Exilian

Art, Writing, and Learning: The Clerisy Quarter => Writing, Poems, AARs, and Stories - The Storyteller's Hall => Topic started by: Jubal on February 14, 2015, 02:18:05 AM

Title: Cyril and Methodius Day Book Recommendations!
Post by: Jubal on February 14, 2015, 02:18:05 AM
To celebrate this day, recommend a book to everyone here  :)
Title: Re: Cyril and Methodius Day Book Recommendations!
Post by: comrade_general on February 14, 2015, 04:25:52 AM
A Brief History of Time by the wheelchair guy.
Title: Re: Cyril and Methodius Day Book Recommendations!
Post by: Jubal on February 14, 2015, 04:29:57 PM
For anyone who can track down a copy, I'm going to recommend Steven Runciman's account of the 1453 siege of Constantinople. It's not the best work historically, but it's just absolutely gorgeously written and it's the point at which I think the Byzantines really caught my imagination (and thus indirectly responsible for SO MUCH of what's around you now!)
Title: Re: Cyril and Methodius Day Book Recommendations!
Post by: Glaurung on February 14, 2015, 09:13:05 PM
I think my Byzantine bug was set off by Guy Gavriel Kay's "Sarantine Mosaic", comprising two novels Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors. They're fantasy, set in a slightly disguised Byzantine Empire at the time of Emperor Justinian (about 535AD). The ending is very different from the real history, though.

I got more historical background from Tom Holland's In the Shadow of the Sword - it's a non-academic history looking at the area of the Byzantine and Persian Empires between roughly 400 and 750AD, and the development of Judaism, Christianity and Islam in that period.

I recommend all these books as well worth a read.
Title: Re: Cyril and Methodius Day Book Recommendations!
Post by: Pentagathus on February 14, 2015, 09:23:26 PM
I've been meaning to read Kay's shizzle for a while, may well check out the actual history things as well.
Don't know much about Byzantine or Slavic themed books so I can't think of anything to recommend specially for today.