Saturday, April 04, 2026

Reading

“A man who has read a thousand books is armed for life; a man who has read none is easy prey. The man who has read a thousand books has lived a thousand lives. He has seen cities he has never visited, spoken to men who died centuries ago, and walked in worlds that no longer exist. Reading does not merely inform him; it enlarges him. It stretches the boundaries of his own experience until he becomes something more than himself.”

- G. K. Chesterton

Good Taste

Many people who are buying Pilate's Magician have also purchased this book:


 




Sweetness and Beauty

Cultural Offering: There's a new member of the Harden family.

A Lethal Sentence

I hope those who are in power in Western Europe understand the potential damage that can result when this line is uttered by a variety of Americans:

"They denied us airspace."

A Good Story is a Good Story

 



Book agents and publishers need to drop their bizarre word count requirements.


[Photo by Taylor Wright at Unsplash]

Thursday, April 02, 2026

Should Be on European Foreign Office Reading Lists

 


And Speaking of Novels Related to Rome



In addition to the obvious, here's my short list:

Eagle in the Snow by Wallace Breem

Claudius the God by Robert Graves

I, Claudius by Robert Graves

Julian by Gore Vidal

Pompeii by Robert Harris

The Cicero Trilogy by Robert Harris

The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough [All of the books in her series are excellent.]


[Photo by iam_os at Unsplash]