# Recommend a Book **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 3, 2007, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-book/386508 "2007-01-03T03:40:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-book/386508/21 "2007-01-14T18:14:30Z")
[_Great Cities of the Ancient World,_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Cities_of_the_Ancient_World) by L. Sprague de Camp, if you can find it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-book/386508/22 "2007-01-14T18:17:03Z")
By the same author: [_The Ancient Engineers_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ancient_Engineers) and [_Ancient Ruins and Archaeology_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citadels_of_Mystery) (alternate title: _Citadels of Mystery)_. Surprisingly not-dry, given the titles and topics. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2007, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-book/386508/23 "2007-01-14T18:33:08Z")
[Mary Renault](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_renault#Historical_novels) wrote eight classic novels about ancient Greece, set in periods from the legendary age of Theseus to the succession wars following the death of Alexander. You’ll have a much better cultural context to understand Plato’s dialogues (and “Greek love” 😉 ) after reading _The Last of the Wine._ L. Sprague de Camp also wrote several historical novels set in classical Greece and in Persia of the same period: [_The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate,_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dragon_of_the_Ishtar_Gate) [_The Bronze God of Rhodes,_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bronze_God_of_Rhodes) [_The Arrows of Hercules,_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Arrows_of_Hercules) [_An Elephant for Aristotle,_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Elephant_for_Aristotle) and [_The Golden Wind._](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Wind) Fun, lively reads, every one! [Harry Turtledove,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Turtledove) better known for his alternate-history novels, also has written (under the pen-name of “H.N. Turteltaub”) four straight [historical novels](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenic_Traders) set in Hellenistic Greece, and [one](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justinian_%28novel%29) about the Byzantine Emperor Justinian II. (No, not the one who built Hagia Sophia; the later one, who got his nose cut off.) Recent nonfiction about ancient Greece: [_Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea,_](http://www.amazon.com/Sailing-Wine-Dark-Sea-Greeks-History/dp/0385495544/sr=1-1/qid=1168799466/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-9666357-8690562?ie=UTF8&s=books) by [Thomas Cahill.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cahill) ---
**Author:** ![solkoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@solkoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solkoe)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-book/386508/24 "2007-01-15T00:07:14Z")
I second Pompei. It is incredibly accurate. I just finished Archangel and it was absolutely awesome! ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-book/386508/25 "2007-01-15T00:29:42Z")
Yay. I get to contribute a selection or two that haven’t been listed… - In Search Of Alexander\* by Robin L. Fox; wonderfully illustrated with color plates and very interesting read. Although ostensibly written for children, an interesting set (though long out of print) might be the two volume _The Orient_ and _The Occident_ by Richard Halliburton, in which he bankrolls travels around the world in the 1930’s by writing short stories, probably the original travel-adventure writer. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-book/386508/26 "2007-01-15T04:49:33Z")
“The Source,” by James Michener. Israel from prehistoric times to the present day. ---
**Author:** ![Intelligently\_Designed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intelligently_designed/32/20957_2.png) [@Intelligently\_Designed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intelligently_Designed)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2007, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-book/386508/27 "2007-01-15T06:17:46Z")
Gore Vidal? Hey, _Live from Golgotha_ is really something. A TV crew travels in time and gets the Crucifixion on tape. No doubt that old iconoclastic Gore had lots of fun writing that. And I mean lots. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-book/386508/28 "2007-01-16T04:25:50Z")
Speaking of James Michener, I read his “Hawaii” at the time I was moving to Hawaii. Great stuff. From the Polynesian voyagers to present day. Odd, but I remember he made three mistakes in the book concerning Hawaii, and I know that Michenere wa SO familiar with the state that one of them had to have been made on purpose for purposes of a cheap joke. I can’t believe he could have made it by accident, it was so basic. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2007, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-book/386508/29 "2007-01-18T10:59:01Z")
[QUOTE=Siam Sam] Speaking of James Michener, I read his “Hawaii” at the time I was moving to Hawaii. Great stuff. Odd, but I remember he made three mistakes in the book concerning Hawaii … I can’t believe he could have made it by accident, it was so basic. [/QUOTE] Care to enlighten us?? ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-book/386508/30 "2007-01-19T04:56:27Z")
[QUOTE=Common Tater] Care to enlighten us?? [/QUOTE] The famous Japanese-American unit from Hawaii that fought in Europe was the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. They were still holding regular get-togethers when I lived in Hawaii, highly renowned. In the book, Michener renamed it the 222nd. He did not rename anything else in this big book, and he knew Hawaii too well to make that kind of error. The only thing I could figure is that he did it on purpose for a cheap joke. In the book, he had the white soldiers ask the Japanese ones which unit they were with, and when they answered the “two two two,” the white soldiers would crack up like the Japanese were making train sounds, which is why the white soldiers asked them in the first place. He also had the Polynesians reaching Hawaii in about AD 800, which I believe is correct, but he said that if they had gone east, they would have encountered the Aztecs in what is now Mexico. The Aztecs would not have been there for another 600 years. There was a third error, too, but I can’t remember what it was. ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2007, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-book/386508/31 "2007-01-20T03:42:36Z")
I heartily recommend a pair of books by Nicholas Guild: _The Assyrian_ and _The Blood Star_. The first of these can be picked up in most any paperback bookstore. The second (for reasons that totally escape me) never made it out of hardcover and you’re only likely to find it in a library. If anyone has a spare copy of _The Blood Star_, btw, please drop me a note. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-book/386508.md?page=1)