The Curse-Maker, by Kelli Stanley, set in Bath during the Roman period, blends a twisting, exciting mystery with a vivid Roman setting. Stanley combines her background as a classicist with a passion for noir mystery. The Roman politics and corruption that provide the context of the mystery are compellingly developed and, like many things Roman, echo modern life while retaining their uniquely Latin flavor. click the title to read the full review…
J.J. Murphy’s Murder Your Darlings is a thoroughly delightful read. Part screwball comedy, part literary spoof, this mystery stars Dorothy Parker, William Faulkner, Robert Benchley and others solving a murder when a prominent drama critic is found stabbed with a fountain pen under the famous Round Table at the Algonquin Hotel. Don’t be put off if you’ve never heard of the Algonquin Round Table—Murphy supplies whatever background you need, and you don’t have to have read Parker to catch her rapid fire humor. Fans of Jacqueline Winspear will enjoy this light take on the same period.
Ben Bova stays true to his science fiction roots in this action-packed novel set in the Bronze Age world of the Hittite empire and Troy’s last days. Lukka, a soldier in the emperor’s army, returns home from a lengthy campaign to discover the Hittite capital in flames, his family stolen away by slavers. He follows the trail to Troy only to find that city under siege and the complications growing as he tries to save his family in the midst of yet another city’s demise. Bova reworks the myths surrounding Troy to incorporate Lukka in these legends. He has created… Read More »Review of The Hittite by Ben Bova
Classics professor emeritus, Erich S. Gruen, offers hope that we can overcome our ingrained impulse toward demonizing the “other” through his analysis of Greek, Roman, and Jewish thought in his new book, Rethinking the Other in Antiquity. His argument is briefly laid out in a commentary from the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Who were the Trojans? Probably a people called Luwian who were part of the extended Hittite world.
1. For those of you who have stood in front of a museum case of gorgeous Greek vases and wondered what it all meant, here is a guide from the Wall Street Journal to get you started. For a more detailed version, you’ll have to fly me to your location and I’ll gladly explain all the juicy mythological details. (Just kidding, although once in the British Museum with my son perched on my shoulders, I did turn to discover I was being followed by a large group as I told him the wild tales depicted on the vases in front… Read More »In the Ancient News: “Reading” Greek pots; Israeli mosaic tours US
Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems by Billy Collins I was given a copy of these poems by Billy Collins, Sailing Alone Around the Room, recently, and they are a delightful companion. As such they cannot rightly ever be stowed in the already read file because I will return as often as my soul needs to. I highly recommend a copy by everyone’s bedside. How can you not love a book of poems in which one can find these two stanzas in a poem called Forgetfulness? The name of the author is the first to go followed… Read More »Poetry
Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy SchiffMy rating: 5 of 5 stars “How would you like to be the wickedest woman in history?” This, Schiff tells us, is what Cecil B. DeMille asked Claudette Colbert when offering her the movie role of Cleopatra. It’s an indication that with the Egyptian queen, “In the match between the lady and the legend there is no contest.” Cleopatra’s story was told first by her vanquishers and later by men wildly incapable of facing the reality of a smart, immensely powerful woman. Stacy Schiff, in her superb biography of Cleopatra, does her best to repair… Read More »Cleopatra: A Life, Stacy Schiff
In the category of guilty pleasures, I happily place mysteries set in interesting historical settings. I recently picked up The Tomb of Zeus (2007), the first of Barbara Cleverly’s series set in Europe after World War I, featuring Laetitia Talbot, an independent young woman of means with a penchant for archaeology and mysteries. If you enjoy the conventions of the upper class British mystery and archaeological digs, you’ll have fun with this one. For the sake of suspense, Cleverly sometimes holds back information in ways that push credulity a bit, given that some of the key pieces were always in… Read More »Review of Tomb of Zeus
For a novelist, a beautiful or mystifying object preserved from the past can trigger an entire scene. An ancient setting with so many exotic and intriguing elements is particularly fruitful this way. I thought when I started writing fiction that my training as a classicist and years of teaching humanities, with its interplay between cultural artifacts, history and literature, had taught me enough to portray a town near Troy on the eve of the Trojan War. Every time a character reaches for something, wears clothes, eats food, travels or sits down, I had to know what might actually have existed—a… Read More »The Silver Stag Rhyton
