Book shelf recommendations

[Mogador]

Some suggestions please for the ideal bookshelf for the platonic ideal of the eclectic author that lives in our heads. Research and reference focused please, but that doesn't exclude fiction, so long as it has a looking-something-up quality.

My starters, in no order, are:

- The Book of Imaginary Beings, Borges
- Outline of History, HG Wells
- Some collection of Lord Dunsany's shorter short stories
- Histories, Herodotus
- 1001 Nights
- Aesop
- OED and all that
- Rogets
- KJV Bible, your preferred supplementary translations, Bagavad Gita, etc

Go on, surprise me.

 

[Rigor Mortis]

I don't read an awful lot of non-fiction these days. I do recall:
Heroes, by John Pilger. The flyleaf said any history teacher should start by chucking a copy of Heroes to every member of the class and it weren't lying. Pilger got around and it's still a good source of info on numerous modern, though becoming recently modern, then probably modern again, conflicts.

 

[JLT]

A good atlas, preferably a historical one that shows not only contemporary geographic labels but the extent of empires like Greek, Roman, British, Mongol, and the like.

 

[Mogador]

That's great, thanks both

 

[Homer Potvin]

I have a bookcase with just history books, probably half of them about Nazism and the Holocaust, a shelf of Latin America, a smattering of Roman, and the rest mostly about the Cold War. If any of that tickles your fancy, I can recommend something.

 

[Rath Darkblade]

A good atlas, preferably a historical one that shows not only contemporary geographic labels but the extent of empires like Greek, Roman, British, Mongol, and the like.

There's an ORBIS for that. (And another one too). It's only the Roman Empire ... but then the Greeks didn't have an empire in the sense that we know the word, and I haven't found a similar resource for the British and Mongol Empires. (Wikipedia and YouTube are fine, within reason, but they don't usually delve into the same detail).

For Roman and Greek history and mythology, I'd recommend at least the books of Dr Philip Matyszak. Thoroughly researched but written in a lively style, easy to follow, and with the more-than-occasional joke as well. (We shouldn't forget the ancients had a sense of humour). Thoroughly recommended.

(And no, I am not Philip Matyszak or one of his students. I just enjoy his books).

 

[JLT]

the Greeks didn't have an empire in the sense that we know the word

I was thinking of Alexander, although strictly speaking, he was Macedonian. His "empire" is usually considered a cultural one rather than a political one. After his death, the empire fractured, but he spread the use of Greek language and arts into areas where it persisted for centuries.

 

[Rath Darkblade]

Yes, true. And by encouraging his soldiers to marry (or at least "form alliances with local maidens", as a 19th-century author might put it), he also spread Macedonian 'culture' into previous unknown lands.

Lastly, Alexander also built towns where-ever he went, most of them unsurprisingly called Alexandria. (The Egyptian one is only the most famous).

 

[Luxuria]

I have several recommendations for your bookshelf:

1. A good medical dictionary. Because characters are bound to get hurt and it helps to know how certain injuries present themselves.

2. A good first aid book. So you can fix them up properly.

3. A DSM-4 or 5. 4 is cheaper and uses more psychological terminology that is important to understand the changes made in 5. (Which I honestly don't like 5. It's too simple).

4. A book on Forensics - Such as Howdunit Forensics by D.P. Lyle.

5. A book on poisons such as: The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blume or Dreisbach's Handbook of Poisoning: Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment, Thirteenth Edition. I got mine for really cheap through Thriftbooks and it's totally worth having. Because NOT all poisons are the same. Even between heavy metals.

6. For your Fictional US Legal needs: Study of Law: A Critical Thinking Approach (Aspen Paralegal Series) - I found mine at a Thriftstore and before that, used this book in my Paralegal classes. Really explains the different areas of law and how the US system works.

And if you're reading this list and are thinking, "hey... Luxuria? Do you like to cause your characters misery?"

Yes. I do.