August 29, 2023 • 53 mins
We know it's rather late in the day to release this episode but we've came across some titles that are just too good not to share.
The promt for our August #tbntbookchallenge2023 is to read a book set in an ancient city or about an ancient civilisation. Eventhough these are some recommendations for our August challenge, we do hope some of these titles have piqued your interest and that you'll pick it up in your own time.
We had so much fun researching and recording this episode and of course, our own TBR pile just got bigger. Cheers!
The promt for our August #tbntbookchallenge2023 is to read a book set in an ancient city or about an ancient civilisation. Eventhough these are some recommendations for our August challenge, we do hope some of these titles have piqued your interest and that you'll pick it up in your own time.
We had so much fun researching and recording this episode and of course, our own TBR pile just got bigger. Cheers!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:17):
Hello everyone. I think today isgoing to be something on August's challenge,
even though this episode is going tocome out quite near the end of August.
So as usual, Hello, Iam Honey, and my partner here
is Dinah. We are recording atnight in our own houses because both our
neighbors seems to be drilling lots ofwood at the woman. How are you,
(00:39):
Dinah? Yeah, there seems tobe multiple people. I live in
a condo, so you know,like you can't really help the fact that
sound travels through the walls like areally really long distance, so I can't
tell which direction is coming from.But this but all sort of like sounds
like going on all days of alot of people. Do you lot of
(01:00):
things in this house? Yeah?Well I have a neighbor that is about
to move in and they're doing likemajor renovation. Yeah. So anyway,
this is not very exciting because thepeople who tune into Our Shoes want to
know about books. Just to giveyou guys an idea about what we're talking
about today, the TBNT book challengefor August. I don't know how you
(01:23):
guys are doing if your book challenges, how is it going? The challenge
for August is a book either setin an ancient city or about ancient civilizations.
And Diana came out with quite afantastic list, and some of it
really sort of like it's on thefringes of what we would say an ancient
you know, honestly, does theancient civilization need to be something set on
(01:47):
Earth? I suppose that's the question. It can be an ancient alien civilization.
Yeah, yeah, I mean,like, you know, that's fun
with a prompt, right, youuse it the way you want to.
It's just meant to pick your interest. Is meant to like giving something else
to explore in the bookstore maybe,or you know, if you gain look
(02:07):
online to see what's out there.Generally I end up with a ton of
new books on my my TVR.So, oh my god, this particular
list, I have to say someof them. I was thinking we should
discuss some of these books so interesting, and most of them are set on
Earth. Quite a number of themis set in an alternative historical setting,
(02:34):
I guess. But yeah, solet's get into it, because the list
is really long, and I alsowant to give a couple of nonfictions at
the end in case those of youwho are interested in reading. Of course,
if you want to read about ancientcivilization or an ancient city, you
can just pick up a nonfiction onthat civilization or city. And that's sorted
really since you know, we arelargely a fiction podcast, so it's going
(02:58):
to be fiction first. Kick usoff, my friend, what do you
have for us? So the firstone I have for you happened a really
really long time ago. This oneis a book that actually just came out
this month, and I found thisone's particularly interesting because it's called a novel,
but it has a really interesting structurebecause it's actually written by six different
(03:22):
authors and they're all pretty well knownauthors as well. So it's called A
Day of Fire, a novel ofPompeii. It calls back to the events
that happened when the bout Vesuvius eruptedin Pompeii way back in the seventy nine,
and it reimagines the events of thatfateful day from the perspectives of six
(03:47):
different people. So it's different peoplewho are in the town just hours,
maybe a day or two before thevolcano erupted. Yeah, So it's got
authors such as Kate Quinn, Stephaniedre Ben Kine, Eliza Knight, Sophie
Perido, and Vicki Elvier and They'veall which is actually one chapter out of
(04:10):
this book. The interesting thing aboutit is that even though one chapter written
by each of the authors, it'sactually meant to be read as a single
narrative, so one leads onto theother. It's just told from the perspective
of different people. So chapter oneis called the Sun, Chapter two is
the Heiress, chapter three is theSoldier, and then you have the Senator,
(04:31):
the mother, and it ends withthe Whore. It could go either
way in terms of how good thestorytelling is, but reviews say it's actually
good and the stories flow really wellto each other because it's been planned in
that way. They do actually connectto each other. It's a story that
connects. I just kind of flickedit open because they had like a preview,
(04:53):
and it starts out with the Sun, and it starts out with basically
a young man going to meet hislove Will, which I'm going to assume
is the whore at the end ofI'm the sixth story, so maybe he's
booked and by that, like youknow, he's going off to meet the
woman that he desires, and thisjust happens before Mount Vesuvius erupts Pompeii.
(05:21):
In the first year of the ruleof Emperor Titus Flavius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus,
I discreetly tightened my loin cloth asI approached Pompei Sano Gate. The mere
sight of the chipped arch funneling usinto the city, the knowledge that I
was that much closer to her,made my body respond in a most embarrassing
(05:44):
way. I did not need mytinted tunic announcing to the world my business
in Pompeii. Thank Prayapus for thepressure of the cloth. The line into
the city inched along like a bloatedleech. I should my head to clear
the image from my mind. Myuncle's insistence on regular bleedings drove me to
(06:05):
distraction. Balancing your humors will helpclear the spots on your face, he
said, and it will help yougrow. Some boys don't finish growing until
they are in their twenties, headded, with undisguised hope. I resisted
scratching the spot on my back wherethe last of the little suckers had been
(06:27):
removed. After the physician bled me, and I suppressed a shudder at the
memory of that glistening, slimy bodyswollen with my own blood. So far
my uncle's plan to help me growbigger and failed miserably. The former General,
the great Naturalist, the Admiral ofEmperor Titus Navy, was a big
ox like man, as was myfather, everyone always told me, though
(06:53):
I never knew him. It wasalmost as if my uncle took it as
a personal affront that I did nottake after him or my father put and
built like my mother his own tinysister Plinia instead, as if I were
pleased by this cruel trick of thegods. Reeking rivermen and sweat stained traders
(07:14):
from sealernum pressed in all around me. I would have to scrub well at
Julia's house before going to see mygirl. Of course, just as I
was almost through the arch, someold farmer got the wheel of his onion
carts stuck in a rut, forcingthe rest of us to stop. I
should have known Pombay was such abusy port town. There were always delays.
(07:38):
Like my lover, the city teasedme continually. And the thing about
there's really eerie about pomp By isbecause I have been to Pompy and I
have seen the bodies that were preservedand how you know, you just just
basically people are just quite in themiddle of eating dinner. There's actually a
(07:58):
pregnant woman that tries to go upa hill in order to escape and she
just dies covered in ashes. Youknow, a family, I mean like
a woman huddled in a seller forchildren. So I think what these authors
might have done is to see whatkind of bodies that were preserved and think
of a story that interlinks all thesepeople, you know, because that is
(08:20):
the equalizer, right when a nationaldisaster happens, well no sorry, not
a national sorry, a natural disasterhappens. It doesn't matter if you're an
emperor or if you're a servant ora slave. Everybody dies. Basically,
the dialer's got to know. Thenext book that I'm very excited about,
and I think she is as well, is Shelly paka Chan's He Who Drowned
the World. And we interview Shelleypaka Chan. I think was last season
(08:46):
for her first book of the RadiantEmperor duology. So the good thing about
it that this is the second book, so their story ends here. It
is roughly based on real people,but it's almost like a gender bander telling
and it follows the founding emperor ofthe Ming dynasty. Okay, Dina,
can you please pronounce the name ofthis Emperor Zuya and Song? Yes?
(09:11):
Okay, very nice. Okay,So Emperor Zoo, well, not an
emperor yet because at the end ofshe who became the son, she is
victorious after she has taken southern Chinaaway from his Mongol masters, and now
she's aiming for the throne. She'saiming to be the emperor. Now.
The great thing about this book,I remember both me and Dina loved it
(09:33):
so much because he had such vividand amazing characters. You're so invested in
all the characters exactly exactly, allthe people who have either lost or one
in the previous book. They're allkind of plotting. Everybody has an agenda.
You will get back into the mindsof people like the eunuch General Hullam,
(09:54):
who has you know, sacrificed everythingto you know, take vengeance on
his father's killer, the Great Kun. And then there's also Wang baos Young
basically the court games that people playin order to get power. So there's
tons of intrigue. There's tons ofbackstabbing, but it's also very epic and
(10:16):
sweeping. There's lots of desire andunrequited love. Oh, it's all the
good stuff. So yeah, soin a way, this is kind of
like an alternate history because I thinkEmperor Zoo really did exist, but I
did not think that Emperor Zoo wasa woman, but this one reimagines him
as a woman. Is this aspoiler? I don't know, because if
you read She Who Became the Sun, you know very much that basically it
(10:39):
is a girl who has taken overthe identity of her own brother, you
know. And yeah, so eitherthan that, it's loosely based on historical
figures. A lot of the historicalfigures actually existed. She just repurposes it
to make this kind of epic tale. I mean, you know, it
could have been the truth, becausewe wouldn't wouldn't know if they if that
(11:00):
person changed their personality, right,I mean, who's to say that nothing
like this ever happened in the entirehistory of the world. This is very
true, but it is after allin fourteenth century, right, so you
know, all kinds of stuff couldhave happened. People would have taken people's
identities, no one would be underwiser exactly. There you go. Yeah,
and what exactly gets passed down inhistory is actually very very much subjective.
(11:26):
It's something that somebody wrote down becausethey had a certain agenda, they
had a certain idea about what thetruth was. And yeah, so you
know that's always the interesting thing abouthistory. I think, you know,
that's why we find these retellients likelike Cis and Electra and all of those
(11:46):
stories. It could have been trueif somebody else wrote it, right,
It's just that certain people decided totell the story from their perspective. Okay,
One other book that I am actuallycurrently into kind of reading. This
book. It's called Haven by EmmaDonna Hue and also came out this month.
This is a book that's been inspiredbut the true history of an early
(12:11):
Christian monastery founded on islands, ScalingIslands. So basically, Emma Donna Hue,
she just went on this trip destroyto this really remote island and there
was just this monastery just standing rightthere out of nowhere, like on this
tiny island where there's nobody else,there's something else. How did they survive?
