Vhat Booke Arrr Ye Reedin'?

[Theseus]

I'm still working my way through ancient historical fiction... I've read about 30 of the 75 books I've identified.

Just starting 'I, Claudius' by Robert Graves.

[alva]

Good choice

[Zoid]

I checked out a bunch of graphic novels from the library. Bone by Jeff Smith, Rising Stars: Born in Fire by J Michael Straczynski, Swamp Thing: Love and death by Alan Moore. Caricatures by Dan Clowes, Camelot 3000 by Mike W Barr/Brian Bolland.

And to balance this a really old and stuffy book by the dutch historian Johan Huizinga which deals with the life, ideas, art, and behaviors of the upper classes of Burgundy in the 14th and 15th centuries.

[Space05us]

I picked up The Time Machine yesterday, I expect to start reading it in a couple days.

[Verto]

[ajbera]

Originally posted by Kamrat X
I checked out a bunch of graphic novels from the library. Bone by Jeff Smith, Rising Stars: Born in Fire by J Michael Straczynski, Swamp Thing: Love and death by Alan Moore. Caricatures by Dan Clowes, Camelot 3000 by Mike W Barr/Brian Bolland.

If you haven't already, make certain you read Watchmen by Alan Moore, The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, and V for Vendetta by Alan Moore. Probably the best graphic novels out there.

[Zoid]

I´ve read them all. But thanks anyway.

[Theseus]

Finished 'I, Claudius', and am now moving on to 'Claudius the God'.

I have to say, that of all the ancient historical fiction I've read, the sweep of Colleen McCullough's 'Masters of Rome' series through the two Graves books has been stunningly great. Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Julius and Augustus Caesar, the early empire... incredible history, incredible research, incredible writing. It's a lot of work, though... 8 books and something like 7000 pages. Worth it: the most impressive epic I've ever had the pleasure of, in any form, and real history to boot. I'd add in that Wallace Breem and Gore Vidal are the only two other such authors that I'd laud at this level.

For other fans of the form, the recent popularity of it, as expressed by the likes of Pressfield, Ford, Dietrich, et al, while fun, is by comparison like watching a Bruce Willis blockbuster movie. I like those too, but they just don't hold a candle.

[Theseus]

Double post

[Lorizael]

White Wolf's Orpheus, which isn't really a book...

And Dan Simmon's Fall of Hyperion.

[Frankychan]

"Beyond Good and Evil"---Friedrich Nietzsche

"The 48 Laws of Power"---Joost Elfers

"Animal Farm"---George Orwell.

"Shadows of the Empire"---Star Wars book.

Switching off between these books, but right now I'm reading more of the Star Wars book...followed by BGAE.

[JohnT]

Just started "The Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman. Mentally, it's kind of hard to wrap your mind around a portion of the 20th century where Kings and Queens and royalty still mattered.

[Lorizael]

My brother just finished that book, and found it to be incredibly illuminating.

[JohnT]

Also, in the past couple of weeks, I read James Stewarts new book DisneyWar, about the reign of Michael Eisner at Disney. I kind of prefer his Den of Thieves, even though in the last book he spent WAY too much time recounting the story of Dennis Levine, a nobody finance guy who made a few illegal trades.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Lorizael
My brother just finished that book, and found it to be incredibly illuminating.

I'm growing increasingly interested in WW1, but am having a little bit of difficulty finding a good "overview" of the conflict... the books I've looked at so far are a bit too detailed in the various troop and regiment movements for my tastes. I tried Stevenson's Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy, for example, which was called "The best comprehensive one-volume history of the war yet written." This will be a fine work in the future, but for now assumes a familiarity with the period that I, frankly, don't have.