My New Favorite Book

That's right. I have a new favorite book. I stopped by Barnes and Noble the other day and picked up a book I had been wanting to read. At the time, I did not realize that I was purchasing what would become my favorite book.

I have been reading Herodotus' The Histories. It's fascinating. Herodotus was a Greek Historian who lived around 400 B.C. or so. His book, The Histories, is mainly about how the ancient Greek city-states joined together to repel the invasion of the Persian Empire. But there is so much more! Herodotus goes back to the history of the conflict between Persia and the Greek city-states (which is really a story about the conflict between every independent country/city in the entire Mediterranean region and how different rulers started to amass larger kingdoms), which is in and of itself interesting as he starts his narrative before the Trojan War. In fact his book is a seamless mixture of fact and mythology. Ok, maybe seamless isn't the right word, because it is really rather obvious that he is referring to various Greek myths, but he integrates the myths so well with the fact and various eyewitness accounts that the story flows. Yeah, that's a better word, flows.

I honestly haven't been able to read very much, as I've been bringing home lots of work, but I'm so excited about this book!!! I have to keep flipping between the maps at the beginning of the book and the notes at the end, which makes my progress go slower, but the story and the details are wonderful! I will actually go so far as to say, while I probably will not read this book every year, this book has surpassed even Pride and Prejudice.

Ummm, yeah. So I was just reading over my blog and I realized one very important thing: I'm a nerd. In my next blog I will discuss who would win in a fight: Darth Vader or Captain Kirk...