(12:31):
She's basically thinking about the kind ofmindset that these priests had to isolate
themselves in such a harsh and isolatedenvironment. You know, why did they
want to do this and what drovethem? What kind of things were they
thinking about when they wanted to justbasically leave civilization and they believed in God
(12:54):
so much that they could actually sustainthemselves. Sustaining yourself just on on your
faith, right. So it's setin seventh century Ireland, and in this
novel we follow a scholar and aprescott, Art, who has a dream
telling him to leave the sinful worldbehind. And he takes two monks with
(13:15):
him, a young one and anold one, and he rows down a
river in search of an isolated spotin which to found a monastery. The
dream is an instruction to withdraw fromthe world, to set out on pilgrimage
with two companions, find this islandand found a monastic retreat. The abbot's
(13:39):
mouth opens and shots a fish gaspingon this island, which is where do
you believe? Far away in theWestern Ocean, away from everything. Art
holds up the map in his handand lets the linen on Rome the letters
(14:03):
Hibernia float beside the jagged silhouette thatresembles an oak leaf or a wolf skin.
Our men of God who go intothe wild places, since there are
no deserts in our Hibernia, ofcourse, many establish houses in forests or
glens, or on lake islands.Indeed, isn't Ireland a byeword for such
(14:26):
holy hermitages. His host's smoked tonesticks and Art's crawl standing there swaddled in
embroidered linen, reeking of Gaulish wine. How many times the abbot must have
recited Christ's call, sell all youhave, give it to the poor,
and follow me without ever hearing it. But Art hasn't come here in the
(14:52):
middle of the night to preach tothe abbot, only to get his permission.
He pushes on those who hate theworld. Most have to go even
farther to escape its seductions. Rightout the sea, he moves his finger
to the right. See in thewaters between us and Albion, blessed Nessen
(15:15):
and Columned Hill, each landed onhis allotted rock. There then this large
island off our north coast. Touchinga dart on the map, Sainted Congoles
claimed that one for God. Butit is in the great Ocean on our
western side, that the waters mostrichly seeded with refuges ar't taps to the
(15:37):
left of Hibernia with one nail.The blessed Rioch discovered his here, for
instance, and Macdarrah to the southof him. Further south again Holy Ana,
Brecon, Sennon, and Quivan.They set up their monasteries among the
isles of Aaron like beacons on thefrontier of Christendom, manned only by the
(15:58):
best fight is keeping the devil outby the power of prayer. Art's fingers
slides down that coast. For allmy researches, I haven't yet learned of
any monks south of there, headmits, But there must be more islands
that way, empty ones even lesstainted by the world's breath. That's where
(16:21):
I'm to go. And then,yeah, they finally find a place and
they start building, you know,and and then slowly the supplies run out,
and you know, they have tofigure out how they survive, And
being really stubborn and believing in hisvision, Art doesn't want to go back
(16:44):
to you know, civilization and gethelp. You know, he doesn't want
to to turn back basically, So, yeah, so the trio I kind
of like pushed to the limit asthey increasingly cling to blind faith, and
yeah, the situation gets really,really dire, so you know, like
what is it like being in theirheads. Emma Domin donohue has a very
(17:07):
long history of writing historical fiction.This is her fourteen novel and her eighteenth
book of fiction. So far.I'm only about a quarter of the way
into this book, and it's it'svery interesting. I don't know, there's
something about the whole idea of thisof these people like roughing it and and
you're figuring it out as they goalong that kind of grip space. So
(17:30):
I find it quite quite a quiet, contemplative read. But at the same
time, it's kind of like it'sreally you can imagine it getting to really
dark places, so let's see howthat goes. But it kind of sounds
it kind of sounds like something Iwould love because it sounds very cool,
and it sounds like it sounds veryminimalistic. But also I'm sure because of
(17:57):
the starkness of your situation, thebeautiful things are more poignant. And I
was reading somewhere that people likened thisa little bit to the minimalism that of
the room which is a novel thatshe wrote, because again it is about
two people held captive, you know, in a small room, but this
(18:18):
one is actually on this tiny rock. I wonder whether it's kind of like
a metaphor for the fact that wealso kind of live in this one little
planet, right, and and howwe are going to survive all this kind
of stuff. I don't know,or if she had doing the pandemic and
then you're like everyone's isolated there yougo, you get what's happening, you
go. Yeah, So it soundslike very very stark, very minimalistic,
(18:41):
But I don't know, it's theit's the sort of like it's the description
of the environment really beautiful, youknow, like I can imagine, right,
because didn't it film Star Wars onthis island or something like I think
they did? Yeah, I thinkepisode eight, right, isn't it where
Ray found look Skywalker standing on theedge of this beautiful yet barren place.
(19:06):
You know. Interesting. I'm goingto check it out, Shifting somewhere Else.
Just come out last month is Jezebelby Megan Bernard. And you know,
like when I was reading, youknow that people always say that you're
such a such a Jezebel. Youknow, it's becomes sort of like the
word that you use for a wickedwoman who's also a bit of a slide,
(19:30):
right, But of course Jezebel isa biblical figure and a paganistic figure
as well. Basically, they saythat this book attempts to do for Jezebel
what Madeline Miller did for c OrSarcy. I call it cercy dinasais surs.
So it's a re imagining of astory of definition princess that went and
got married to Prince Ahab of Israel. And there she actually, I believe,
(19:55):
because she worshiped a nature god calledbal she Ba, basically tried to
sort of like convert people to worshipher pagan god while over there it is
actually Yahweh, Yahweh, that theHebrew god Yahweh is worship. So it's
the time during the prophet Elijah.I'm sure this story is in the Koran
as well. It's just that,you know, Jezebel has always been very
(20:18):
much closely you know, it's likeit's a biblical figure, right, and
yeah, and because her religion isvery paganistic, right, because they have
sexual rituals and it's got like harnetsin the temple. Everybody associates her with
heathen behavior, and of course,as any great biblical epic tale, all
(20:41):
ends up in bloodshed where everybody ison a mountain, where there is sort
of like a face off between herreligion and Yahweh's religion, and lots of
slaughter happens. You know, whenI was kind of looking through the sort
of like history of it, becausethis book kind of I thought it was
kind of interesting. I went like, wow, this is this rival's game
(21:02):
of thrones, you know, Imean the political machinations, but also there's
so much of this religious furvor So, I don't know, it's this book
controversial, you think, Dina,because somebody's kind of giving a different spin
on Jezebel. What do you think. I mean, there have been a
number of books that have gone intolike this historical figures from the from the
(21:25):
Bible. Right, I think thisprobably hues closer to what historians know about
who she is. But of courseit's it's given this feminist spin, right,
So she's telling it from her pointof view, and of course trying
to look past all the perspective ofpatriarchy, which which was that women were
(21:48):
bad, and especially a woman whotried, who tried to use her own
power in any way was seen asbad. And you kind of like,
go and get married it off tosomebody you don't know. I suppose you
would bring whatever brings you most comfort, right, which is your own belief
system. So do you really blameher, You know, at the end
(22:10):
of the day that she wants toestablish she wants to be a queen,
not just somebody's wife. Probably itmight be interesting to get stuck in it
if you are a you know,like a fan of feminist retellings. Definitely,
definitely. I would like to followthat up with another book that is
roughly from the same region of theworld. So this book is called Every
(22:34):
Rising Sun by Jemina Ahmed. Thisis a really interesting one because this book,
yes, this is so just reallyJemina Ahmed is actually a Harvard trained
lawyer, but she is a scholarof medieval Islamic history, and she spent
about fourteen years writing and researching beforeshe wrote this book. Actually a book
(23:00):
that is based on Shahrazad from onethousand and one Nights. This one is
a book that Jamia Albert always wantedto read Shahrazade herself a spotlight where her
mind and machinations were front and center, where the historical world she would have
occupied was palpable. So that's whyshe spent so much time researching the time
(23:23):
period in which she actually lived.So the Jamila Ahmad's version of the story
is set in the twelfth century CeljookEmpire, where a clever and dreamy Shahrazad
marries a murderous ruler who marries andbeheads a new wife every night. And
because she herself was instrumental in thefirst wife being found out for infidelity,
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she's always felt guilty about it,and therefore that's why she convinceits her father
to let her be married to theruler, and on their wedding night,
she begins a yarn, but asthe sun ascends, she cuts the story
short. And we know this,right, this is the this is the
beat of the original story. Soevery night she starts a new yarn and
(24:11):
she cuts the story short. Butso it's her fault that I have to
figure a cliffhanger every day. Ithink it's a show. Why don't it's
the originator of the cliffhanger. Oh, yeah, oh yeah, yeah.
But one of one of the interestingthings about this version of the story is
(24:33):
that Jamilla Ahmad has decided that shedoesn't want to be She doesn't want the
stories to be the point of readingA thousand one Nights. The reason you
say A thousand one nights because that'sa thousand one stories right in the collection.
So it's not really about Shahra's outherself, it's about the stories.
And in the original, of course, after A thousand one Nights, the
(24:56):
Sultan realizes that you don't he doesI want to kill her because he's actually
fallen in love with her after allthis time. So in this story it's
kind of different. The author haschanged every writing son to focus on Shaharraza's
story itself, so rather than thestory it tells, it tells the first
person story of Shaharraza and explores herinterior world, her doubts and passions.
(25:22):
She also weaves in historically inspired plotlineinvolving the Third Crusade and the conquest of
Kerman, the capital of the showSeljook Empire, so she's not only just
this person who tells stories, she'sactually an active political figure as well.
So I think, Yeah, that'sthat's a really really nice twist, and
I think would be really interesting toread this book. As Shadazad bumped,
(25:51):
nudged, and forced her way throughthe illustrious crowd like a no weeld goat,
she stepped on a pearl, aluminous, full moons move and white,
one of many scattered by careful servanthands. She stumbled, flaying out
her arms and striking a green robepotentate, who whirled away like an angry
top flushing. Chhazod cast about surreptitiously, hoping no one else had seen her.
