slowly we unfold as lotus flowers

@verecunda kindly tagged me in the following meme (thanks dear! <3):

1. Best book you have read in 2021 so far? It has to be Dominion by Tom Holland; it’s about how Latin Christianity and the West have shaped each other over two thousand years, to the point where our values and our understanding are inescapably Christian at the root, no matter how secular you are.

I don’t think any work of Tom Holland’s will ever top Rubicon (that book’s verve! its pizzazz! how much it taught me! I owe it such a debt); but I have to bow down to the sheer amount of research involved in condensing over 2,000 years of Western history into 600 pages, and to how revelatory and transformative an argument it is.  Once you’ve heard it, you’ll see it everywhere, not least in how strange, fascinating and terrible the classical world now seems to us, following such a radical shift in morals.

2. Best sequel you have read in 2021 so far? I’ve only read two sequels in 2021 so far!  I am as ever astonishingly bad at continuing series. 

The best is Lustrum, where all I can say is thank you Robert Harris for my life.  I knew late Roman republican politics was wild, but I’d forgotten it was this gloriously entertaining.  Harris is clearly such a political and parliamentary geek; someone who delights in the theatricality of public life, the alliances and compromises that lie behind it, and the shifts in power and influence expressed and created by debates and legislation.

But more than that, the book is so good because the people in it feel so real. I love his Lucullus (disdainful, feline, magnificent, I’m), love his hot bullheaded Metellus Celer to absolute bits, and I even really like Harris’s Catilina, for his charisma and ruined nobility—he feels like a tragic figure, someone who should have been using his qualities in service of the state, not trying to destroy it.

The most tragic figure in it, though, is Cicero, whose moment of glory is also the seed of his destruction. (and it never occurred to me before that his harping on about having saved the Republic might be in part displaced guilt over ordering executions without trial.)  Tiro’s portrait of him is clearly rooted in long-standing familiarity and tender affection, the sort of love which embraces the whole of the other person, flaws and weaknesses included, and reading it you get the same sense as you do in the letters, of how much Cicero depended on those close to him for support.  but more than that, you also get a sense of the kind of person Tiro must have been, to serve Cicero so well - intelligent and observant and sensitive and devoted.

I could wish for a little more depth in the portrayal of the female characters - though it shows the extent of the misogyny they had to fight against - but otherwise this book is an absolute riot. I can’t wait to get on to the next one and yet I can’t bear the thought of Cicero dying. (his going into exile nearly made me cry.)

3. A new release you want to check out? Elodie Harper’s The Wolf Den, a story about the lives of slaves in a brothel in Pompeii.  I’ve seen a lupanar in documentaries about Pompeii before, and even through a TV screen and across 2,000 years you can feel the misery and despair.  So a character-driven novel which looks unflinchingly at the slaves’ experiences, and also focuses on the ways they find to survive, the friendship and sisterhood between them, sounds like a tough read but a really interesting and worthwhile one.

4. Most anticipated book release of the second half of the year? A lot of the books I was looking forward to this year have already come out, so I’m going to go for Jessie Burton’s Medusa, just because I can never get enough of myth retellings.

5. Biggest surprise? Natalie Haynes is a TREASURE.  I went to an online talk about her book Pandora’s Jar, and I wasn’t expecting her to be so funny nor to have so much fangirlish enthusiasm when talking about Greek myths; think of the best Tumblr classics posts you’ve seen, with their mix of erudition and articulacy and affectionate teasing, and it was just like that.  I really really recommend her podcast, Natalie Haynes Stands Up For The Classics; I’ve listened to a few episodes and it’s such a gem.

Pandora’s Jar itself is a bit more serious, but also something I would definitely recommend to people on here; it’s about how our common perceptions of Greek myths often marginalise or demean or vilify the women in them, and looks at ancient variants and modern retellings to consider alternative perspectives, ones with more sympathy for the women involved and why they do what they do. 

6. Biggest disappointment? Nghi Vo’s The Empress of Salt and Fortune; it was pitched to me as a sharp, incisive novella about historiography and the exercise of female power.  But its plotting made no sense, and I didn’t know enough about the characters or their world to care about or support the revolution being incited—swapping one ruler for another makes no difference to me when I haven’t been told much about either.  It wasn’t rich and complex, it was shallow and unthinking.

