The History Book Club discussion

What's the suggested age range for these books? (trying to figure out if I could convince my sons to try to read them) It appears that they must be quick-reads for adults.

Craig, the ages of the kids in the books is 8-11 at the beginning of the first one, and the series takes place over about 2 1/2 years. There's a lot of action with just a little bit of mushy stuff. Each book has a couple of maps, which I love. I hope your sons give them a try.

66. by Caroline Lawrence

Finish date: 9/18/2012
Genre: Roman mystery
Rating: B+

Review: This is the 17th, and last, book of the series. The four friends are back in Italy, even though there's a reward for their capture. Emperor Titus has died suspiciously and they try to figure out who did it. All but one of the on-going plot threads in the series are resolved and it's a more or less happy ending for everyone. This was an excellent series, which reads like sections of a very long book. Although it's written for young people (probably 10-14), it really held this adult's interest. I'm now going on to the auxilliary books in the series - short stories, a quiz book, and a travel guide.

67. by Mark Dunn

Finish date: 9/19/2012
Genre: Other fiction
Rating: A+

Review: This book is labeled "a progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable." In other words, it's told as a series of letters in which a series of individual parts of the alphabet are not used in the text. It takes place on a tiny island nation off the coast of the Carolinas, which is the birthplace of Nevin Nollop, the man who invented the phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." A statue of Nollop is in the town square and contains said phrase. One day, the Z drops off and the town council declares it a sign from Nollop that all citizens must stop using Z in speech or writing. All books are confiscated since they might contain the offending letter.

It's not much of a hardship at first, even when Q and then J fall off. But doing without D becomes difficult, and near the end of the book, one woman writes “Lately, I haph startet painting my torso in pretty, motley hews. I sit in phront oph the mirror in the sleepy-room. I atmire my hantyworg. I am a hooman apstrat paining.” You pretty much have to read the later parts aloud to understand what people are saying. Eventually someone comes up with an even shorter sentence with all the letters so people can go back to using the complete alphabet.

I loved this book! I admit I looked ahead to see what the new sentence would be, and it actually comes up in a letter about 2/3ds of the way in, but the letter had been hidden, so the characters didn't know about it.

68. by Betty Hechtman

Finish date: 9/22/2012
Genre: Other mysteries
Rating: B

Review: Molly's neighbor has disappeared, and when his wallet and cellphone are found on the boat to Catalina, it's assumed he was a suicide, probably because the investment scheme he had enrolled many people in was coming undone. Mrs. Shedd, the owner of the bookstore where Molly works, had given the man a lot of money and she wants Molly to investigate. Naturally, Molly's cop boyfriend warns her to keep away, but she never listens to him. An entertaining read.

69. by Edward Champlin

Finish date: 9/24/2012
Genre: Ancient history
Rating: B

Review: This isn't so much a chronological history of Nero as it is an examination of various themes in his life. It begins with a look at how people have viewed Nero down through the ages. The different chapters cover, among other things, the murder of his mother, the fire in Rome, his Golden House, his artistic and athletic pursuits and his presentation of himself as an incarnation of Apollo, both in his musical ability and as a sun god. It is an interesting way to do a biography, but I think I prefer a straight history, at least as a first pass.

70. by Betty Hechtman

Finish date: 9/29/2012
Genre: Other mysteries
Rating: B-

Review: While Molly and Adele are attending a popular talk show, one of the associate producers is poisoned right in front of them, and CeCe's niece, who gave the woman the fatal drink, is the prime suspect. Naturally it all works out, since no friend of the Tarzana Hookers could ever be guilty of homicide.

OCTOBER

71. by Caroline Lawrence

Finish date: 10/1/2012
Genre: Roman mystery
Rating: B

Review: These short stories fit in between the novels. They're quite amusing and the author has an afterword following each story to say why she wrote it.

by Caroline Lawrence
by Caroline Lawrence


I'm not counting these as part of the books I read, because I didn't really read them, just skimmed the quizzes. They are pretty tough. It might be possible to answer all the questions right after finishing the books, but they stumped me, for the most part. It would be fun to take a quiz after each book. I guess this is one way to encourage actually buying the books rather than using the library, which I do.

72. by Theoni Pappas

Finish date: 10/6/2012
Genre: Math
Rating: B

Review: Penrose the cat lives with his mistress, who writes about math. Being a cat, he's curious about what she's working on. The stories are all short with lots of pictures. It's hard to know what ages this would appeal to. It starts off with binary numbers, goes on to square roots and irrational numbers, magic squares, the Fibonacci series, many other topics. There are quizzes at the end of most stories, with answers at the end. The only disappointing thing was the monochrome purple text and pictures.