(26:18):
Her ten years old and practically awoman, trip like a child.
To Chahazod's dismay, She caught thecoal lined eye of father Nachratun. Ratun's
lips parted in not unkind amusement.Her pale hand trembled as she nudged the
Meluk whispered in his ear. Hegrinned at Schahrazade neat white teeth flashing bright
(26:44):
hotness drowned Schahazod's cheeks, humiliations slickingher stomach before she could flee, hide
beneath a table, or better inan empty courtyard, or abandoned room.
Emeluk beckoned her. This was anorder from her Ruin, her Baba's master.
How could she bet obey? Tentatively, Shahazod stepped forward, her face
(27:07):
to her chest. Shahrazad genuflected fromthe waist as she had seen her babadul
a Salama Lokam. Shahrazad Amluk's mouthtwitched with humor. How well you look?
Shadhazod nodded, but could not speak. She had never felt more a
cultish, foolish girl than in theface of the couple's blossom beauty. The
(27:32):
Rahdun's ebony hair, barely obscured bya sheer storm, blue veil cascaded past
her hips in fine plats. Theemeralds and gold of her dyed and picked
out the sunshine on grass color ofher eyes. If it were possible,
though, my look was even morebeautiful, with cold black hair, tilted
(27:52):
dark eyes, high cheek bones,and a nobly curved nose. When he
glanced at his bride flushed obligingly,he lowed. Shadhrazade knew, just knew
that theirs was a love that wouldbe sung down the ages like the sagas
of Laila, Imagin Viz and Ramin, hoss Rau and Sharin. The Malok
(28:17):
returned to his attention to Schahrazade,his grin filled with the sum of his
youth and innocence. Indulge me alittle, Schadhrazade, and let me tell
you of the moment I fell inlove. He caressed Fult in his fingers.
I mean, the other thing thatA Thousand and Why Knights kind of
(28:38):
started as well, is this framestory, right, the story within the
story. And I think it's kindof cool that this makes the frame story
the main story. You're not sittingthere going like, Okay, this woman
is telling story to a man.You're actually seeing what happens when she's not
telling a story to the man.You know what, and what happens here
is that she still spins fantastical talesabout gins and explorer, but she actually
(29:03):
frames women in it more prominently,in kind of like a cunning way,
just as Cunning and sha result youknow, Jamila also has done this.
She has actually reframed women within thestory of A thousand and one Nights.
If this turns out to be asgood as I think it is, that
now we might have to discuss thisbook. We may have to. We
may just we might have to.Yeah, yeah, this is yeah,
(29:26):
okay, the next book. Nowwe are going back to Britain. So
this is Rebecca sto It's Dark Earthand Rebecca Stot as a novelist and a
historian. And this is set ina D five hundred what does a D
stand for? And a Domini afterJesus Christ. You know, that's when
(29:47):
they started counting the years. Yes, okay, Domini, okay, okay.
So this is a story of twosisters, Aila and Blue and they
live an exile on an island onthe Great River which is what we today
as the River Themes, and whentheir father dies, these two women have
to fan for themselves. So basicallyit's about them figuring out how to survive
(30:10):
in a male dominated dark ages Britain. They actually go to the Ghost City,
which is an abandoned ruins of aonce glorious Roman settlement called Londinium,
which I guess it is the procursorto London on the north bank of the
Teams And now they have to figureout how to you know, live and
(30:30):
survive. So basically, their father, you know, was a legendary blacksmith,
and he uses dark magic to makefire tongue sorts. I've actually read
this book, have you, Yeah, I have. I guess you call
it more historical fantasy. So that'sone of the things I find quite interesting
about. There's this quite amorphous linebetween fantasy and ancient history. Right,
(30:56):
there's so much that we don't knowthat we have to make up. Plus
a lot of the time you haveto realize that back then, what people
didn't understand about science and the worldaround them, they kind of like made
it out to be magic. Yeah, so that's why it's it's considered fantasy,
but it just it's just ancient history. Hold up, So did the
father actually find meat? E scaliberI said ailer a spoiler because I read
(31:26):
I read somewhere that they say thatactually it's quite melo dramatic, So it
is. You know, there's alot of melodrama in this book that doesn't
kind of drive with the whole historicalaspect of it. I think I think
the author did try to make itmore like she she wanted to ground the
story of being a female and inthe difficulties of being a female at that
(31:51):
time as well. So that's probablymore of her focus, so she doesn't
really lean too much into the It'salso say that it doesn't have those elements,
but it's it doesn't have Arthur's storyin that per se because it's meant
to focus on the two sisters.Okay, okay, fine, okay,
okay, fine, because I don'tcare. I know, a throwing legends.
(32:15):
I always brought up whatever you talkabout, like, you know,
ancient British history, which is whyI tried to find something that that was
suitable. And this most recent onethat was that I could find. But
yeah, I mean, like definitelyauthor in religends. I'd put that on
this list. I don't see whynot. Yeah, yeah, I mean
this is also kind of like yourwheelhouse as well. You do like historical
(32:37):
fantasy, that's your thing, Yes, I do, Yes, I do.
It's it's that perfect combination of historyand you know, witch eat stuff
like I tend to find that interesting. I don't know why I have something
to do with the with the wholewhole idea of it. This is just
women wielding magic. Yeah, I'llsend yeah, yeah, okay. So
(33:02):
the next one that I have thatI want to talk about is very far
from from that book. It's It'sLady Dune's Circle of Women, but by
Lisa's Says, which came out thisyear as well. Lisa sees, of
course, very well known for herbooks rooted in Chinese and Korean cultures.
(33:22):
You know, she wrote like TheIsland Seawomen, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird
Lane, and this time around she'schosen to write a story that is probably
the furthest back in history I thinkthat she's written. So it's set in
the Ming dynasty around the fourteenth tothe seventeenth century, So I know I'm
stretching it a bit when it talksto when it comes to ancient culture.
(33:45):
But you know, the main dynastyis pretty much ancient where as far as
we're concerned, because it was youknow, it was, it was many
dynacies ago. Come on, youcan read this after you read He Who
Drowned the World. Yes, yes, So this is actually had based on
a true story. It's based onthe story about a doctor, a real
(34:06):
doctor named Dan Jinsien, who wenton to publish a compendium of cases in
a work called The Miscellaneous Records ofa Female Doctor. So she was one
of the very early female doctors inthe Mean dynasty. I think a lot
of women were not allowed to workin this industry. But it's just that
(34:29):
because men didn't want to touch women, especially if you're an elite woman,
you wouldn't let it a male touchyou. So yeah, that's probably why
they had women who were considered tobe doctors as well. So this girl,
she was born into an elite familyand raised by her grandmother, who
was one of only a handful offemale doctors in China, and from a
(34:52):
young age, she's learning from hergrandmother all about women's illnesses, especially those
eighteen to childbearing, and she getsto know a midwife mailing and they become
really good friends. Now, doctorsand midwives they don't actually, they're not
to say, they don't work togetherso much. Midwives are supposed to be
(35:15):
kind of unclean because they touch bloodand that's something that a doctor doesn't do.
So go figure, Go figure.But those of you who do not
know, I just made a face, like what do they do? They're
just kind of like sort out yourbones? What's happening here? They just
(35:36):
probably like give you potions to drink. Yeah, you know, you don't
what those medicines, like, yeah, yeah, you're Chinese medicines. Like
it's it's like it kind of likeyou're just touching, you know, like
the Meridians and you touch the policiesthat kind of you accupuncture. Yeah,
yeah, you don't. You don't. You don't deal with the dirty stuff,
yuki stuff. So they were veryelite back then. I guess if
(36:00):
it's a time period that interests youbased on a true story, no less,
based on what the experiences of afemale and a doctor. Yeah,
it sounds like a really really interestingstory. And you know, it only
came out in June and it alreadyhas four point four stars from eighteen thousand
ratings, so shows you how manypeople have read this book. Wow,
(36:22):
wow, wow, you know Imean, I mean it's called Lady Tans
Circle of Women. So to me, it feels like it is a story
about how important female friendships are,isn't it. It's sort of like,
even in those days, you needyour girls, you know what I mean,
to kind of like help you getthrough the day, help you fight
(36:43):
patriarchy, or help you, youknow, give birth to a child.
So I don't know, maybe Ithink maybe that's why people really like it
because it's sisterhood right in a lotof ways, I'm just projecting here,
guys. It might not even bedead at all. It might be a
very good manual about how to youknow, do less surgery. But I
(37:05):
do know it starts with a footbinding scene. So the book starts with
a foot binding scene, and herown mother dies of a food infection.
It kind of sets that right there, right, like how much women and
women are good breeding also are verymuch in a cage, right, are
very much. And the fact thatshe found some kind of independence by practicing
(37:28):
medicine, that's pretty cool. Letme go into Victory City by Someone Rushdi
because I thought it might be coolto have a book set in India for
an ancient civilization, right, althoughagain this is sort of like a bit
of a fantastical empire based on Ithink a city that did exist, but
(37:49):
someone rushdie when he goes into hisfantasy work. It's very hard to talk
about a Someone Rushdi book if youhaven't really read the book itself, you
know, because usually he's stuff isvery dense, there's so many layers.
Usually is very probose, so youhave to kind of really pick your way
through the book, but anyway,So, this is an epic tale of
a woman who breathes a fantastical empireinto existence. It is set in fourteenth
(38:15):
century southern India. Or a nineyear old girl has a divine encounter that
will change the course of history.So Pampa Campana very illiterative name, becomes
a vessel for a goddess who beginsto speak out through her mouth and it
gives her power beyond her comprehension.And the goddess basically tells her that she
(38:37):
will be instrumental in the rise ofa great city called biz Nugga, which
is Victory City a one day ofthe world. So and she lived a
very long life so over the nexttwo hundred and fifty years. Maybe because
she was the voice of you know, spokesperson of God. She also has
a long life. She becomes interwovenwith biz Nugga from the sowing of a
bag of magic seats to its tragicnation in the most human of ways.
