The History Book Club discussion

I love that series. :)

33. by Umberto Eco
Finish date: August 31, 2015
Genre: Fiction
Rating: C-
Review: Three men working for an obscure publishing house in Milan decide to cobble together many occult ideas from the numerous submissions they've read over the years into a grand Plan. They manage to link together the Knights Templar, the Illuminati, the Rosicrucians, the Cabala, and many others. Then they begin to feel as thought they are being spied upon, and one of them goes to Paris and disappears. This book was too long by at least one-third. There were just too many weird references to occult theories thrown in, and the denouement was laughable. The only reason I finished the book is that I started it during the fourth Readathon and felt that it was my duty to finish it.

Congrats you did it - sorry you did not find it better.

SEPTEMBER


34. by Marilyn Burns
by Cindy Neuschwander (no photo)
by Julie Ellis (no photo)
by Cindy Neuschwander (no photo)
Finish date: September 7, 2015
Genre: Kid's math picture books
Rating: B+
Review: I'm putting these all together because it seems cheating to count each one as one book of my target of 50. They were all very cute and did a good job of presenting math concepts to kids. The Sir Cumference series had lots of math puns, as you can tell from the title. My granddaughters are only 3 and 1 now, so I'll have to wait a few years to see if they like them.

Aren't you the tiger grandmother (smile)

35. by Mário de Carvalho
Finish date: September 9, 2015
Genre: Historical fiction
Rating: B
Review: This story is set in ancient Lusitania (modern Portugal), part of the Roman Empire, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. The duumvir Lucius Valerius Quintius tells us of the problems he has protecting his town from the invading Moors and of a troublesome group of cultists called Christians. Their leader Iunia Cantaber is a particular problem because Lucius is smitten with her, quite against his will, and she's extremely hard-headed and unsympathetic. It's interesting to read about how Christians were viewed by ordinary Romans, with their weird ritual of eating the flesh and blood of their god. Iunia is very hard to like; I get the impression that she's longing to be a martyr and so provokes the power structure and the people of the town.

36. by John Maddox Roberts
Finish date: September 19, 2015
Genre: Roman mystery
Rating: A
Review: This is my favorite of the SPQR series, because the underlying history is so interesting. Clodius is discovered disguised as a woman during the performance of the rites of Bona Dea, a goddess sacred to women. Men are strictly forbidden to be in the house where the rites are being performed. What's more, the house in question is that of Gaius Julius Caesar, the pontifex maximus. This incident is what provoked Caesar to proclaim "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion." Decius gets involved because of some murders which seem to be related. Another plus is the introduction of two new continuing characters. Hermes is Decius' new teen-age slave, and he's quite cheeky. Julia is Decius' love interest, and Caesar's (fictional) niece to boot.

I love SPQR series! I read a few of them translated to Croatian back in high school but, unfortunately, very few of them are actually translated so I had to stop.

EDIT: Lol, I just realized I told you that already. I guess I'm very enthusiastic about it. :D

by John Maddox Roberts

37. by Robin A.H. Waterfield
Finish date: September 22, 2015
Genre: Ancient history
Rating: C+
Review: This book covers the period when Rome was taking control of the Mediterranean, and deals mostly with Illyricum, Greece and Macedonia. Truthfully, I didn't enjoy it as much as I did Polybius, a main source for the book. My main problem was with the place names, which I'm not familiar with. There were excellent maps, but somehow they didn't help me that much.
by Polybius (no photo)

38. by John Maddox Roberts
Finish date: September 25, 2015
Genre: Roman mystery
Rating: A
Review: Decius Caecilius Metellus has gone to Alexandria as part of a diplomatic mission with his relative Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus (a real historical person). While he's there, one of the scholars at the Museum is murdered, and Decius can't resist getting involved. We (and he) meet several historical personages, including Cleopatra (age 10) and the Egyptian general Achillas. Decius' impertinent slave Hermes is along with him, as is his friend and doctor Asklepiodes, who gets Decius out from under a murder accusation. The SPQR series was my introduction to Roman mysteries, and I learned a lot from the short but thorough glossary at the end. A very enjoyable entry in a great mystery series.