73. by Elizabeth Peters

Finish date: 10/12/2012
Genre: Historical mystery
Rating: B-

Review: Ameila Peabody Emerson is a fun narrator and I always enjoy her comments. This book didn't seem to have much of a plot until near the end. But the whole family was on hand, Walter and Evelyn from England, Ramses and Nefret with their two children, David and Lia with another two, Sethos (the reformed villain half-brother of Emerson and Walter) with his daughter Maryam, and probably some I'm leaving out. Various seemingly random incidents happen but it's all tied together at the end. The last 80 or so pages are where the action really picks up and the conclusion is satisfying.

74. by Tony Perrottet

Finish date: 10/14/2012
Genre: Ancient history
Rating: B+

Review: This is a reconstruction of what the Greek games at Olympia must have been like. Perrottet describes events in chronological order, starting with the arrival of the athletes at the nearby town of Elis, through the day-by-day athletic events, with asides about training, evening debauchery, and cheating, among others. I was amazed at the large amount of detail available from ancient sources. Also included are many illustrations of various events found inside Greek drinking cups. The only lack was a map of Greece showing where the different cities mentioned were at.

75. by Rex Stout

Finish date: 10/15/2012
Genre: Detective fiction
Rating: B

Review: This is totally unlike other Nero Wolfe mysteries, in that, not only does he leave the house to solve the mystery, he leaves the country! Wolfe's childhood friend and famous restauranteur Marco Vukcic has been killed on the streets of New York, and Wolfe's adopted daughter Carla, who went to Montenegro in Yugoslavia to investigate, has been killed there. In order to bring the killer to justice, he has to go to Montenegro, assuming a false identity. Wolfe is involved in an amazing amount of action (for him). This was interesting, but I prefer the regular type of Nero Wolfe story, where all the suspects gather at his office and he reveals the truth.

I love all Nero Wolfe mysteries but, like you, I prefer it when he stays in his brownstone in NYC. He certainly had some physical stamina in this book that he normally didn't exhibit!!!

76. by Bruce MacBain

Finish date: 10/19/2012
Genre: Roman mysteries
Rating: B-

Review: This was an enjoyable mystery, though it's impossible not to compare it to Albert A. Bell, Jr.'s series, also with Pliny as detective (which I liked better). The plot concerns a conspiracy to assassinate Emperor Domitian, who's been in power 15 years, and who's quite the tyrant. Pliny is charged by the emperor to find out who murdered a noted imperial spy. The poet Martial helps Pliny, but is also spying on him. Since the story is told in the third person, we learn things Pliny doesn't know. This makes it different from most of the Roman mystery series I read, which are in the first person. Each style has its advantages.

by Albert A. Bell Jr.

77. by Caroline Lawrence

Finish date: 10/20/2012
Genre: Roman mysteries
Rating: B-

Review: The second, and last, book of short stories set between the novels in the Roman Mysteries series. Interestingly, the last story takes place after the final novel, The Man from Pomegranate Street, and none of the four "detectives" in the series appear in the story. Instead, there's a new young detective, a friend of Lupus. While not as involving as the novels, these stories are interesting.

by Caroline Lawrence

Tremendous progress Vicki

78. by Keith J. Devlin

Finish date: 10/24/2012
Genre: Math
Rating: A

Review: This was a really interesting book, which cleared up a lot of misconceptions I had about Fibonacci. I had thought his main contribution to math was his series (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, ...), where each new element is the sum of the previous two, and which is found in many places in nature. I had thought he lived in the 17th or 18th century, and that his name was Fibonacci. Actually he lived from around 1170 to 1250, his name was Leonardo Pisano (Leonardo of Pisa) and his real claim to fame was the popularization of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system in medieval Europe. Until his book Liber Abaci (Book of Calculation) became widely circulated, merchants used Roman numerals and abacus-like counting boards to do their calculations. One interesting feature of the book is that the ten chapters are numbered from zero to nine. It's amazing to think how cumbersome simple arithmetic was without zero and using only Roman numerals.

I recently read this, too. Interesting book.

No one did calculations with Roman numerals (try doing some and you'll see why!) they just used those numerals to write down the results. In addition to counting boards, some people used finger arithmetic (not just counting on fingers - this was a complex system). People were doing some quite complicated arithmetic this way - currency transactions and compound interest rate calculations.

For more on zero, there is
by Charles Seife (no photo available).

Another book you might find interesting is by Alfred W. Crosby which details how quantification made the world modern.

Thanks, Peter, those sound like really good books. I think I learned about the Fibonacci book from you, so double thanks.