(39:00):
The hubris of those in power.And this is a theme that someone Rushdie
goes back again and again. Howgreat empires somehow fail to live up to
its grando. Victory City is Englishfor j Vijaya Naga. It is actually
an actual city, you know,so it's ruins are actually a UNESCO World
(39:22):
Heritage Site and it's now called Humpyand so it is sort of like set
in a city that might have existed. But there's also a lot of kind
of like fiction interwoven within it aswell. I think it's always fascinating to
to look at all these old ruinsand we just don't those so much like
it. So much has been lostin the best of times, right,
(39:45):
like all those ancient ruins that wehave, and we kind of like only
guess at what happened there. It'sfascinating to think about the people who live
there and what they have've been like, and you know, whether or not
we could see they have efects oftheir lives upon ours, like whether or
not you know, we can stillsee the same threats that I mean,
(40:07):
the hum risk of men. Itis. It is a theme that goes
again and again, you know,like like great empires, the way the
way in the rise and way orgreat empires. And I think if that's
one thing that makes this prompts sointeresting this month, is that it's like
you read about all these ancient civilizationsand whether or not is something. I
mean, there are books that areset in those civilizations but goes into very
(40:30):
small lives, to the lives ofemperors and conquerors. And yet the fundamental
truth of it all is that everythingis really temporary. Isn't it even an
illusion of power? Better that youhave less control over your life? I
don't know, like reading about greatempires falling, you know, So I
(40:52):
can't let this opportunity go without talkingabout Jonoviv GNI checks The Weaver and the
Witch Queen, which is a bookthat I'm very excited to read, but
I haven't read each. I haven'tread because it's on paper. I have
it on paper, and I hadI didn't download it on my iPad,
(41:13):
and therefore, you know, likeI usually read at night in the dark.
I know it's bad, but Ido that. So I do that
too. I do that too anyway. Anyway, The Weaver and the Witch
Queen is a deeply moving novel ofmagic history and sorn sisterhood set in the
Viking Age, So Viking age thatalready grips me. So yeah, and
(41:39):
and we we both read and lovedGenevieve. Goni checks the witch's Heart right,
So this one is related. It'salso based in you know, the
Norse traditions, but this is moreI guess down to earth. It's not
the mythology. It is about thelives of two women, one who is
(42:00):
desperate to save her missing sister andthe other one is a witch, you
know, a person who's trained tobe a witch. And she's destined,
however, to become the Queen ofNorway. And this is set in tenth
century Norway. So Oddny and Gunhildmeet as children, and they could not
(42:22):
be more different because Oddny hopes fora quiet life while Gunhild burns for power
and longs to escape her cruel mother. And ten years later after they meet,
they meet up again when Oddny's farmis destroyed and her sister is kidnapped
by Viking raiders. Gunhild, whofled her home years ago to learn the
(42:45):
ways of a witch, is surprisedto find that her destiny seems to be
linked with that of the formidable kingiriq Air, apparent to the ruler or
Norway. I deliberately don't want toread to about this book because I want
to discover it. Well, I'mreading it so, but if the first
(43:05):
book was anything to go by,I think I think I would love this
one. Oh yeah, Gania issuch a great writer. Yeah, you
know, in a sea of retellings, in a sea of feminists reimagining yet
another book. Right, But Ithought The Witch's Heart was was really kind
of like one of the better ones, one of the best ones that I've
read of those sort of like retellings, you know. And she's she's very
(43:27):
much into Norse stuff, that's thething, you know. I'm going to
go super quickly into some nonfiction incase those of you out there want to
read some nonfiction and want to getvery ambitious about reading nonfiction books about ancient
civilization. So we started off withPompey about the Romans. So if you
(43:49):
want to really sink your teeth intosomething about the Roman Empire. As PQR
by Mary Beard has been described asmagisterial, Roman history is always being rewritten
and always has been. In someways, we know more about ancient Rome
(44:12):
than the Romans themselves did. RomanHistory, in other words, is a
work in progress. This book ismy contribution to that bigger project. It
offers my version of why it mattersSPQR takes its title from another famous Roman
catchphrase, Senators Populus que Romanus,the Senate and people of Rome. It
(44:38):
is driven by a personal curiosity aboutRoman history, by a conviction that a
dialogue with ancient Rome is still wellworth having, and by the question of
how a tiny and very unremarkable littlevillage in central Italy became so dominant a
power over so much territory in threecontinents. This is a book about how
(45:00):
Rome grew and sustained its position forso long, not about how it declined
and fell, if indeed it everdid, in the sense that Gibbon imagined.
There are many ways that histories ofRome might construct a fitting conclusion.
Some have chosen the conversion of theEmperor Constantine to Christianity on his deathbed in
(45:22):
three hundred and thirty seven CE,or the sack of the city in four
hundred and ten CE by Alaric andhis Visigoths. Mine ends with a culminating
moment in two hundred and twelve cE, when the Emperor Caracola took the
step of making every single free inhabitantof the Roman Empire a full Roman citizen,
(45:44):
eroding the difference between conqueror and conquered, and completing a process of expanding
the rights and privileges of Roman citizenshipthat had started almost a thousand years earlier.
The Romans did not start out witha grand plan of world conquest,
although eventually they did parade their empirein terms of some manifest destiny. The
(46:07):
motivations that originally lay behind their militaryexpansion through the Mediterranean world and beyond are
still one of history's Greek puzzles.In acquiring their empire, the Romans did
not brutally trample over innocent peoples whowere minding their own business in peaceable harmony
(46:27):
until the Legions appeared on the horizon. Roman victory was undoubtedly vicious. Julius
Caesar's conquest of Gaul has not unfairlybeen compared to genocide, and was criticized
by Romans at the time in thoseterms. But Rome expanded into a world
not of communities living at peace withone another, but of endemic violence,
(46:51):
rival power bases backed up by militaryforce. There was not really any alternative
backing and many empires, most ofRome's enemies were as militaristic as the Romans.
But for reasons I should try toexplain they did not win. So
(47:14):
the great thing about Mary Beard isthat she is the only female classics lecture
at Cambridge University and she has becomeone of the most prominent voices about the
Roman civilization. So that's one ifyou want to have something really meaty and
really kind of want to think yourselfinto history. What Diana was saying just
now about going and walking into ruins, there is a book that was written
(47:38):
in nineteen to nineteen fifties. Itis a travel log. You can actually
download a PDF of it. It'scalled Pleasure of Ruins by Robin macaulay,
and it's actually a love letter tofamous sites that she visited in their decaying
state. So she writes about allowingthem to remain how they are without the
efforts of restoration, and has beautifulphotos of these ruins alongside quotes from po
(48:00):
a's an author's who loved them,as well as their own notes and observations
about what you can enjoy from walkingin a ruined city. So yeah,
I kind of want to check thatout if you like Mayans, you know,
because the Mayan civilization, they wereconstructing their pyramids. So when classical
Greece was just flowering was in hisinfancy. So The Jungle of Stone,
(48:22):
The Extraordinary Journey of the American explorerwho discovered the law civilization of the Mayans.
That is literally the title. It'sthe longest title on our list by
William Carlson. So it follows theadventures of John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood
in eighteen thirty nine where they pursuedthe rumors of extraordinary ruins in the jungles
of Central America and uncovered the remainsof ancient Mayans. Recently went to a
(48:47):
Mayan exhibition at the Mats and theyhave amazing stuff, babe. In fact,
I think they probably might have donethe first comic book because their actual
drawings who were very graphic novel likeand they put it on jazz and stuff
like that, and even have likekind of top bubbles that has hieroglyphicsed in
it. Oh, so it's quitecool, right, yeah, so cool.
(49:10):
And speaking of that, why don'tyou pick up a graphic novel about
an ancient civilization? Why don't youpick up three hundred by Frank Miller.
If you enjoy the movie with allthose nice beefy mane in loincloths right.
Read the original comic book. It'sa fictional retelling of historical battle the Spartans
the three hundred Spatterns. It depictsthe battle of term of My God card
(49:36):
pronouncis Termorphuley and Spartaus King Leonidas,you know, attempt to invade Persia and
finally, and this is completely offthe beaten track, but it is actually
also something that inspires someone Rushti whenhe was writing a victoricity. It a
Locavino's Invisible Cities, which is aset of conversation between Marco Pollo and the
(50:00):
Mongol Emperor China, and they basicallytalk about imaginary cities and it's like vignettes
of really interesting cities, and it'sa work of imagination as well as maybe
these cities did exist. I don'tknow how to describe it. I loved
it because all these cities seem tobe somewhere that I want to go.
But you know, there are probablyworks of the imagination, you know.
(50:22):
So it's that kind of idea thatsome as you were saying that these cities
are so far in the past,maybe they might have existed, why not,
you know? Cool? Yeah,I think I think there's definitely room
to explore here, and you know, like branch out in as many ways
as you can, because you mightthink that you have certain books that you've
(50:45):
already chosen for yourself that you canjust go to your TBR just look through
find something that Pitt's built. Yes, definitely you could probably do that.
But I mean, I hope we'veinspired you to pick out the box,
to look at books that you don'twould normally look at, you know,
like try expanding a little bit thecircle of your reading. Yeah, I
(51:09):
mean you can pick up like likeRick Roydon's Heroes of the Olympus. You
can even do middle grade. Youcan do ya, right, because there's
so many of these are sad andand and I find that really I guess
that's how you keep these ancient civilizationsalive, you know, like they always
say, like the true death iswhen nobody ever talks about you anymore.
(51:34):
You know that that sort of idea, right, So, you know,
I mean Egyptian, we haven't evengone to any books on Egyptian one like
that. You know, like somany Cambodian you know, like Uncle whit
No, everybody, please please pleasepick up a book in this challenge.
It's such a cool challenge exactly.Okay, take it home, Diana.
