Pick-a-Shelf discussion

Let's see how you all enjoy your August reads!

I started the month out by reading historical fiction: Mistress of Rome. This is the story of an Emperor, Domitian; an evil, wealthy young woman, Lepida; her slave, Thea; and their lives in ancient Rome. I love historical fiction, but the Roman period is not high on my list of favorite. That said, I did enjoy this book and gave it 4 stars.

I finished Death Comes As the End by Agatha Christie.

Unlike Christie's many other mysteries, this one took place in ancient Egypt. Although the story is technically about the murder of a concubine, it's actually more about the family drama among and the psychological landscape of the central family's members. A ka-priest (priest whose job it is to tend the family tomb of one or more individuals, and in return he inherits their estate) who has been widowed for many years falls for a concubine while traveling to another land, bringing her home with him. His family all have tangled webs of drama prior to the arrival of this newcomer - things dealing with inheritance, status, jockeying for position, as well as secret hatreds and jealousies and other personal issues - and the concubine is not a nice girl. She's young and beautiful, but she's manipulative, greedy, cruel, hateful of children, and deeply intelligent. She purposefully causes much strife, and eventually she is found dead. Fingers are pointed, mysteries are untangled, and all sorts of intrigue ensues. Then several other family members start turning up dead, one by one...

I loved the setting. I am very keen on ancient Egyptian history, and Christie, while definitely being inventive to support her fiction, did some good research for this story. It felt authentic and believable. I wish she had written more historical setting mysteries! I also enjoyed the focus on the psychological aspects of the family's interactions and the fact that there was no detective/sleuth in this. The mystery was sussed out by family members who themselves were suspects the entire time.

My only complaint: I thought the ending was a bit convenient and didn't fit perfectly with the rest of the story. The ultimate culprit seemed in the final few pages to be practically a different person than they were in the previous couple of hundred. I found it hard to believe they had done it. Christie did not make me believe their motivation. (This did not detract from the overall story, to be honest. I would take off a half-star, perhaps.)

If you like mysteries or historical fiction or psychological/family drama, you should give this a try. It's a brisk read that kept me turning pages, and Christie is so good at fleshing out her characters on many levels.

Candiss wrote: "I finished Death Comes As the End by Agatha Christie.

Unlike Christie's many other mysteries, this one took place in ancient Egypt. Although the story is technically about the murder of a concubin..."

We currently have an exhibition on ancient Mesopotamia here in Melbourne, and I discovered through this, that Agatha Christie was a keen amateur archaeologist herself. In fact she met her husband during a trip to a dig site and apparently helped to clean the ivory relics they found with her face cream!
Lovely to know she actually set a mystery in one of these ancient worlds she loved to learn about. Might have to put in on my TBR...

Sarah wrote: "Candiss wrote: "I finished Death Comes As the End by Agatha Christie.

Unlike Christie's many other mysteries, this one took place in ancient Egypt. Although the story is technically about the murd..."

How wonderful! I had no idea. Thanks so much for the neat info, Sarah. :)

I read The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt and was very disappointed. From the title and the cover blub you would believe that this is the story of how an ancient Roman poem influenced the Renaissance... however, it was mostly a biography of Poggio Bracciolini who was a book hunter of the Renaissance. And it didn't even have a lot about his book hunting. This is not to say that there weren't some interesting things in the book; it just wasn't the book I thought it would be. He finally got to the poem in chapter 8, and then went back to Bracciolini for the most part. I would recommend a "swerve" around the book.

I read / listened to The Clan of the Cave Bear

I was just amazed by the details include in this story on the culture, medicines, etc. Just how much research had been put into the work astounded me. I love the story as well as we follow Ayla who isn't born into the Clan of the Cave Bear but is one of the Others. So, we're really looking into the Clan from an outsider's point of view. Because she looks so different from the Clan, she's "ugly" and it kinda annoyed me a bit how often that was mentioned! There was one particular bit which touched a nerve and I nearly gave up on this book but... (I kinda cheated) I checked the blurb for the second book to see if it's a series I'd like to continue on and it IS so I perservered to the end. So I knew what will happen at the end but not how it will happen, it was still a gut-wrenching ending and I couldn't wait to get into the 2nd book so I am now reading / listening to The Valley of the Horses

I know I posted somewhere that I'd finished reading The Dovekeepers. But it's clearly not here. I wonder where it ended up.

Anyway, I really did like it, and gave it 4 stars, really 4.5. My review here .

Susan wrote: "I know I posted somewhere that I'd finished reading The Dovekeepers."

And I remembered reading it...
You posted in the July review thread ;)

Yay! I finished a book for the August shelf! I finished The Song of Achilles. This book was not what I was expecting. There was a lot more romance than about the life of Achilles. I didn't feel like I got to know Achilles, which was more of what I was expecting. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed the book and gave it three stars.

Tien wrote: "Susan wrote: "I know I posted somewhere that I'd finished reading The Dovekeepers."

And I remembered reading it...
You posted in the July review thread ;)"

Thanks for spotting it. I'll delete it from there so it's not confusing.

I’ve read many books about ancient Rome, but I think I’ve learned more from reading Robert Graves’s novel I, Claudius than all others. Graves’s fictionalized autobiography portrays the rough-and-tumble life of first-century Rome under the Julio-Claudian dynasty from the perspective of the future emperor Claudius, “better known to [his] friends and relatives as Claudius the Idiot, or That Fool Claudius, or Claudius the Stammerer.” I enjoyed the book so much that I’ve moved on to the sequel, Claudius the God . Five Stars.

I read The Dovekeepers and gave it three stars. I started out really enjoying this book and I appreciated the stories of the different women, but within each story, the women became repetitive in their definitions of themselves and I became bored. Truthfully, I ended up skimming through a lot of it.

Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy 4*. 500 pages to deal with 2000 years of history, but an informative read all the same.

The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy 4*, not just Rome's deadliest enemy but his family, friends and allies as well. A very interesting, resourceful and paranoid man, definitely not someone you wanted to get on the wrong side of.

I am about 3/4ths the way through American Gods and I am thinking I may not finish in time, but thankfully it fits the next shelf too.
It is a really good book though and I am enjoying the story immensely.