79. by Gary Corby

Finish date: 10/26/2012
Genre: Historical mysteries
Rating: B+

Review: This is the second in a mystery series set in the world of ancient Greece. The "detective" is Nicolaos, the older brother of 12-year old Socrates. He has helped Pericles before with a mystery and is now asked to solve another murder. In order to do this, he travels to Ionia, a Greek colony on the western edge of modern Turkey. He takes a young female slave with him. She claims to be the daughter of an important man, and indeed, her father is Themistocles, an exiled Greek general, who is ruling over the city of Magnesia for the king of Persia. The plot is pretty complicated (and gruesome in spots) but it all works out in the end. I'm hoping the next one takes place back in Greece.

Sounds interesting. I like mysteries where I learn something about some culture that I didn't know much about before.

As you can tell, I'm very into mysteries set in ancient Rome, but I like these Greek ones also. It's too bad there aren't more Greek mystery series. If you like ancient Egypt, the series by Lynda S. Robinson is very good.

by Lynda S. Robinson

NOVEMBER

80. by Vicky Alvear Shecter

Finish date: 11/3/2012
Genre: Historical fiction
Rating: B+

Review: This is the story of what happened to the children of Cleopatra and Marc Antony after their parents' deaths, as told by their daughter, Cleopatra Selene. We don't know much historically about them, except that they were taken to Rome, raised by Octavia, Antony's second wife and Octavian's sister, and that Cleopatra Selene eventually was married to Juba, the king of Numidia. The novel fills in the possible history quite well, being told by Selene herself. Naturally, Octavia, Livia, Julia and Marcellus, all part of Octavian's family, are prominently featured. It's really quite touching and even tragic in spots.

80.5 by Paul J. Nahin

Finish date: 11/5/2012
Genre: Math
Rating: C+

Review: I was hoping to really like this book, as it involves my favorite equation, Euler's identity,

e^(i * pi) + 1 = 0.

Such an elegant way to connect the five most important constants in math, along with fundamental mathematical operations. Unfortunately, the understanding of the math involved in the book, which I'm sure I used to have 50 years ago when I got my BA in math, has left me. I had to skip over most of the equations in the book (and there are a lot of them), so I don't even know if I can count this book as "read" (which is why I numbered it 80.5). But what I was able to read was interesting, especially the early history, where the concept of the square root of minus one helped solve otherwise intractable problems, but the men who figured out the methods were so reluctant to believe in it as a number (hence the designation "imaginary").

81. by Yann Martel

Finish date: 11/10/2012
Genre: Other fiction
Rating: A-

Review: This story of a teen-age boy voyaging across the Pacific with a Bengal tiger is certainly engrossing and fantastic. The first quarter of the book is about Pi's upbringing in Pondicherry, India, where his family owns a zoo. He becomes involved in several religions, finding something valuable in each of them. When his family sells the zoo and sets out for Canada aboard a ship with many of the animals (which have been sold to other zoos), there's a shipwreck and Pi and the tiger, Richard Parker, are thrown onto a lifeboat with a few other animals, which are quickly dispatched by the tiger. The story is quite detailed and believable until later in the book, when stranger and stranger things happen to him. The narrator says the story will make you believe in God, but truthfully, I'm not sure why. It does make you appreciate good storytelling.

82. by Alan Bradley

Finish date: 11/14/2012
Genre: Historical mysteries
Rating: A-

Review: Flavia de Luce is a very smart 11-year old girl living with her father and sisters in an English country mansion in 1950. She's fascinated with chemistry and has a laboratory in the attic. One day a dead bird with a postage stamp stuck to its bill is found on the doorstep, and not long after, one of her father's old school chums stops by, and is found dead in the garden the next morning (by Flavia). Flavia is the narrator of the story and a very good one.

Vicki wrote: "82. by Alan Bradley

Finish date: 11/14/2012
Genre: Historical mysteries
Rating: A-

Review: Flavia de Luce is a..."

I adore Flavia - have read all four in the series to date and waiting the next one soon to be out.

I think I stumbled across the series in your 50 Books thread, DonnaR, so thanks. I'm planning to read all of them.

83. by Lemony Snicket

Finish date: 11/15/2012
Genre: Kids
Rating: A-

Review: This is a funny but creepy book about the terrible things that happen to three orphans. Even though it's a book for kids, the author doesn't talk down to them. I like the way he slips in definitions of words (which may seem like a contradiction to the previous sentence, but isn't). I kept wondering why Child Protective Services didn't step in, but I guess there wasn't one where they live. I'm looking forward to finishing the series.

