The next Books & Beyond (BAB) meeting will be on Tuesday, June 27th @ 6:30pm, most likely on Zoom, and the topic up for discussion will be foodie fiction! Registration is available here (no library card is required, even though it looks like it is!).
BAB met last night on Zoom to talk about ancient Greece.
Sacred Games by Gary Corby
It is the Olympics of 460 BC. Nico's best friend, Timodemus, is a competitor in the pankration, the deadly martial art of ancient Greece. Timo is hot favorite to win. His only serious rival is Arakos from Sparta. When Arakos is found beaten to death, it is obvious Timodemus must be the killer. Who else could have killed the second-best fighter in all Hellas but the very best? The Judges of the Games sentence Timodemus to be executed in four days' time, as soon as the Sacred Games have finished.
Complicating everything is the fact that Athens and Sparta are already at each other's throats, in the opening stages of a power struggle for control of Hellas. If an Athenian is found to have cheated at the Games by murdering a Spartan, it will be everything the hawks in Sparta need to declare open war the moment the Sacred Truce is over. And that's a war Athens cannot hope to win.
Nico and his partner in sleuthing, the annoyingly clever priestess Diotima, have four days to save their friend and avert a war that would tear their world apart.
Morning Glory Milking Farm by C.M. Nascosta
Morning Glory Milking Farm is a short human/monster romance novel, featuring a high heat slow burn with a lot of heart, and a guaranteed happily-ever-after. Content warnings are viewable on author's website. It is the first book in the Cambric Creek Monster Romance series, and can be read as a standalone. Morning Glory Milking Farm offers full-time hours, full benefits, and generous pay with no experience needed . . . there’s only one catch. Milking minotaurs isn’t something Violet ever considered as a career option, but she’s determined to turn the opportunity into a reversal of fortune.
The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code by Margalit Fox
When famed archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed the ruins of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on Crete 1,000 years before Greece’s Classical Age, he discovered a cache of ancient tablets, Europe’s earliest written records. For half a century, the meaning of the inscriptions, and even the language in which they were written, would remain a mystery.
Award-winning New York Times journalist Margalit Fox's riveting real-life intellectual detective story travels from the Bronze Age Aegean—the era of Odysseus, Agamemnon, and Helen—to the turn of the 20th century and the work of charismatic English archeologist Arthur Evans, to the colorful personal stories of the decipherers. These include Michael Ventris, the brilliant amateur who deciphered the script but met with a sudden, mysterious death that may have been a direct consequence of the deipherment; and Alice Kober, the unsung heroine of the story whose painstaking work allowed Ventris to crack the code.
Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths by Natalie Haynes
The tellers of Greek myths—historically men—have routinely sidelined the female characters. When they do take a larger role, women are often portrayed as monstrous, vengeful or just plain evil—like Pandora, the woman of eternal scorn and damnation whose curiosity is tasked with causing all the world’s suffering and wickedness when she opened that forbidden box. But, as Natalie Haynes reveals, in ancient Greek myths there was no box. It was a jar . . . which is far more likely to tip over.
In Pandora’s Jar, the broadcaster, writer, stand-up comedian, and passionate classicist turns the tables, putting the women of the Greek myths on an equal footing with the men. With wit, humor, and savvy, Haynes revolutionizes our understanding of epic poems, stories, and plays, resurrecting them from a woman’s perspective and tracing the origins of their mythic female characters.
Plato's The Republic is widely acknowledged as the cornerstone of Western philosophy. Presented in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and three different interlocutors, it is an inquiry into the notion of a perfect community and the ideal individual within it. During the conversation other questions are raised: what is goodness; what is reality; what is knowledge? The Republic also addresses the purpose of education and the role of both women and men as "guardians" of the people. With remarkable lucidity and deft use of allegory, Plato arrives at a depiction of a state bound by harmony and ruled by "philosopher kings."
Collapse of Antiquity by Michael Hudson (not available in the JCLC)
This book traces the role of debt in Antiquity and suggests that it was the long-lasting curse of interest-bearing loans being handed out that could not be repaid. It eroded the fabric of society.
Plato's Theaetetus (not available in the JCLC)
The Theaetetus is a seminal text in the philosophy of knowledge, and is acknowledged as one of Plato's finest works. Cast as a conversation between Socrates and a clever but modest student, Theaetetus, it explores one of the key issues in philosophy: what is knowledge? Though no definite answer is reached, the discussion is penetrating and wide-ranging, covering the claims of perception to be knowledge, the theory that all is in motion, and the perennially tempting idea that knowledge and truth are relative to different individuals or states.
Reality by Peter Kingsley (not available in the JCLC)
REALITY introduces us to the extraordinary mystical tradition that lies right at the roots of western culture. This is the true story of Parmenides, Empedocles, and those like them: spiritual guides and experts in other states of consciousness, healers and interpreters of dreams, prophets and magicians who laid the foundation for the world we now live in. REALITY documents the excruciating process that led to their work and teaching being distorted, covered over, forgotten. And most importantly, it presents these original teachings in all their immediacy and power -- revealing their ability, just as vibrant now as at the dawn of the western world, to awaken us to what reality truly is.
Friends and Fiction podcast
New York Times Bestselling novelists Mary Kay Andrews,
Kristin Harmel, Kristy Woodson Harvey, and Patti Callahan Henry are four
longtime friends with more than seventy published books to their
credit. With chats, author interviews and fascinating insider talk
about publishing and writing, these friends discuss the books they’ve written,
the books they’re reading now, and the art of storytelling. With a
mission to support independent bookstores, they are always seeking new and
innovative ways to introduce dynamic voices and trends in publishing. If
you love books and you’re curious about the writing world, you’re in the right
place. Join Friends and Fiction every Wednesday night at 7 pm EST
on Facebook or Parade
magazine.
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