OCTOBER

39. by John Maddox Roberts
Finish date: October 2, 2015
Genre: Roman mystery
Rating: A
Review: Decius is called back to Rome from his exile in Rhodes in order to investigate the death of his relative Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer. The family believes he was poisoned by his wife Clodia, the sister of Decius' mortal enemy Clodius. As if that isn't difficult enough, Clodius wants him to prove Clodia didn't do it. Roberts always does a good job of inserting Decius into historical events, especially if there's enough ambiguity to make almost any solution to the mystery seem logical.

40. by Stephanie Thornton
Finish date: October 9, 2015
Genre: Historical fiction
Rating: B
Review: This is a fictionalized account of the life of the Byzantine Empress Theodora, who lived from 500 CE to 548 CE. She started life as part of a family who performed in circuses, and she later became an actress. She attracted the attention of Justinian, who was then heir to the throne. Her early life was fairly horrific, always on the edge of poverty. Thornton does a good job of portraying life in Constantinople at this time, as well as the perils of being close to the royal family.

41. by P.J. O'Rourke
Finish date: October 19, 2015
Genre: Essays
Rating: B
Review: This is a collection of articles, many written for Rolling Stone magazine, mostly from 1989-1991. Many cover the first Gulf War. It's like stepping back in time 25 years - Saddam Hussein, the Soviet Union, Kuwait. It's kind of eerie, reading about what happened before the mess we're in now. At least O'Rourke is amusing.

Sounds like a good book, Vicki.....not your usual genre. Rolling Stone has had some great articles over the years.

Jill wrote: "Sounds like a good book, Vicki.....not your usual genre. Rolling Stone has had some great articles over the years."

I have a few books by O'Rourke, whom I really like even though he's the opposite of me politically. Trying to clear out my shelf of books I bought but never read.

Oh, I know that feeling. I am always surprised when I find a book I bought five years ago and them promptly forgot about!!!!

I bought three books today on a huge sale and forgot them at a place I were a few hours ago. I just figured out that I should have brought something home with me...3 hours later. How's that for forgetting about books. :D

I don't feel so bad now, Samanta!!!

42. by David Blatner
Finish date: October 22, 2015
Genre: Math
Rating: A
Review: This was a very enjoyable book, dealing mostly with the history of pi. Amazingly it also included pi to the 1,000,000th place, in very, very small print, naturally. One of the most interesting sections is about deluded people who try to square the circle, or calculate the "true value" of pi. There's even some advice on how to memorize pi to as many places as you want, mostly by making up a story where the number of letters in each word are the digits.

43. by John Maddox Roberts
Finish date: October 23, 2015
Genre: Roman mystery
Rating: A
Review: Decius has gone to Gaul to serve under Julius Caesar. A young client of Decius', a legionary, has been accused, along with others, of killing a brutal centurion. Decius has to figure out who the real culprit is to save their lives. One of the funny parts of the book happens when Decius, one of whose jobs is to copy Caesar's commentaries on the war (Caesar has atrocious handwriting and is a bad speller), rereads what he's been copying and realizes what literary genius Caesar is. This is an interesting story, but I do miss Rome and the characters there.

44. by Patrick deWitt
Finish date: October 24, 2015
Genre: Fiction
Rating: A
Review: This is a very entertaining book about a polite young man, Lucien, who leaves home to work as the second in command to the majordomo at a decrepit castle somewhere in eastern Europe (I think). The Baron who lives there is never seen, there's some sort of mini-war going on in the surrounding mountains, and there's a beautiful young woman in the nearby village. Needless to say, there are lots of surprises in the plot. I really enjoyed it. I read it during the recent Readathon.