Thank you for joining us today.I sort of say that, you know,
(52:00):
we we've got to the stage wherewe're not always doing these episodes about
the book challenge for the month.But even so, I hope you take
away something inspiring from just just youknow, talking about books on a certain
topic. And if you pick upanything from from this list that you think
you're gonna you're gonna read. Andif you or if any of them has
(52:22):
been something that you've actually read andloved, do reach out to us,
Do drop us a line, ormaybe just connect with us on our social
media. We're on Instagram at tbntBooks, We're on Facebook at to budess
talking. Yeah, just reach outto us, say hi, we love
to hear from Yeah, post apicture and thank us. You know,
(52:44):
we know that we're not talking into avoid It's always nice to know that
see you. Yes, thanks everybody. I have a good book week. Why
Hello everyone. I think today isgoing to be something on August's challenge,
even though this episode is going tocome out quite near the end of August.
So as usual, Hello, Iam Honey, and my partner here
is Dinah. We are recording atnight in our own houses because both our
neighbors seems to be drilling lots ofwood at the woman. How are you,
(00:39):
Dinah? Yeah, there seems tobe multiple people. I live in
a condo, so you know,like you can't really help the fact that
sound travels through the walls like areally really long distance, so I can't
tell which direction is coming from.But this but all sort of like sounds
like going on all days of alot of people. Do you lot of
(01:00):
things in this house? Yeah?Well I have a neighbor that is about
to move in and they're doing likemajor renovation. Yeah. So anyway,
this is not very exciting because thepeople who tune into Our Shoes want to
know about books. Just to giveyou guys an idea about what we're talking
about today, the TBNT book challengefor August. I don't know how you
(01:23):
guys are doing if your book challenges, how is it going? The challenge
for August is a book either setin an ancient city or about ancient civilizations.
And Diana came out with quite afantastic list, and some of it
really sort of like it's on thefringes of what we would say an ancient
you know, honestly, does theancient civilization need to be something set on
(01:47):
Earth? I suppose that's the question. It can be an ancient alien civilization.
Yeah, yeah, I mean,like, you know, that's fun
with a prompt, right, youuse it the way you want to.
It's just meant to pick your interest. Is meant to like giving something else
to explore in the bookstore maybe,or you know, if you gain look
(02:07):
online to see what's out there.Generally I end up with a ton of
new books on my my TVR.So, oh my god, this particular
list, I have to say someof them. I was thinking we should
discuss some of these books so interesting, and most of them are set on
Earth. Quite a number of themis set in an alternative historical setting,
(02:34):
I guess. But yeah, solet's get into it, because the list
is really long, and I alsowant to give a couple of nonfictions at
the end in case those of youwho are interested in reading. Of course,
if you want to read about ancientcivilization or an ancient city, you
can just pick up a nonfiction onthat civilization or city. And that's sorted
really since you know, we arelargely a fiction podcast, so it's going
(02:58):
to be fiction first. Kick usoff, my friend, what do you
have for us? So the firstone I have for you happened a really
really long time ago. This oneis a book that actually just came out
this month, and I found thisone's particularly interesting because it's called a novel,
but it has a really interesting structurebecause it's actually written by six different
(03:22):
authors and they're all pretty well knownauthors as well. So it's called A
Day of Fire, a novel ofPompeii. It calls back to the events
that happened when the bout Vesuvius eruptedin Pompeii way back in the seventy nine,
and it reimagines the events of thatfateful day from the perspectives of six
(03:47):
different people. So it's different peoplewho are in the town just hours,
maybe a day or two before thevolcano erupted. Yeah, So it's got
authors such as Kate Quinn, Stephaniedre Ben Kine, Eliza Knight, Sophie
Perido, and Vicki Elvier and They'veall which is actually one chapter out of
(04:10):
this book. The interesting thing aboutit is that even though one chapter written
by each of the authors, it'sactually meant to be read as a single
narrative, so one leads onto theother. It's just told from the perspective
of different people. So chapter oneis called the Sun, Chapter two is
the Heiress, chapter three is theSoldier, and then you have the Senator,
(04:31):
the mother, and it ends withthe Whore. It could go either
way in terms of how good thestorytelling is, but reviews say it's actually
good and the stories flow really wellto each other because it's been planned in
that way. They do actually connectto each other. It's a story that
connects. I just kind of flickedit open because they had like a preview,
(04:53):
and it starts out with the Sun, and it starts out with basically
a young man going to meet hislove Will, which I'm going to assume
is the whore at the end ofI'm the sixth story, so maybe he's
booked and by that, like youknow, he's going off to meet the
woman that he desires, and thisjust happens before Mount Vesuvius erupts Pompeii.
(05:21):
In the first year of the ruleof Emperor Titus Flavius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus,
I discreetly tightened my loin cloth asI approached Pompei Sano Gate. The mere
sight of the chipped arch funneling usinto the city, the knowledge that I
was that much closer to her,made my body respond in a most embarrassing
(05:44):
way. I did not need mytinted tunic announcing to the world my business
in Pompeii. Thank Prayapus for thepressure of the cloth. The line into
the city inched along like a bloatedleech. I should my head to clear
the image from my mind. Myuncle's insistence on regular bleedings drove me to
(06:05):
distraction. Balancing your humors will helpclear the spots on your face, he
said, and it will help yougrow. Some boys don't finish growing until
they are in their twenties, headded, with undisguised hope. I resisted
scratching the spot on my back wherethe last of the little suckers had been
(06:27):
removed. After the physician bled me, and I suppressed a shudder at the
memory of that glistening, slimy bodyswollen with my own blood. So far
my uncle's plan to help me growbigger and failed miserably. The former General,
the great Naturalist, the Admiral ofEmperor Titus Navy, was a big
ox like man, as was myfather, everyone always told me, though
(06:53):
I never knew him. It wasalmost as if my uncle took it as
a personal affront that I did nottake after him or my father put and
built like my mother his own tinysister Plinia instead, as if I were
pleased by this cruel trick of thegods. Reeking rivermen and sweat stained traders
(07:14):
from sealernum pressed in all around me. I would have to scrub well at
Julia's house before going to see mygirl. Of course, just as I
was almost through the arch, someold farmer got the wheel of his onion
carts stuck in a rut, forcingthe rest of us to stop. I
should have known Pombay was such abusy port town. There were always delays.
(07:38):
Like my lover, the city teasedme continually. And the thing about
there's really eerie about pomp By isbecause I have been to Pompy and I
have seen the bodies that were preservedand how you know, you just just
basically people are just quite in themiddle of eating dinner. There's actually a
(07:58):
pregnant woman that tries to go upa hill in order to escape and she
just dies covered in ashes. Youknow, a family, I mean like
a woman huddled in a seller forchildren. So I think what these authors
might have done is to see whatkind of bodies that were preserved and think
of a story that interlinks all thesepeople, you know, because that is
(08:20):
the equalizer, right when a nationaldisaster happens, well no sorry, not
a national sorry, a natural disasterhappens. It doesn't matter if you're an
emperor or if you're a servant ora slave. Everybody dies. Basically,
the dialer's got to know. Thenext book that I'm very excited about,
and I think she is as well, is Shelly paka Chan's He Who Drowned
the World. And we interview Shelleypaka Chan. I think was last season
(08:46):
for her first book of the RadiantEmperor duology. So the good thing about
it that this is the second book, so their story ends here. It
is roughly based on real people,but it's almost like a gender bander telling
and it follows the founding emperor ofthe Ming dynasty. Okay, Dina,
can you please pronounce the name ofthis Emperor Zuya and Song? Yes?
(09:11):
Okay, very nice. Okay,So Emperor Zoo, well, not an
emperor yet because at the end ofshe who became the son, she is
victorious after she has taken southern Chinaaway from his Mongol masters, and now
she's aiming for the throne. She'saiming to be the emperor. Now.
The great thing about this book,I remember both me and Dina loved it
(09:33):
so much because he had such vividand amazing characters. You're so invested in
all the characters exactly exactly, allthe people who have either lost or one
in the previous book. They're allkind of plotting. Everybody has an agenda.
You will get back into the mindsof people like the eunuch General Hullam,
(09:54):
who has you know, sacrificed everythingto you know, take vengeance on
his father's killer, the Great Kun. And then there's also Wang baos Young
basically the court games that people playin order to get power. So there's
tons of intrigue. There's tons ofbackstabbing, but it's also very epic and
(10:16):
sweeping. There's lots of desire andunrequited love. Oh, it's all the
good stuff. So yeah, soin a way, this is kind of
like an alternate history because I thinkEmperor Zoo really did exist, but I
did not think that Emperor Zoo wasa woman, but this one reimagines him
as a woman. Is this aspoiler? I don't know, because if
you read She Who Became the Sun, you know very much that basically it
(10:39):
is a girl who has taken overthe identity of her own brother, you
know. And yeah, so eitherthan that, it's loosely based on historical
figures. A lot of the historicalfigures actually existed. She just repurposes it
to make this kind of epic tale. I mean, you know, it
could have been the truth, becausewe wouldn't wouldn't know if they if that
(11:00):
person changed their personality, right,I mean, who's to say that nothing
like this ever happened in the entirehistory of the world. This is very
true, but it is after allin fourteenth century, right, so you
know, all kinds of stuff couldhave happened. People would have taken people's
identities, no one would be underwiser exactly. There you go. Yeah,
and what exactly gets passed down inhistory is actually very very much subjective.
(11:26):
It's something that somebody wrote down becausethey had a certain agenda, they
had a certain idea about what thetruth was. And yeah, so you
know that's always the interesting thing abouthistory. I think, you know,
that's why we find these retellients likelike Cis and Electra and all of those
(11:46):
stories. It could have been trueif somebody else wrote it, right,
It's just that certain people decided totell the story from their perspective. Okay,
One other book that I am actuallycurrently into kind of reading. This
book. It's called Haven by EmmaDonna Hue and also came out this month.
This is a book that's been inspiredbut the true history of an early
(12:11):
Christian monastery founded on islands, ScalingIslands. So basically, Emma Donna Hue,
she just went on this trip destroyto this really remote island and there
was just this monastery just standing rightthere out of nowhere, like on this
tiny island where there's nobody else,there's something else. How did they survive?