7. Favourite new author (either new to you or debut)? Melissa Scott.  A Choice of Destinies is all about what might have happened if Alexander had turned west after conquering Persia, and headed for Rome instead. (she thinks the Romans would have been folded into Alexander’s empire, and I have to say the same, sorry Livy!)  What I love about this book is its wealth of immersive detail, and its characters: firstly the Companions (in particular its steady, intelligent Ptolemy, and its sardonic, amused, sandy-haired, lounging Perdiccas—a different characterisation than I’ve seen elsewhere, however I have one (1) favourite Companion and it’s always this guy), but also its Alexander and Hephaistion, and the ever-present, unspoken trust and support and care and affection running between them.  The book never makes a big thing of it, but it’s clear how much they love each other.

There’s not much plot per se; instead it’s the kind of book which lets you escape into another world for a while.  The quietly sad thing about it is not only that it didn’t happen but that it wouldn’t have happened; the choice the real Alexander made was the one that was truest to himself, no matter how tragically it ended.

8. Favourite new fictional crush? Edmund Ruthven from Strange Practice—a cultured, refined vampire with matinée idol good looks, a commanding presence and a tendency towards ennui.  But beyond these typical vampire tropes, he’s also a connoisseur of modern technology as much as silk dressing gowns, someone with a passion for learning, and a serious, thoughtful and caring person who staves off said ennui by acting as guardian and protector in the monster community.

9. Newest favourite character? Red from This Is How You Lose The Time War; it was love from “and our glorious crystal future is looking so bright I gotta wear shades, as the prophets say”.  I adore her terrible jokes and her boyish sense of mischief.

10. A book that made you happy? Vivian Shaw’s Strange Practice, an urban fantasy novel about Greta Helsing, who runs a Harley Street clinic where she takes care of London’s monsters, e.g. a mummy who needs a replacement bone in his foot or a ghoul chieftain with depression, and who solves mysterious murders with her vampire/vampyre (they’re different things!) friends.

I expected a light bit of fun; but I wasn’t expecting it to feel so comforting, or to vibe so deeply with its interior landscape—its wry humour and tea and rain and trips to the British Museum and references to Gothic literature. It’s a steadily kind and nurturing book, with a commitment to found family and to finding humanity in unlikely places, and I can’t wait to read the others in the series.

11. A book that made you cry? Nadia Bolz-Weber’s Accidental Saints; she used to be the pastor at House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, and these are her community’s stories (and some of her own), loosely structured around the liturgical calendar. 

Reading it I did feel that there was no way I would ever be cool enough for her, but her catechism places a huge emphasis on redemption and unconditional love and the idea that everyone we see is a child of God, that we are all messy, imperfect sinners who can only keep trying, and all these things are deeply moving to me. (the chapter on the Beatitudes is worth it alone; she, more than other teachers I’ve seen, really really gets it.)

12. Most beautiful book you have bought or received this year? The Puffin reissue of Susan Cooper’s Over Sea Under Stone — the cover artwork is gorgeous and slightly woodcut-esque, and exactly the right blend of folkloric and timeless for this series. (also, I flipped through and stumbled across the lines about how Barney had been longing to go to the West Country, because as someone who loved King Arthur, it would feel strangely like coming home.  beginning to see now why so many people have recommended these books to me!)

Rachel Hickman’s One Silver Summer also has a very pretty cover - its dreamy romanticism feels just right for a story about horses and Cornwall and first love.

13. What book do you need to read by the end of the year? Apart from maybe finishing Robert Harris’s Cicero novels, I’d like to read AJ Pollard’s biography of Warwick - he’s one of my favourite historical figures, and it seems a shame to leave an entire book about him just sitting on my shelf!

14. What book do you need to re-read by the end of the year? I’d like to have another go at the Silmarillion; it’s been a really long time since I’ve read it (longer still since I read it completely—the last time I tried, I got bogged down in the long march to Valinor) and everything after Fëanor’s rebellion is incredibly hazy.