NOVEMBER

45. by John Maddox Roberts
Finish date: November 14, 2015
Genre: Roman mystery
Rating: A
Review: Decius is back in Rome after serving for a while in Caesar's army in Gaul. He's now married to Caesar's niece Julia and is campaigning to be elected as aedile. Just as Crassus is leaving the city to go east to begin the war on the Parthians, one of the Tribunes appears and curses him, invoking many old gods and using the secret name of Rome, and later the Tribune is found dead. Decius is tasked by Pompey to find out who killed him and who told him the secret name.

46. by Betty MacDonald
Finish date: November 18, 2015
Genre: Kids
Rating: B
Review: This is a funny kids book about a woman who has no children, but is friends with all the children in town (they like to dig in her back yard for the pirate treasure her late husband buried). She also has solutions for the many bad behaviors kids sometimes display, like being a Slow-Eater-Tiny-Bite-Taker. There are several books in the series, which were written in the late 1940s, so all the mothers are housewives and fathers have office jobs.

47. by Terry Jones
Finish date: November 18, 2015
Genre: Ancient history
Rating: B-
Review: This is the book version of the TV series Jones did. Each section covers a different group of "barbarians" and Jones attempts to show how un-barbaric these peoples were. Starting with the Gauls and down through the Vandals and Huns (which these days are epithets for bad people), he looks at history through their eyes, not those of the Romans, who were, after all, the victors and thus wrote history. A very interesting part was about the Dacians, who lived in Eastern Europe. Apparently they had a a sophisticated culture which was pretty much wiped out by the Romans. Also, the Romans more or less ignored the scientific progress the Greeks made and just appropriated their art works.

48. by Ruth Rendell
Finish date: November 18, 2015
Genre: Mystery
Rating: C+
Review: The beautiful wife of a wealthy man is found bludgeoned to death in the woods near her home. DCI Wexford and his sidekick Mike Burden investigate, looking at suspects such as the husband, the victim's unpleasant brother, the brother's wife and the young man who works in the couple's garden, whom the victim was fond of. This being the fifth in the series, the detecting "couple" have an established rapport and we learn a bit of their individual idiosyncrasies. This was an enjoyable mystery, but I don't think I'll read any more of the series.

DECEMBER
49. by Gary Corby
Finish date: December 1, 2015
Genre: Historical mystery
Rating: A
Review: The skull of the tyrant Hippias is discovered at the girls' academy where Diotima, Nico's fiancee, went to school. Pericles hires Nico to find out why his remains were there and what happened. When they get there, they find that two of the school girls are missing, then the mangled corpse of one is found. Possibly she was killed by a bear! Nico and Diotima, with the help of Nico's younger brother Socrates, unravel all the mysteries.

50. by Sam Byers (no photo)
Finish date: December 5, 2015
Genre: Fiction
Rating: B
Review: A year and a half ago, Katherine, Daniel and Nathan were good friends, or at least as good as their various neuroses allowed them to be. Then Nathan disappeared and Katherine and Daniel broke up. Now Nathan has returned from a long stay at rehab and he wants to see them. While he was away Katherine has been sleeping around with guys at work, and Daniel is in a smothering relationship which he's terrified he'll lose. Strangely, this is a very funny novel, with a good laugh on at least every third page. I read this during the December Readathon.

51. by Steven Saylor
Finish date: December 14, 2015
Genre: Roman mystery
Rating: A
Review: Gordianus has come to Massilia looking for his younger son Meto. He's received word that Meto is dead, having betrayed Julius Caesar, his general. Gordianus is sure this isn't true, and is determined to find out what happened. He is invited to stay with Hieronymous, the scapegoat, who will be sacrificed soon to expiate the city's sins. Lots of strange goings-on, naturally, with a satisfying ending. This is one of my favorites of the series. I especially like that Verres and Milo, real Romans who were exiled to Massilia, were included as characters.

52. by Thomas Cathcart
Finish date: December 17, 2015
Genre: Philosophy
Rating: B-
Review: I'm not sure the jokes really related to the various types of philosophy discussed, but most of them were pretty good, and the overview of philosophy was interesting. The only downside was that some pages were red type on white paper or white type on red paper - hard to read.