(12:31):
She's basically thinking about the kind ofmindset that these priests had to isolate
themselves in such a harsh and isolatedenvironment. You know, why did they
want to do this and what drovethem? What kind of things were they
thinking about when they wanted to justbasically leave civilization and they believed in God
(12:54):
so much that they could actually sustainthemselves. Sustaining yourself just on on your
faith, right. So it's setin seventh century Ireland, and in this
novel we follow a scholar and aprescott, Art, who has a dream
telling him to leave the sinful worldbehind. And he takes two monks with
(13:15):
him, a young one and anold one, and he rows down a
river in search of an isolated spotin which to found a monastery. The
dream is an instruction to withdraw fromthe world, to set out on pilgrimage
with two companions, find this islandand found a monastic retreat. The abbot's
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mouth opens and shots a fish gaspingon this island, which is where do
you believe? Far away in theWestern Ocean, away from everything. Art
holds up the map in his handand lets the linen on Rome the letters
(14:03):
Hibernia float beside the jagged silhouette thatresembles an oak leaf or a wolf skin.
Our men of God who go intothe wild places, since there are
no deserts in our Hibernia, ofcourse, many establish houses in forests or
glens, or on lake islands.Indeed, isn't Ireland a byeword for such
(14:26):
holy hermitages. His host's smoked tonesticks and Art's crawl standing there swaddled in
embroidered linen, reeking of Gaulish wine. How many times the abbot must have
recited Christ's call, sell all youhave, give it to the poor,
and follow me without ever hearing it. But Art hasn't come here in the
(14:52):
middle of the night to preach tothe abbot, only to get his permission.
He pushes on those who hate theworld. Most have to go even
farther to escape its seductions. Rightout the sea, he moves his finger
to the right. See in thewaters between us and Albion, blessed Nessen
(15:15):
and Columned Hill, each landed onhis allotted rock. There then this large
island off our north coast. Touchinga dart on the map, Sainted Congoles
claimed that one for God. Butit is in the great Ocean on our
western side, that the waters mostrichly seeded with refuges ar't taps to the
(15:37):
left of Hibernia with one nail.The blessed Rioch discovered his here, for
instance, and Macdarrah to the southof him. Further south again Holy Ana,
Brecon, Sennon, and Quivan.They set up their monasteries among the
isles of Aaron like beacons on thefrontier of Christendom, manned only by the
(15:58):
best fight is keeping the devil outby the power of prayer. Art's fingers
slides down that coast. For allmy researches, I haven't yet learned of
any monks south of there, headmits, But there must be more islands
that way, empty ones even lesstainted by the world's breath. That's where
(16:21):
I'm to go. And then,yeah, they finally find a place and
they start building, you know,and and then slowly the supplies run out,
and you know, they have tofigure out how they survive, And
being really stubborn and believing in hisvision, Art doesn't want to go back
(16:44):
to you know, civilization and gethelp. You know, he doesn't want
to to turn back basically, So, yeah, so the trio I kind
of like pushed to the limit asthey increasingly cling to blind faith, and
yeah, the situation gets really,really dire, so you know, like
what is it like being in theirheads. Emma Domin donohue has a very
(17:07):
long history of writing historical fiction.This is her fourteen novel and her eighteenth
book of fiction. So far.I'm only about a quarter of the way
into this book, and it's it'svery interesting. I don't know, there's
something about the whole idea of thisof these people like roughing it and and
you're figuring it out as they goalong that kind of grip space. So
(17:30):
I find it quite quite a quiet, contemplative read. But at the same
time, it's kind of like it'sreally you can imagine it getting to really
dark places, so let's see howthat goes. But it kind of sounds
it kind of sounds like something Iwould love because it sounds very cool,
and it sounds like it sounds veryminimalistic. But also I'm sure because of
(17:57):
the starkness of your situation, thebeautiful things are more poignant. And I
was reading somewhere that people likened thisa little bit to the minimalism that of
the room which is a novel thatshe wrote, because again it is about
two people held captive, you know, in a small room, but this
(18:18):
one is actually on this tiny rock. I wonder whether it's kind of like
a metaphor for the fact that wealso kind of live in this one little
planet, right, and and howwe are going to survive all this kind
of stuff. I don't know,or if she had doing the pandemic and
then you're like everyone's isolated there yougo, you get what's happening, you
go. Yeah, So it soundslike very very stark, very minimalistic,
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But I don't know, it's theit's the sort of like it's the description
of the environment really beautiful, youknow, like I can imagine, right,
because didn't it film Star Wars onthis island or something like I think
they did? Yeah, I thinkepisode eight, right, isn't it where
Ray found look Skywalker standing on theedge of this beautiful yet barren place.
(19:06):
You know. Interesting. I'm goingto check it out, Shifting somewhere Else.
Just come out last month is Jezebelby Megan Bernard. And you know,
like when I was reading, youknow that people always say that you're
such a such a Jezebel. Youknow, it's becomes sort of like the
word that you use for a wickedwoman who's also a bit of a slide,
(19:30):
right, But of course Jezebel isa biblical figure and a paganistic figure
as well. Basically, they saythat this book attempts to do for Jezebel
what Madeline Miller did for c OrSarcy. I call it cercy dinasais surs.
So it's a re imagining of astory of definition princess that went and
got married to Prince Ahab of Israel. And there she actually, I believe,
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because she worshiped a nature god calledbal she Ba, basically tried to
sort of like convert people to worshipher pagan god while over there it is
actually Yahweh, Yahweh, that theHebrew god Yahweh is worship. So it's
the time during the prophet Elijah.I'm sure this story is in the Koran
as well. It's just that,you know, Jezebel has always been very
(20:18):
much closely you know, it's likeit's a biblical figure, right, and
yeah, and because her religion isvery paganistic, right, because they have
sexual rituals and it's got like harnetsin the temple. Everybody associates her with
heathen behavior, and of course,as any great biblical epic tale, all
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ends up in bloodshed where everybody ison a mountain, where there is sort
of like a face off between herreligion and Yahweh's religion, and lots of
slaughter happens. You know, whenI was kind of looking through the sort
of like history of it, becausethis book kind of I thought it was
kind of interesting. I went like, wow, this is this rival's game
(21:02):
of thrones, you know, Imean the political machinations, but also there's
so much of this religious furvor So, I don't know, it's this book
controversial, you think, Dina,because somebody's kind of giving a different spin
on Jezebel. What do you think. I mean, there have been a
number of books that have gone intolike this historical figures from the from the
(21:25):
Bible. Right, I think thisprobably hues closer to what historians know about
who she is. But of courseit's it's given this feminist spin, right,
So she's telling it from her pointof view, and of course trying
to look past all the perspective ofpatriarchy, which which was that women were
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bad, and especially a woman whotried, who tried to use her own
power in any way was seen asbad. And you kind of like,
go and get married it off tosomebody you don't know. I suppose you
would bring whatever brings you most comfort, right, which is your own belief
system. So do you really blameher, You know, at the end
(22:10):
of the day that she wants toestablish she wants to be a queen,
not just somebody's wife. Probably itmight be interesting to get stuck in it
if you are a you know,like a fan of feminist retellings. Definitely,
definitely. I would like to followthat up with another book that is
roughly from the same region of theworld. So this book is called Every
(22:34):
Rising Sun by Jemina Ahmed. Thisis a really interesting one because this book,
yes, this is so just reallyJemina Ahmed is actually a Harvard trained
lawyer, but she is a scholarof medieval Islamic history, and she spent
about fourteen years writing and researching beforeshe wrote this book. Actually a book
(23:00):
that is based on Shahrazad from onethousand and one Nights. This one is
a book that Jamia Albert always wantedto read Shahrazade herself a spotlight where her
mind and machinations were front and center, where the historical world she would have
occupied was palpable. So that's whyshe spent so much time researching the time
(23:23):
period in which she actually lived.So the Jamila Ahmad's version of the story
is set in the twelfth century CeljookEmpire, where a clever and dreamy Shahrazad
marries a murderous ruler who marries andbeheads a new wife every night. And
because she herself was instrumental in thefirst wife being found out for infidelity,
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she's always felt guilty about it,and therefore that's why she convinceits her father
to let her be married to theruler, and on their wedding night,
she begins a yarn, but asthe sun ascends, she cuts the story
short. And we know this,right, this is the this is the
beat of the original story. Soevery night she starts a new yarn and
(24:11):
she cuts the story short. Butso it's her fault that I have to
figure a cliffhanger every day. Ithink it's a show. Why don't it's
the originator of the cliffhanger. Oh, yeah, oh yeah, yeah.
But one of one of the interestingthings about this version of the story is
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that Jamilla Ahmad has decided that shedoesn't want to be She doesn't want the
stories to be the point of readingA thousand one Nights. The reason you
say A thousand one nights because that'sa thousand one stories right in the collection.
So it's not really about Shahra's outherself, it's about the stories.
And in the original, of course, after A thousand one Nights, the
(24:56):
Sultan realizes that you don't he doesI want to kill her because he's actually
fallen in love with her after allthis time. So in this story it's
kind of different. The author haschanged every writing son to focus on Shaharraza's
story itself, so rather than thestory it tells, it tells the first
person story of Shaharraza and explores herinterior world, her doubts and passions.
(25:22):
She also weaves in historically inspired plotlineinvolving the Third Crusade and the conquest of
Kerman, the capital of the showSeljook Empire, so she's not only just
this person who tells stories, she'sactually an active political figure as well.
So I think, Yeah, that'sthat's a really really nice twist, and
I think would be really interesting toread this book. As Shadazad bumped,
(25:51):
nudged, and forced her way throughthe illustrious crowd like a no weeld goat,
she stepped on a pearl, aluminous, full moons move and white,
one of many scattered by careful servanthands. She stumbled, flaying out
her arms and striking a green robepotentate, who whirled away like an angry
top flushing. Chhazod cast about surreptitiously, hoping no one else had seen her.
(26:18):
Her ten years old and practically awoman, trip like a child.
To Chahazod's dismay, She caught thecoal lined eye of father Nachratun. Ratun's
lips parted in not unkind amusement.Her pale hand trembled as she nudged the
Meluk whispered in his ear. Hegrinned at Schahrazade neat white teeth flashing bright
(26:44):
hotness drowned Schahazod's cheeks, humiliations slickingher stomach before she could flee, hide
beneath a table, or better inan empty courtyard, or abandoned room.
