re: What Are You Reading Right Now?

Has anyone read The Life and Times of Constatine?

I love history and Greek and Roman history to me is fascinating.

I never could wrap my head around Norse Mythology or history. Does anyone have a decent read about that topic?

If you want a historic based novel. I advise The Lion of Ireland by Morgan Llewellyn. Its based on the life of Brian ap Boru, the first high king of Ireland.

Also Stephen R Lawhead's Arthur series is amazing. Obviously it's based on legend not history. It is still incredibly well done. He or Cornwell are the best Arthur authors. Completely different though.

My favorite historical fiction author is Louis L'Amour. The Walking Drum is incredible. Based on pre-medieval Europe, Byzantine, and ME.

Current reading is:

When Hell was in Session: The Jeremiah Denton story.

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CatFan81

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Blood Meridian is a great book.

I'm wrapping up Shotgun Lovesongs. Not bad.

Artful.

It's written by Peter David about the Artful Dodger as a vampire hunter.



Yeah, I'm not particularly proud of this, but you asked and I answered.


P.S. Plus, I got it for free as part of Amazon Prime or some such, so ... forgive me?

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Blood Meridian is a great book.

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It's more than a great book. It is one of the few books in our nation's history that reaches the sublime.

Easily as remarkable as Moby Dick. The prose is absolutely amazing and elevating.

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Already you could see through the dust on the ponies' hides the painted chevrons and the hands and rising suns and birds and fish of every device like the shade of old work through sizing on a canvas and now too you could hear above the pounding of the unshod hooves the piping of the quena, flutes made from human bones, and some among the company had begun to saw back on their mounts and some to mill in confusion when up from the offside of those ponies there rose a fabled horde of mounted lancers and archers bearing shields bedight with bits of broken mirrorglass that cast a thousand unpieced suns against the eyes of their enemies. A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained wedding-veil and some in headgear of cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with the old blows of mace or sabre done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses' ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse's whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen's faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hillarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet that the brimstone land of christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.

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Bernard Cornwell is doing a good series relating to the Norsemen invading England in the time of Alfred the great. Historical novel that can give a perspective on Saxon and Viking culture as it follows a Brit that was captured and raised by the Norse then bounces around fighting throughout that period.

Working on two books. The Regulars about the transition of the American Army from 1898-1917. And Rising Tide about the 1927 Mississippi River flood.

The twelfth planet by Zecharia Sitchin. Which is the first book of the series, Chronicles of earth.

He gives an alternate theory as to who we are, where we really came from, and why we were created.

He challenges every thing we as humans have ever been told and does a good job of providing factual evidence to back up his claims. Mostly through the deciphering of ancient clay tablets left behind by the Sumerians, then Assyrians, and then Babylonians. As well as from artifacts and information from younger civilizations after them like the Egyptians, Persians, etc. all the way down to modern man.

It's a thought provoking and interesting read. Many of the brightest professors, scientists, and archaeologists of this century have been unable to debunk what his literature lays out. Even if they don't believe his line of thinking. The guy has done an incredible job at citing sources and presenting factual evidence that can be proofed and checked by anyone wishing to do so.

Way out there, but a solid read so far.

Cleopatra - A Life by Stacy Schiff

It's loosely based on the little bit of historical evidence we have of Cleopatra's reign. Pretty good read so far.