84. by Rex Stout

Finish date: 11/17/2012
Genre: Detective fiction
Rating: B

Review: This is a collection of three stories, not as satisfying as a novel, but still entertaining. In the last story, Wolfe actually goes to a baseball game, because a famous visiting foreign chef wants to see one. Wolfe in uncomfortable situations is always amusing.

85. by Ruth Downie

Finish date: 11/22/2012
Genre: Roman mystery
Rating: A-

Review: Ruso, a Roman army physician, has gone north to the outer reaches of the Roman Empire in Britain, near where Hadrian's wall will one day be built. His housekeeper Tilla is with him, and in fact, they wind up at a fort very near where she grew up. An old friend of hers is accused of murdering a soldier, and Ruso must discover the truth. I really like Ruso's personality - he's grumpy but good-hearted. This is the second in an excellent series.

Looks like a good book.

86. by Jon Ronson

Finish date: 11/22/2012
Genre: Other non-fiction
Rating: A-

Review: We meet a lot of interesting characters in this book: a young man who can't get released from a mental institution even though he's sane and wound up there after pretending to be crazy to avoid getting sent to prison, a former head of a Haitian death squad, the disgraced CEO of Sunbeam, among others. Are they psychopaths? One psychiatrist has created a checklist which is supposed to answer that question. But many of the questions can be answered "yes" by pretty much everybody. So are we all a little crazy? The author is quite funny, and has many amusing insecurities we might all identify with.

Sounds good.

87. by Maria Semple

Finish date: 11/24/2012
Genre: Other fiction
Rating: A

Review: I loved this book! First of all, it's an epistolary novel, one of my favorite types, with emails, letters and notes from different characters stitched together with explanations by the title character's daughter, Bee. Bernadette was a creative, up-and-coming LA architect twenty years ago, who closed in on herself when her crown jewel, a house she built for herself and her husband, was destroyed by her spiteful rich neighbor. She escaped to seclusion in Seattle, devoting herself to her daughter. Many of the letters/emails are between two of the parents at Bee's private school, complaining about Bernadette. We finally wind up looking for Bernadette in Antarctica, where Bee had insisted they go for a vacation. All the characters are quirky and interesting, each with a unique "voice" as expressed in the missives.

88. by Alan Bradley

Finish date: 11/30/2012
Genre: Other mysteries
Rating: B-

Review: This is the second in the series, and it wasn't quite as good as the first one, but Flavia is still delightful. We get to meet more people in the village of Bishop's Lacey, and they are a quirky bunch. Also new is Aunt Felicity, who seems a termagant, but is sympathetic to Flavia's need to connect to her long-dead mother. The title is quite mysterious - I don't know what it means. "Weed" probably refers to marijuana, which shows up in the story, and "hangman" refers to the ancient gibbet in the woods where a young boy was found hanged years ago. I suppose the "strings" are a reference to the puppeteer who is the murder victim. Along the way to finding the culprit, Flavia solves the mystery of the hanged boy. This is similar to the situation in the previous book where the real cause of a years-old supposed suicide was discovered. I'm really glad to have discovered this series, thanks to one of the voracious readers here.

by Alan Bradley

89. DECEMBER

by John Allen Paulos (no photo)

Finish date: 12/2/2012
Genre: Math
Rating: C+

Review: The author of Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences finds references to numbers, math and statistics in most parts of the newspaper and finds many instances where they are misused or misunderstood. He also offers ways for writers to get it right.

by John Allen Paulos (no photo)

90. by Kate Wilhelm

Finish date: 12/3/2012
Genre: Other fiction
Rating: B

Review: It's the late 70's in San Francisco and 69-year-old Emily is awakened by a violent shaking, to find she's trapped in bed after an earthquake. While she's waiting for someone to come and get her free, she thinks about the people in her life. Her ex-husband, who divorced her after a year of marriage at the insistence of his mother. His divorce lawyer, who became her friend and sometime lover. Her son, who doesn't approve of her bohemian lifestyle. Her mind jumps around in time and we meet the people she's befriended, helped and loved. The non-linear narrative was a bit disconcerting, but it's a very interesting book - you really get to like Emily.

91. by Alan Bradley

Finish date: 12/7/2012
Genre: Other mysteries
Rating: A

Review: An old Gypsy who gave Flavia a chilling fortune at the local fair is bashed on the head and nearly dies. Fortunately, Flavia finds her in time to save her life. Not long after that, she and the Gypsy's teenage granddaughter Porcelain find the dead body of Brookie Harewood, a local poacher and possible thief, strung up on a statue of Poseidon on the grounds of Buckshaw, the mansion where Flavia lives. There are lots of new interesting characters in this, the third in the series, and we re-encounter some we already know. My favorite is the elderly Dr. Kissing, an inmate of the local old folks' home, whom she goes to see to get info about an old Christian sect called the Hobblers, which used to be prevalent in the area. I think this is even better than the first book in ths series, which was really good.

by Alan Bradley

92. by John Maddox Roberts

Finish date: 12/13/2012
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 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. A very enjoyable entry in a great mystery series.

