Author Topic: Cyril and Methodius Day Book Recommendations!  (Read 3558 times)

Jubal

  • Megadux
    Executive Officer
  • Posts: 35495
  • Karma: 140
  • Awards Awarded for oustanding services to Exilian!
    • View Profile
    • Awards
Cyril and Methodius Day Book Recommendations!
« on: February 14, 2015, 02:18:05 AM »
To celebrate this day, recommend a book to everyone here  :)
The duke, the wanderer, the philosopher, the mariner, the warrior, the strategist, the storyteller, the wizard, the wayfarer...

comrade_general

  • Guest
Re: Cyril and Methodius Day Book Recommendations!
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2015, 04:25:52 AM »
A Brief History of Time by the wheelchair guy.

Jubal

  • Megadux
    Executive Officer
  • Posts: 35495
  • Karma: 140
  • Awards Awarded for oustanding services to Exilian!
    • View Profile
    • Awards
Re: Cyril and Methodius Day Book Recommendations!
« Reply #2 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!)
The duke, the wanderer, the philosopher, the mariner, the warrior, the strategist, the storyteller, the wizard, the wayfarer...

Glaurung

  • Sakellarios
    Financial Officer
  • Posts: 7077
  • Karma: 20
    • View Profile
    • Awards
Re: Cyril and Methodius Day Book Recommendations!
« Reply #3 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.

Pentagathus

  • King of the Wibulnibs
  • Posts: 2704
  • Karma: 20
    • View Profile
    • Awards
Re: Cyril and Methodius Day Book Recommendations!
« Reply #4 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.