Ph In my research about the third Punic war, the one in which Rome destroyed Carthage, I ran across an intriguing quote by the Greek historian Polybius. “The ruin of Carthage is indeed considered to have been the greatest of calamities, but when we come to think of it the fate of Greece was no […]
Book Review: Taken At the Flood; The Roman Conquest of Greece, by Robin Waterfield
May 25, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Book Review: Falls the Shadow by Sharon Kay Penman
March 31, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Every time I read one of Sharon Kay Penman’s novels I’m awed by her writing. I’d give my soul if I could write historical fiction the way she does. Falls the Shadow is the second book of her Welsh Princes Trilogy and continues the story where Here Be Dragons leaves off. Llewellyn Ap Iorwerth dies […]
Book Review: The Greatest Knight, by Thomas Asbridge.
March 4, 2015 By Leave a Comment
My favorite historical fiction author of books about the Plantagenet era in England and France is Sharon Kay Penman. A peripheral character in several of her books is William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke. Marshall was such an intriguing personality that when I learned of Thomas Asbridge’s non-fiction biography of the man, I snapped it up. […]
Book Review: Here be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman
February 18, 2015 By Leave a Comment
I’ll always remember the scene in the movie A Man for All Seasons where Sir Thomas Moore, being tried in Henry the Eighth’s Star Chamber, confronts the man who betrayed him. Seeing the man’s medallion which proclaims him Governor of Wales, he remarks “I can understand a man selling his soul to the devil for […]
Book Review: Darkness Over Cannae by Jenny N. Dolfen
January 17, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Darkness Over Cannae is a work of art, in both the literary and the pictorial senses. It is lush with strikingly rendered illustrations, created by the author herself, which bring to life the sights one might have witnessed before, during, and after the battle. In Darkness over Cannae, Jenny Dolfen tells the story of the […]
Book Review: Losing our Way, an Intimate Portrait of a Troubled America
January 14, 2015 By Leave a Comment
This book is painful to read, but if you read no other book this year, this is the one you should read. Hebert delves into the deterioration of American society from a prosperous society with a huge middle class, a sound infrastructure, and an educated populace, to its present state where the a much reduced […]
Book Review: Las Legiones Malditas by Santiago Postaguillo
December 16, 2014 By Leave a Comment
Las Legiones Malditas (The Accursed Legions) is the second in a series of three novels by Santiago Postaguillo about the life of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Carthage in the Second Punic War. The books are written in Spanish with no English translation available, but if your Spanish is up to the task, […]
Book Review: Watchmen of Rome by Alex Gough
November 6, 2014 By Leave a Comment
Watchmen of Rome takes the reader to the mean streets of Ancient Rome during the reign of Tiberius. Elissa is a priestess of the Carthaginian deities Baal-Hammon and Tanit, having received training from her mother, religious lore passed down in secret since the destruction of Carthage some 180 years before. She has a plan to […]
Book Review: Caesar’s Lictor by Alex Johnston
October 17, 2014 By Leave a Comment
“Please tell the chef to go easy on the garum.” If you want to read the joke to which this is the punchline you will have to read this book. But I’ll give you a clue, it is told by Julius Caesar and the butt is Cato. Alex Johnston scores once again with his novella […]
Book Review: Augustus by John Williams
October 10, 2014 By Leave a Comment
John Williams’ Augustus is an epistolary novel-that is, a work composed of letters and memoires. Some of the letters are taken from actual correspondence by historical figures of the time, such as Cicero and Maecenas, and others are complete inventions of the author, speculating on what the character would have written if given the chance. […]
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