Emeluk beckoned her. This was anorder from her Ruin, her Baba's master.
How could she bet obey? Tentatively, Shahazod stepped forward, her face
(27:07):
to her chest. Shahrazad genuflected fromthe waist as she had seen her babadul
a Salama Lokam. Shahrazad Amluk's mouthtwitched with humor. How well you look?
Shadhazod nodded, but could not speak. She had never felt more a
cultish, foolish girl than in theface of the couple's blossom beauty. The
(27:32):
Rahdun's ebony hair, barely obscured bya sheer storm, blue veil cascaded past
her hips in fine plats. Theemeralds and gold of her dyed and picked
out the sunshine on grass color ofher eyes. If it were possible,
though, my look was even morebeautiful, with cold black hair, tilted
(27:52):
dark eyes, high cheek bones,and a nobly curved nose. When he
glanced at his bride flushed obligingly,he lowed. Shadhrazade knew, just knew
that theirs was a love that wouldbe sung down the ages like the sagas
of Laila, Imagin Viz and Ramin, hoss Rau and Sharin. The Malok
(28:17):
returned to his attention to Schahrazade,his grin filled with the sum of his
youth and innocence. Indulge me alittle, Schadhrazade, and let me tell
you of the moment I fell inlove. He caressed Fult in his fingers.
I mean, the other thing thatA Thousand and Why Knights kind of
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started as well, is this framestory, right, the story within the
story. And I think it's kindof cool that this makes the frame story
the main story. You're not sittingthere going like, Okay, this woman
is telling story to a man.You're actually seeing what happens when she's not
telling a story to the man.You know what, and what happens here
is that she still spins fantastical talesabout gins and explorer, but she actually
(29:03):
frames women in it more prominently,in kind of like a cunning way,
just as Cunning and sha result youknow, Jamila also has done this.
She has actually reframed women within thestory of A thousand and one Nights.
If this turns out to be asgood as I think it is, that
now we might have to discuss thisbook. We may have to. We
may just we might have to.Yeah, yeah, this is yeah,
(29:26):
okay, the next book. Nowwe are going back to Britain. So
this is Rebecca sto It's Dark Earthand Rebecca Stot as a novelist and a
historian. And this is set ina D five hundred what does a D
stand for? And a Domini afterJesus Christ. You know, that's when
(29:47):
they started counting the years. Yes, okay, Domini, okay, okay.
So this is a story of twosisters, Aila and Blue and they
live an exile on an island onthe Great River which is what we today
as the River Themes, and whentheir father dies, these two women have
to fan for themselves. So basicallyit's about them figuring out how to survive
(30:10):
in a male dominated dark ages Britain. They actually go to the Ghost City,
which is an abandoned ruins of aonce glorious Roman settlement called Londinium,
which I guess it is the procursorto London on the north bank of the
Teams And now they have to figureout how to you know, live and
(30:30):
survive. So basically, their father, you know, was a legendary blacksmith,
and he uses dark magic to makefire tongue sorts. I've actually read
this book, have you, Yeah, I have. I guess you call
it more historical fantasy. So that'sone of the things I find quite interesting
about. There's this quite amorphous linebetween fantasy and ancient history. Right,
(30:56):
there's so much that we don't knowthat we have to make up. Plus
a lot of the time you haveto realize that back then, what people
didn't understand about science and the worldaround them, they kind of like made
it out to be magic. Yeah, so that's why it's it's considered fantasy,
but it just it's just ancient history. Hold up, So did the
father actually find meat? E scaliberI said ailer a spoiler because I read
(31:26):
I read somewhere that they say thatactually it's quite melo dramatic, So it
is. You know, there's alot of melodrama in this book that doesn't
kind of drive with the whole historicalaspect of it. I think I think
the author did try to make itmore like she she wanted to ground the
story of being a female and inthe difficulties of being a female at that
(31:51):
time as well. So that's probablymore of her focus, so she doesn't
really lean too much into the It'salso say that it doesn't have those elements,
but it's it doesn't have Arthur's storyin that per se because it's meant
to focus on the two sisters.Okay, okay, fine, okay,
okay, fine, because I don'tcare. I know, a throwing legends.
(32:15):
I always brought up whatever you talkabout, like, you know,
ancient British history, which is whyI tried to find something that that was
suitable. And this most recent onethat was that I could find. But
yeah, I mean, like definitelyauthor in religends. I'd put that on
this list. I don't see whynot. Yeah, yeah, I mean
this is also kind of like yourwheelhouse as well. You do like historical
(32:37):
fantasy, that's your thing, Yes, I do, Yes, I do.
It's it's that perfect combination of historyand you know, witch eat stuff
like I tend to find that interesting. I don't know why I have something
to do with the with the wholewhole idea of it. This is just
women wielding magic. Yeah, I'llsend yeah, yeah, okay. So
(33:02):
the next one that I have thatI want to talk about is very far
from from that book. It's It'sLady Dune's Circle of Women, but by
Lisa's Says, which came out thisyear as well. Lisa sees, of
course, very well known for herbooks rooted in Chinese and Korean cultures.
(33:22):
You know, she wrote like TheIsland Seawomen, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird
Lane, and this time around she'schosen to write a story that is probably
the furthest back in history I thinkthat she's written. So it's set in
the Ming dynasty around the fourteenth tothe seventeenth century, So I know I'm
stretching it a bit when it talksto when it comes to ancient culture.
(33:45):
But you know, the main dynastyis pretty much ancient where as far as
we're concerned, because it was youknow, it was, it was many
dynacies ago. Come on, youcan read this after you read He Who
Drowned the World. Yes, yes, So this is actually had based on
a true story. It's based onthe story about a doctor, a real
(34:06):
doctor named Dan Jinsien, who wenton to publish a compendium of cases in
a work called The Miscellaneous Records ofa Female Doctor. So she was one
of the very early female doctors inthe Mean dynasty. I think a lot
of women were not allowed to workin this industry. But it's just that
(34:29):
because men didn't want to touch women, especially if you're an elite woman,
you wouldn't let it a male touchyou. So yeah, that's probably why
they had women who were considered tobe doctors as well. So this girl,
she was born into an elite familyand raised by her grandmother, who
was one of only a handful offemale doctors in China, and from a
(34:52):
young age, she's learning from hergrandmother all about women's illnesses, especially those
eighteen to childbearing, and she getsto know a midwife mailing and they become
really good friends. Now, doctorsand midwives they don't actually, they're not
to say, they don't work togetherso much. Midwives are supposed to be
(35:15):
kind of unclean because they touch bloodand that's something that a doctor doesn't do.
So go figure, Go figure.But those of you who do not
know, I just made a face, like what do they do? They're
just kind of like sort out yourbones? What's happening here? They just
(35:36):
probably like give you potions to drink. Yeah, you know, you don't
what those medicines, like, yeah, yeah, you're Chinese medicines. Like
it's it's like it kind of likeyou're just touching, you know, like
the Meridians and you touch the policiesthat kind of you accupuncture. Yeah,
yeah, you don't. You don't. You don't deal with the dirty stuff,
yuki stuff. So they were veryelite back then. I guess if
(36:00):
it's a time period that interests youbased on a true story, no less,
based on what the experiences of afemale and a doctor. Yeah,
it sounds like a really really interestingstory. And you know, it only
came out in June and it alreadyhas four point four stars from eighteen thousand
ratings, so shows you how manypeople have read this book. Wow,
(36:22):
wow, wow, you know Imean, I mean it's called Lady Tans
Circle of Women. So to me, it feels like it is a story
about how important female friendships are,isn't it. It's sort of like,
even in those days, you needyour girls, you know what I mean,
to kind of like help you getthrough the day, help you fight
(36:43):
patriarchy, or help you, youknow, give birth to a child.
So I don't know, maybe Ithink maybe that's why people really like it
because it's sisterhood right in a lotof ways, I'm just projecting here,
guys. It might not even bedead at all. It might be a
very good manual about how to youknow, do less surgery. But I
(37:05):
do know it starts with a footbinding scene. So the book starts with
a foot binding scene, and herown mother dies of a food infection.
It kind of sets that right there, right, like how much women and
women are good breeding also are verymuch in a cage, right, are
very much. And the fact thatshe found some kind of independence by practicing
(37:28):
medicine, that's pretty cool. Letme go into Victory City by Someone Rushdi
because I thought it might be coolto have a book set in India for
an ancient civilization, right, althoughagain this is sort of like a bit
of a fantastical empire based on Ithink a city that did exist, but
(37:49):
someone rushdie when he goes into hisfantasy work. It's very hard to talk
about a Someone Rushdi book if youhaven't really read the book itself, you
know, because usually he's stuff isvery dense, there's so many layers.
Usually is very probose, so youhave to kind of really pick your way
through the book, but anyway,So, this is an epic tale of
a woman who breathes a fantastical empireinto existence. It is set in fourteenth
(38:15):
century southern India. Or a nineyear old girl has a divine encounter that
will change the course of history.So Pampa Campana very illiterative name, becomes
a vessel for a goddess who beginsto speak out through her mouth and it
gives her power beyond her comprehension.And the goddess basically tells her that she
(38:37):
will be instrumental in the rise ofa great city called biz Nugga, which
is Victory City a one day ofthe world. So and she lived a
very long life so over the nexttwo hundred and fifty years. Maybe because
she was the voice of you know, spokesperson of God. She also has
a long life. She becomes interwovenwith biz Nugga from the sowing of a
bag of magic seats to its tragicnation in the most human of ways.
