; just a couple more days of intermittent internet to go. I’d like to thank Elendil’s Heir for opening August’s thread for me.
Having been out of touch for a while, I’ve finished quite a few books. Robin Lane Fox’s The Classical World - an epic history of Greece and Rome was a very good, sweeping book covering the latest findings and opinions on Greco-Roman history up to the time of the emperor Hadrian. Clear, well written prose, and a joy to read. Highly recommended.
I also finished Lars Brownworth’s Lost to the West. This is the book which is based on the podcast ‘12 Byzantine Emperors’, and his writing style is as easy-going as his voice. I’ve heard much against his research, but this is a good starting point for people interested in the place and period. There’s lots of time to go through the bibliography and get greater depth.
I’m halfway through Tom Standige’s A History of the World in Six Glasses, which I’ll likely finish this weekend. Beer, wine, distilled spirits, coffee, tea and rum as major world players in history - great fun.
I’ve also started A Game of Thrones, the first book in George R. R. Martin’s ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’. I’ve had it thrust into my hands by countless friends, and the fuss over the TV series is getting to be such that I figured I had to read them now before some bugger spoils them for me by blurting out some major development. I can’t help comparing the book to Guy Gavriel Kay, and I can’t help wondering why one of his sweeping epics hasn’t been made into a major motion picture/TV series yet. Anyway, to give Martin his due, his pacing and his plot is outstanding. I also love it that he does not shy away from causing bad things to happen to good and bad people alike. I’m likely to finish sometime over the weekend, and there’s no question that I’ll read the rest of the series before the year is out.
And you?
A link to last month’s thread.
For those of you new to these threads - Khadaji was a long time Doper who was well known for his kindness and compassion. Books were an overwhelming passion of his; he started this series of book discussion threads many years back, and they have been a great source of recommendations, condemnations and (sometimes) debate ever since. Sadly for us, he passed away in January of this year. We decided that the best way to honour his memory would be to rename these threads for him, and continue them indefinitely. Lux perpetua luceat ei.