Pax by Tom Holland

I've just finished Tom Holland's latest book, Pax, subtitled War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age which covers the period from the demise of Nero through the subsequent year of four emperors (69) and on through to the end of the reign of Hadrian (138). It's a general history and so he presents the most interesting bits. I was surprised to see no mention of Domitian's persectuion of the Christians. Otherwise, there are plenty of historical sidelights for anyone interested in the New Testament and early church history. Tom Holland writes quite well and this is an easy way to catch up on Roman history you may have missed. Understandably there are details that are quite coarse and debauched but these are handled fairly well. He also goes some way to explaining what the Pax Romana was.

The Rest is History by Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook

I don't really listen to podcasts and so I was unaware of The Rest is History a podcast issued by the historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook. This volume, which I have just finished reading, is a very easy to read breeze through various historical materials and is most enjoyable. In his book Unruly David Mitchell recommends moving on from there to a detective novel or something of that ilk. Though both books could be described as "Horrible histories for grown ups" it has not been a problem reading them virtually back to back. This current volume is very random and covers all sorts of subjects. I found it quite stimulating. One tiny snag is that references to topical news mean that even just a year or two later the book can sound unnecessarily dated.

Day Off Week 28 2024

Some of the usuals this last Tuesday - reading, chipotle lunch, coffee, painting, cheese buying (Mayfield - very nice), TV in the evening.

Birthday Books

One of the joys of a birthday is that kind people buy you books. Above is my haul for this year. Mostly history as you see. I tipped off my wife about the first one and the second is from my first son who has cornered the market in Nazi themes (one of my favourite subjects). I first saw the book on Africa in Kenya and have bought with money kindly given by family.

Day Off Week 19 2024

Getting back into routines after the trip to Kenya, including my day off last Tuesday (May 7). Basically, a bit of reading and a walk round West Hampstead. Eleri was out for the evening so no TV. The Tom Holland book is relatively new but the book about george Hicks is an old one. Day One were selling old stock off cheaply recently. Enjoying them both. Some useful sidelights on the New Testament from Pax.

Day off Week 21 2020

This week's day off was okay but a bit bitty. I am trying to finish this Tom Holland book Persian Fire but didn't get too far. It was very warm yesterday. Another distraction was radio podcasts done by Louis Theroux. Fairly interesting, I guess. See here. At some point I read an obituary for Astrid Kircher at 81 (part of the Beatles story). In the evening we watched the last part of a Netflix series Unorthodox, which was interesting and quite moving. See here. I also began an assault on a manuscript I am hoping to make fit for publishing on Amazon. As for the book contribution I mentioned last time two good things - the cover is now prepared - see here. I was also notified that the first seven volumes of the Transactions of the Congregational Historical Society are online. They contain eight articles on my subject. Nice providence. See here.

Day off week 19 2020

Another uneventful day off this week. It would be hard to spot any great difference in the routine as I gave a lot of time to a writing project I have on hand at the present. I did spend time watching TV, however, and reading Tom Holland's book on Persia, etc. Having read his Dominion recently I remembered that I had bought a hardback copy of his Persian Fire in a charity shop some time and never read it. I am enjoying it.

Day Off Week 17 2020

The great news for all of us is that I have finally finished Hilary Mantel's mammoth third volume in her Thomas Cromwell trilogy The Mirror and the Light. It's a bit too long I guess (over 800 pages - imagine writing a book over 800 pages long! :-)). Spoiler alert - he dies. it all comes a bit suddenly near the end. May be there should have been some hints but then I suppose she expects us to know how it ends.  I am sure you can quibble with things in the book but on the whole .... review to follow, perhaps. I also made a proper stab at Dominion by Tom Holland, which has been hanging around since Christmas. It turns out to be quite different to what I expected. The art project went a step further forward. Might finish it next session. We also watched the last Julian Fellowes' The English Game on Netflix I think. (We also just finished his Belgravia). It's more melodrama than drama but works quite well. The crisis is allowing me to get things done I might have taken longer over I guess so I suppose there's some good in it.
PS I spot a theme here - meddling with history: Hilary Mantel and Julian Fellowes making slight changes to keep us entertained, me mainly in order to circumnavigate my limited skills and Tom Holland from the best motives trying to give us straight history in a quite popular form but inevitably getting things wrong at certain points (mainly because he is wedded to current scholarly opinion).

Christmas Books 2019

A good number of books to reas, as wver at this time of year.

Big thank you to my family for their kindness.

Interesting books

We had a session at the Westminster Fellowship on Monday where Keith Berry recommended some books worth reading. He mentioned The Noble Liar: How and Why the BBC Distorts the News to Promote a Liberal Agenda by Robin Aitken exposing BBC bias, The Reshaping of Britain: Church and State since the 1960s, A Personal Reflection by the veteran evangelical Clifford Hill, charting his own story and describing changes in the UK in recent decades, and a large book by the Jewish journalist Melanie Phillips called The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth, and Power.

What we are talking about, I suppose, is right wing writing that in one way or another exposes evils in our society and analyses them in a way that is of great interest to evangelical Christian. One could add Douglas Murray's recent The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity and slightly more tangential Tom Holland's Dominion, the making of the western mind both recommended to me recently from more than one source. I guess the writings of Jordan Peterson might also be mentioned. Do check them out.