The Annals of Imperial Rome, Tacitus (Penguin Classics) translated by Michael Grant

'Nero was already corrupted by every lust, natural and unnatural.’

The Annals of Imperial Rome recount the major historical events from the years shortly before the death of Augustus to the death of Nero in AD 68.

With clarity and vivid intensity Tacitus describes the reign of terror under the corrupt Tiberius, the great fire of Rome during the time of Nero and the wars, poisonings, scandals, conspiracies and murders that were part of imperial life.

Despite his claim that the Annals were written objectively, Tacitus’ account is sharply critical of the emperors’ excesses and fearful for the future of imperial Rome, while also filled with a longing for its past glories.

About the Authors

Tacitus studied rhetoric in Rome and rose to eminence as a pleader at the Roman Bar. In 77 he married the daughter of Agricola, conqueror of Britain, of whom he later wrote a biography. His other works includethe Germania and the Historiae.

Michael Grant’s fine translation captures the moral tone, astringent wit and stylish vigour of the original. His introduction discusses the life and works of Tacitus and the historical context of the Annals. This edition also contains a key to place names and technical terms, maps, tables and suggestions for further reading.

The Iliad by Homer (Penguin Classics) translated by E V Rieu.

‘Look at me. I am the son of a great man. A goddess was my mother. Yet death and inexorable destiny are waiting for me.’

One of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer's Iliad tells the story of the darkest episode in the Trojan War.

At its centre is Achilles, the greatest warrior-champion of the Greeks, and his refusal to fight after being humiliated by his leader Agamemnon.

But when the Trojan Hector kills Achilles' close friend Patroclus, he storms back into battle to take revenge - although knowing this will ensure his own early death.

Interwoven with this tragic sequence of events are powerfully moving descriptions of the ebb and flow of battle, of the domestic world inside Troy's besieged city of Ilium, and of the conflicts between the Gods on Olympus as they argue over the fate of mortals.

About the Authors

Homer is thought to have lived c.750-700 BC in Ionia and is believed to be the author of the earliest works of Western Literature: The Odyssey and The Iliad.
E V Rieu was a celebrated translator from Latin and Greek, and editor of Penguin Classics from 1944-64. His son, D C H Rieu, has revised his work.
Peter Jones is former lecturer in Classics at Newcastle. He co-founded the 'Friends of Classics' society and is the editor of their journal and a columnist for The Spectator.

Greek Tragedy: Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Euripides' Medea

‘Man must suffer to be wise.’

The fifth century BC saw the fullest flowering of art, literature and philosophy in ancient Athens, and this major new selection brings the masterpieces of the great tragedians of that era – Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides – together in one volume.

Powerful and devastating, they depict complex characters locked in brutal conflict both with others and themselves in situations that offer no simple solutions.

Through the revenge-murder in Agamemnon, the hideous family secret revealed in Oedipus Rex, and a mother’s slaughter of her children in Medea, we see the wrenching dilemmas of humans living in a morally uncertain world.

This volume also includes extracts from Aristophanes’ comedy The Frogs – a comic satire on tragic playwrights – and a selection from Aristotle’s masterful Poetics, which presents a philosophical discussion of Greek tragedy.

Simon Goldhill’s introduction illuminates the plays’ cultural background and place in ritual ceremony, and illustrates their lasting effect on the Western imagination. This edition includes a preface, chronology, further reading and detailed notes on each work, while genealogical tables clarify the complex legends behind each tragedy.

About the Authors

Aeschylus (525-456 bc) wrote more than seventy plays, of which seven have survived.
Euripides (c. 484-406 bc) is believed to have written ninety-two dramas, fewer than twenty of which have survived.
Sophocles (496-406 bc) wrote more than one hundred plays for the Athenian theater.

Shomit Dutta (Editor) was educated at University College Oxford, and King's College London and teaches at Alleyn's School.
Simon Goodhill (Foreward) is a professor of Greek at Cambridge University and a fellow of King's College where he is director of studies in Classics.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

'Compared with almost everything being written now, it is vertiginously ambitious and brilliant...He can write as thrillingly about large-scale events as he can about the tiny details of the private world.' The Times

'Unquestionably a marvel - entirely original among contemporary British novels, revealing its author as, surely, the most impressive fictional mind of his generation.' Observer

David Mitchell's novels have captivated critics and readers alike, as his Man Booker shortlistings and Richard & Judy Book of the Year award attest. Now he has written a masterpiece.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is the kind of book that comes along once in a decade - enthralling in its storytelling, imagination and scope.

Set at a turning point in history on a tiny island attached to mainland Japan, David Mitchell's tale of power, passion and integrity transports us to a world that is at once exotic and familiar: an extraordinary place and an era when news from abroad took months to arrive, yet when people behaved as they always do - loving, lusting and yearning, cheating, fighting and killing.

Bringing to vivid life a tectonic shift between East and West, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is dramatic, funny, heartbreaking, enlightening and thought-provoking. Reading it is an unforgettable experience.

The year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, the “high-walled, fan-shaped artificial island” that is the Japanese Empire’s single port and sole window onto the world, designed to keep the West at bay; the farthest outpost of the war-ravaged Dutch East Indies Company; and a de facto prison for the dozen foreigners permitted to live and work there.

To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, costly courtesans, earthquakes, and typhoons comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout and resourceful young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fiancée back in Holland.

But Jacob’s original intentions are eclipsed after a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured daughter of a samurai doctor and midwife to the city’s powerful magistrate. The borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure blur until Jacob finds his vision clouded, one rash promise made and then fatefully broken. The consequences will extend beyond Jacob’s worst imaginings. As one cynical colleague asks, “Who ain’t a gambler in the glorious Orient, with his very life?”

A magnificent mix of luminous writing, prodigious research, and heedless imagination, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is the most impressive achievement of its eminent author.

Read The Guardian review here...

Find out more about the book and the author at his website here...

Here the author is interviewed about the novel on American radio:

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

'Wondrous. Brilliantly inventive, full of dazzling set pieces.

Not simply the most original novel I've read in years - it's one of the best'

The Times

'Original, moving and entertaining for adults

as well as for older children.'

Daily Express

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a murder mystery novel like no other.

The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone.

Christopher is fifteen and has Asperger's, a form of autism.

He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched.

He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour's dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down.

Here's an extract from the opening of the novel to whet your dog-whistle...

It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs Shears’ house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead. There was a garden fork sticking out of the dog. The points of the fork must have gone all the way through the dog and into the ground because the fork had not fallen over. I decided that the dog was probably killed with the fork because I could not see any other wounds in the dog and I do not think you would stick a garden fork into a dog after it had died for some other reason, like cancer for example, or a road accident.

But I could not be certain about this.

I went through Mrs Shears’ gate, closing it behind me. I walked onto her lawn and knelt beside the dog. I put my hand on the muzzle of the dog. It was still warm.

The dog was called Wellington. It belonged to Mrs Shears who was our friend. She lived on the opposite side of the road, two houses to the left.

Wellington was a poodle. Not one of the small poodles that have hairstyles, but a big poodle. It had curly black fur, but when you got close you could see that the skin underneath the fur was a very pale yellow, like chicken.

I stroked Wellington and wondered who had killed him, and why.

Find out more...

Click here to go to the website dedicated to the book...

Click here to read The Guardian review...

To find out more about the author, click here...