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The City Of Invention

The book reviews of UK children's author, Brian Keaney

257 BOOKS

Recently added

The Widow - Fiona Barton

The Storyteller - Kate Armstrong

Everyone Brave Is Forgiven - Chris Cleave

Today

December

11

January 2018

24

text: The Origins Of The Medieval World

Peter Brown's survey of culture and society from the time of Diocletian to the rise of the Abbasid dynasty of Persia manages ...

The World of Late Antiquity - Peter R.L. Brown

January 2018

02

text: Popular Science At Its Best

Adam Rutherford's survey of our current understanding of genomics ought to be required reading for policy-makers, educational...

A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived - Adam Rutherford

December 2017

11

text: A Dying Star

Gore Vidal's novel about the philosophy-student-turned-emperor whose determination to reverse the Christianization of the Rom...

Julian - Gore Vidal

text: Clever And Creepy

The Girl Before is a woman-in-jeopardy novel with a clever, if unlikely, premise. The woman in question is a tenant in an awa...

The Girl Before: A Novel - J.P. Delaney

November 2017

20

text: Portrait Of A Warlord

Adrian Goldsworthy’s biography of the first Roman emperor has been hailed as a triumph by many but to me it feels like a rath...

Augustus: From Revolutionary to Emperor - Adrian Goldsworthy

November 2017

12

text: Turning The Tables On The Patriarchy

Witty, provocative and disturbing, Naomi Alderman’s dystopian vision of a future in which a mutation in the human DNA means t...

The Power - Naomi Alderman

October 2017

06

text: Discussing Fishing With Herr Hitler

Robert Harris has been described as a thriller writer but I don't think that really does him justice. What he does is find th...

Munich: A novel - Robert Harris

September 2017

28

text: Like Literary Biscuits

My partner stole my copy of this to read on the plane to Italy. Then she kept laughing so much I was obliged to read it over ...

The Art of Failing: Notes from the Underdog - Anthony McGowan

text: Arrogance And Splendour In First Century Rome

Set in Augustan Rome, Render Unto Caesar is the story of Hermogenes, a merchant from Alexandra, who travels to the capital to...

Render Unto Caesar - Gillian Bradshaw

text: A Novel To Be Savoured

Longbourn is the house in which Jane Austen set Pride and Prejudice. Jo Baker's novel is the story of the servants who washed...

Longbourn - Jo Baker

August 2017

13

text: Inside The Mind Of A Flawed Narrator

A taut psychological thriller, Under The Harrow has been compared to The Girl On The Train and there are certainly similariti...

Under the Harrow - Flynn Berry

text: An Old Man's Vanity

Alfred Duggan wrote in the nineteen fifties and compared to a lot of contemporary fiction set in the ancient world his books...

Winter Quarters - Alfred Duggan

July 2017

15

text: The Hand Of God In Medieval England

Pollard's biography of Alfred is classic narrative history. There is just enough context to give meaning to the central chara...

Alfred the Great: The Man Who Made England - Justin Pollard

June 2017

14

text: Domestic Drama In The Byzantine Empire

Set in the fifth century Eastern Roman Empire, Imperial Purple is the story of Demetrias, a weaver in a state factory, and he...

Imperial Purple - Gillian Bradshaw

May 2017

29

text: A Shock To The System

There were undoubtedly huge internal problems in the Roman empire by the time of the fifth century, not the least of which wa...

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians - Peter Heather

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