(39:00):
The hubris of those in power.And this is a theme that someone Rushdie
goes back again and again. Howgreat empires somehow fail to live up to
its grando. Victory City is Englishfor j Vijaya Naga. It is actually
an actual city, you know,so it's ruins are actually a UNESCO World
(39:22):
Heritage Site and it's now called Humpyand so it is sort of like set
in a city that might have existed. But there's also a lot of kind
of like fiction interwoven within it aswell. I think it's always fascinating to
to look at all these old ruinsand we just don't those so much like
it. So much has been lostin the best of times, right,
(39:45):
like all those ancient ruins that wehave, and we kind of like only
guess at what happened there. It'sfascinating to think about the people who live
there and what they have've been like, and you know, whether or not
we could see they have efects oftheir lives upon ours, like whether or
not you know, we can stillsee the same threats that I mean,
(40:07):
the hum risk of men. Itis. It is a theme that goes
again and again, you know,like like great empires, the way the
way in the rise and way orgreat empires. And I think if that's
one thing that makes this prompts sointeresting this month, is that it's like
you read about all these ancient civilizationsand whether or not is something. I
mean, there are books that areset in those civilizations but goes into very
(40:30):
small lives, to the lives ofemperors and conquerors. And yet the fundamental
truth of it all is that everythingis really temporary. Isn't it even an
illusion of power? Better that youhave less control over your life? I
don't know, like reading about greatempires falling, you know, So I
(40:52):
can't let this opportunity go without talkingabout Jonoviv GNI checks The Weaver and the
Witch Queen, which is a bookthat I'm very excited to read, but
I haven't read each. I haven'tread because it's on paper. I have
it on paper, and I hadI didn't download it on my iPad,
(41:13):
and therefore, you know, likeI usually read at night in the dark.
I know it's bad, but Ido that. So I do that
too. I do that too anyway. Anyway, The Weaver and the Witch
Queen is a deeply moving novel ofmagic history and sorn sisterhood set in the
Viking Age, So Viking age thatalready grips me. So yeah, and
(41:39):
and we we both read and lovedGenevieve. Goni checks the witch's Heart right,
So this one is related. It'salso based in you know, the
Norse traditions, but this is moreI guess down to earth. It's not
the mythology. It is about thelives of two women, one who is
(42:00):
desperate to save her missing sister andthe other one is a witch, you
know, a person who's trained tobe a witch. And she's destined,
however, to become the Queen ofNorway. And this is set in tenth
century Norway. So Oddny and Gunhildmeet as children, and they could not
(42:22):
be more different because Oddny hopes fora quiet life while Gunhild burns for power
and longs to escape her cruel mother. And ten years later after they meet,
they meet up again when Oddny's farmis destroyed and her sister is kidnapped
by Viking raiders. Gunhild, whofled her home years ago to learn the
(42:45):
ways of a witch, is surprisedto find that her destiny seems to be
linked with that of the formidable kingiriq Air, apparent to the ruler or
Norway. I deliberately don't want toread to about this book because I want
to discover it. Well, I'mreading it so, but if the first
(43:05):
book was anything to go by,I think I think I would love this
one. Oh yeah, Gania issuch a great writer. Yeah, you
know, in a sea of retellings, in a sea of feminists reimagining yet
another book. Right, But Ithought The Witch's Heart was was really kind
of like one of the better ones, one of the best ones that I've
read of those sort of like retellings, you know. And she's she's very
(43:27):
much into Norse stuff, that's thething, you know. I'm going to
go super quickly into some nonfiction incase those of you out there want to
read some nonfiction and want to getvery ambitious about reading nonfiction books about ancient
civilization. So we started off withPompey about the Romans. So if you
(43:49):
want to really sink your teeth intosomething about the Roman Empire. As PQR
by Mary Beard has been described asmagisterial, Roman history is always being rewritten
and always has been. In someways, we know more about ancient Rome
(44:12):
than the Romans themselves did. RomanHistory, in other words, is a
work in progress. This book ismy contribution to that bigger project. It
offers my version of why it mattersSPQR takes its title from another famous Roman
catchphrase, Senators Populus que Romanus,the Senate and people of Rome. It
(44:38):
is driven by a personal curiosity aboutRoman history, by a conviction that a
dialogue with ancient Rome is still wellworth having, and by the question of
how a tiny and very unremarkable littlevillage in central Italy became so dominant a
power over so much territory in threecontinents. This is a book about how
(45:00):
Rome grew and sustained its position forso long, not about how it declined
and fell, if indeed it everdid, in the sense that Gibbon imagined.
There are many ways that histories ofRome might construct a fitting conclusion.
Some have chosen the conversion of theEmperor Constantine to Christianity on his deathbed in
(45:22):
three hundred and thirty seven CE,or the sack of the city in four
hundred and ten CE by Alaric andhis Visigoths. Mine ends with a culminating
moment in two hundred and twelve cE, when the Emperor Caracola took the
step of making every single free inhabitantof the Roman Empire a full Roman citizen,
(45:44):
eroding the difference between conqueror and conquered, and completing a process of expanding
the rights and privileges of Roman citizenshipthat had started almost a thousand years earlier.
The Romans did not start out witha grand plan of world conquest,
although eventually they did parade their empirein terms of some manifest destiny. The
(46:07):
motivations that originally lay behind their militaryexpansion through the Mediterranean world and beyond are
still one of history's Greek puzzles.In acquiring their empire, the Romans did
not brutally trample over innocent peoples whowere minding their own business in peaceable harmony
(46:27):
until the Legions appeared on the horizon. Roman victory was undoubtedly vicious. Julius
Caesar's conquest of Gaul has not unfairlybeen compared to genocide, and was criticized
by Romans at the time in thoseterms. But Rome expanded into a world
not of communities living at peace withone another, but of endemic violence,
(46:51):
rival power bases backed up by militaryforce. There was not really any alternative
backing and many empires, most ofRome's enemies were as militaristic as the Romans.
But for reasons I should try toexplain they did not win. So
(47:14):
the great thing about Mary Beard isthat she is the only female classics lecture
at Cambridge University and she has becomeone of the most prominent voices about the
Roman civilization. So that's one ifyou want to have something really meaty and
really kind of want to think yourselfinto history. What Diana was saying just
now about going and walking into ruins, there is a book that was written
(47:38):
in nineteen to nineteen fifties. Itis a travel log. You can actually
download a PDF of it. It'scalled Pleasure of Ruins by Robin macaulay,
and it's actually a love letter tofamous sites that she visited in their decaying
state. So she writes about allowingthem to remain how they are without the
efforts of restoration, and has beautifulphotos of these ruins alongside quotes from po
(48:00):
a's an author's who loved them,as well as their own notes and observations
about what you can enjoy from walkingin a ruined city. So yeah,
I kind of want to check thatout if you like Mayans, you know,
because the Mayan civilization, they wereconstructing their pyramids. So when classical
Greece was just flowering was in hisinfancy. So The Jungle of Stone,
(48:22):
The Extraordinary Journey of the American explorerwho discovered the law civilization of the Mayans.
That is literally the title. It'sthe longest title on our list by
William Carlson. So it follows theadventures of John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood
in eighteen thirty nine where they pursuedthe rumors of extraordinary ruins in the jungles
of Central America and uncovered the remainsof ancient Mayans. Recently went to a
(48:47):
Mayan exhibition at the Mats and theyhave amazing stuff, babe. In fact,
I think they probably might have donethe first comic book because their actual
drawings who were very graphic novel likeand they put it on jazz and stuff
like that, and even have likekind of top bubbles that has hieroglyphicsed in
it. Oh, so it's quitecool, right, yeah, so cool.
(49:10):
And speaking of that, why don'tyou pick up a graphic novel about
an ancient civilization? Why don't youpick up three hundred by Frank Miller.
If you enjoy the movie with allthose nice beefy mane in loincloths right.
Read the original comic book. It'sa fictional retelling of historical battle the Spartans
the three hundred Spatterns. It depictsthe battle of term of My God card
(49:36):
pronouncis Termorphuley and Spartaus King Leonidas,you know, attempt to invade Persia and
finally, and this is completely offthe beaten track, but it is actually
also something that inspires someone Rushti whenhe was writing a victoricity. It a
Locavino's Invisible Cities, which is aset of conversation between Marco Pollo and the
(50:00):
Mongol Emperor China, and they basicallytalk about imaginary cities and it's like vignettes
of really interesting cities, and it'sa work of imagination as well as maybe
these cities did exist. I don'tknow how to describe it. I loved
it because all these cities seem tobe somewhere that I want to go.
But you know, there are probablyworks of the imagination, you know.
(50:22):
So it's that kind of idea thatsome as you were saying that these cities
are so far in the past,maybe they might have existed, why not,
you know? Cool? Yeah,I think I think there's definitely room
to explore here, and you know, like branch out in as many ways
as you can, because you mightthink that you have certain books that you've
(50:45):
already chosen for yourself that you canjust go to your TBR just look through
find something that Pitt's built. Yes, definitely you could probably do that.
But I mean, I hope we'veinspired you to pick out the box,
to look at books that you don'twould normally look at, you know,
like try expanding a little bit thecircle of your reading. Yeah, I
(51:09):
mean you can pick up like likeRick Roydon's Heroes of the Olympus. You
can even do middle grade. Youcan do ya, right, because there's
so many of these are sad andand and I find that really I guess
that's how you keep these ancient civilizationsalive, you know, like they always
say, like the true death iswhen nobody ever talks about you anymore.
(51:34):
You know that that sort of idea, right, So, you know,
I mean Egyptian, we haven't evengone to any books on Egyptian one like
that. You know, like somany Cambodian you know, like Uncle whit
No, everybody, please please pleasepick up a book in this challenge.
It's such a cool challenge exactly.Okay, take it home, Diana.
Thank you for joining us today.I sort of say that, you know,
(52:00):
we we've got to the stage wherewe're not always doing these episodes about
the book challenge for the month.But even so, I hope you take
away something inspiring from just just youknow, talking about books on a certain
topic. And if you pick upanything from from this list that you think
you're gonna you're gonna read. Andif you or if any of them has
(52:22):
been something that you've actually read andloved, do reach out to us,
Do drop us a line, ormaybe just connect with us on our social
media. We're on Instagram at tbntBooks, We're on Facebook at to budess
talking. Yeah, just reach outto us, say hi, we love
to hear from Yeah, post apicture and thank us. You know,
(52:44):
we know that we're not talking into avoid It's always nice to know that
see you. Yes, thanks everybody. I have a good book week. Why
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