This is an index and summary of the things I’ve talked about over the last month. Links for multi-post subjects go to the first post (even if it’s before this month), you can follow the internal navigation links from there.
Books
Fiction
“The Wasp Factory” Iain Banks. Horror, and very hard to summarise in one line. Part of Read All the Fiction, boxed up.
“King’s Dragon” Kate Elliott. First book of Elliott’s Crown of Stars series, epic fantasy with flavours of English history to its secondary world. Library book.
“Think of the Children” Kerry Wilkinson. Crime novel, set in Manchester, about a sequence of murdered or missing children. Library book.
Total: 3
Non-Fiction
“The Arab Uprisings: The People Want the Fall of the Regime”. A book about the Arab Spring, written by a BBC journalist.
Total: 1
Museums
Treasures of the Royal Courts: Tudors, Stuarts & the Russian Tsars. An exhibition at the V&A about the English & Russian courts centred round the silverware gifted by England to Russia.
V&A Museum – a brief visit to some other galleries while I was there for the Treasures of the Royal Courts exhibition.
Total: 2
Photos
Total: 3
Radio
Queen Zenobia. In Our Time episode about the Palmyran Queen who rebelled against Rome & founded a short-lived empire in the Middle East around 270AD.
Turkey: The New Ottomans. A three part series putting modern Turkey in a historical context, and looking at its relationships with the Arab World & the West.
Total: 2
Talks
August EEG Meeting. The format this month was different – 4 short talks from members (including me).
Total: 1
Television
Non-Fiction
Ancient Apocalype. Series about how various ancient civilisations met their doom.
Britain’s Stone Age Tsunami. Time Team special about a tsunami that hit Britain about 8000 years ago.
Caligula with Mary Beard. Mary Beard tells us what we know about Caligula, and looks at how much of the myth might be true.
Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor. Announcement of Peter Capaldi being cast to play the next Doctor.
Indian Ocean with Simon Reeve. Simon Reeve travels around the coast of the Indian Ocean.
London: A Tale of Two Cities with Dan Cruickshank. Programme about the development of London in the 17th Century, presented by Dan Cruickshank.
The Making of King Arthur. Simon Armitage looking at the development of the King Arthur myth in Norman times.
The Mystery of Rome’s X Tomb. Programme about a mass grave dating back to the 1st-3rd Centuries AD found in the catacombs of Rome in 2003.
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures: Meet Your Brain. A series of three children’s lectures from Christmas 2011 about the brain.
The Secret History of Genghis Khan. Programme about what a history written by Genghis Khan’s adopted son tells us about him.
Secrets of the Saxon Gold. Time Team Special about the Staffordshire hoard.
She Wolves: England’s Early Queens. Series about Queens of England in medieval & Tudor times, presented by Helen Castor.
Who Were the Greeks?. Two-part series with Michael Scot giving an overview of Greek civilisation & looking at the truth vs. the myth of what they were like.
Total: 14