93. by Charles Dickens

Finish date: 12/15/2012
Genre: Other fiction
Rating: A

Review: I love this edition. Ronald Searle's illustrations are just perfect. I bought this book 50 years ago, not long before I met my future husband. On an early date, I tried to read part of it to him, but he just wanted to make out. He's not really a Dickens fan. But I am, and I try to read this every Christmas.

94. by Colleen McCullough

Finish date: 12/16/2012
Genre: Roman fiction
Rating: B+

Review: (on hold until we finish the Goodreads discussion of this book)

95. by Lemony Snicket

Finish date: 12/16/2012
Genre: Kids
Rating: A-

Review: The three Beaudelaire children are happy for a while living with Uncle Monty and his snakes and other reptiles, but inevitably, tragedy ensues and they have to figure out how to extricate themselves from danger. Luckily, they are very resourceful. As usual, Mr. Poe, who's supposed to be looking out for them, is nearly useless. How they can keep this up through 13 books will be amazing.

96. by Barry Mazur

Finish date: 12/21/2012
Genre: Math
Rating: B+

Review: This is an interesting mix of poetry, history, algebra and geometry, leading the reader to appreciate the development of the understanding of i, the square root of minus one. I was particularly struck by the explanation of arithmetical operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication) as manipulations of the real number line. Thus adding 5 to each number shifts the line 5 places to the right (or subtracting shifts it to the left), and multiplying by a positive number causes the number line to expand or contract uniformly, depending on whether the number is larger than one or smaller than one. Next, multiplying by -1 causes the line to flip around 180 degrees. And finally, multiplying by i rotates the line 90 degrees counterclockwise, giving you the complex plane. Once we have this plane, it's easy to visualize addition and multiplication of complex numbers. I've forgotten a lot since studying complex variables 50 years ago, but this book brought a lot of it back.

97. by Alan Bradley

Finish date: 12/22/2012
Genre: Other mysteries
Rating: A

Review: It's Christmastime at Buckshaw mansion - Flavia is planning to capture Santa and a film crew has come to shoot some interiors for a new movie starring the famous Phyllis Wyvern. Before long, there's a murder which Flavia is itching to solve. The steadfast Dogger (my favorite after Flavia) is always on hand to help out. As usual, Flavia's narration is very amusing, and there's some real physical peril in this one.

98. by Julius Caesar

Finish date: 12/26/2012
Genre: Ancient history
Rating: B

Review: Caesar was in Gaul for 10 years, trying to bring the whole area (can't call it a country because it wasn't one yet) into the Roman Empire (although it wasn't called that yet). He and his legions encounter many tribes; some are allies, some enemies and some go back and forth. An amazing number of Gauls were killed or sold into slavery. The tone of the book is quite dispassionate. I wish I could read Latin, as Caesar's writing is supposed to be very direct and easier to read than contemporary works. I had a rather hard time keeping the tribes straight, not to mention the named Gauls. The best parts were the sieges of Avaricum and Alesia. Another highlight was Aulus Hirtius' preface to Book 8, where he apologizes for not being as eloquent as Caesar.

99. by Rex Stout

Finish date: 12/29/2012
Genre: Other mysteries
Rating: B+

Review: A perfume company is running a contest and the five finalists have been flown to New York for the final puzzles. But the person in charge of the questions and answers has been murdered and the list of answers he had is missing. Wolfe is hired, not to solve the murder, but to find out who took the answer sheet. Of course, he does solve the murder, but not until someone dies in his study, during an all-suspect meeting. I like the conversation Wolfe has with one of the contestants, a professor - very entertaining.

100. by Rex Stout

Finish date: 12/30/2012
Genre: Other mysteries
Rating: B

Review: Two Wolfe mysteries in a row is a bit much, but I wanted to get to 100 books. A man asks Wolfe to find his son, missing for 11 years. Turns out he has been convicted of killing his sweetheart's husband. Wolfe must find out whodunit and why. Before the end of the book, there are three more corpses. I can never figure out who the killer is in these books, but that doesn't bother me much.

Congrats on hitting 100!

Thanks, Alisa. But my TBR list grows faster than my Read list. I'm afraid it will never shrink. Oh, well.