- _SPQR_, by Mary Beard. Engaging book surveying the history of ancient Rome, mostly Republic and early Empire if I recall correctly.
- _To Explain The World_, by Steven Weinberg. History of physics from the ancients to about the time of Newton. Don't skip the technical notes! Actually do the problems!
- I reread _Wolf Hall_, by Hilary Mantel, it was as good as I remember. This time through, I also spent some time on the Internet tracing the histories of the major characters before and after the events of the book, and it really enhanced my appreciation of it. (I also read, for the first time, its sequel, which was fine but not quite as good.)
I loved Weinberg's history book. I'll read literally anything by Weinberg, i'm a fanboy, i admit it! It was very different than the usual academic history, but not ignorant like they usually are. And i love that he actually works the problems himself.
My only complaints are that I think he is unfair to the ancients (for example I don't think he mentioned that they developed a universal gravitational theory, which was a direct inspiration for newton), and i wish he spend more time on optics, especially Kepler's optics which was apparently the great conceptual revolution in the field, but I know next to nothing about it!
- _SPQR_, by Mary Beard. Engaging book surveying the history of ancient Rome, mostly Republic and early Empire if I recall correctly.
- _To Explain The World_, by Steven Weinberg. History of physics from the ancients to about the time of Newton. Don't skip the technical notes! Actually do the problems!
- I reread _Wolf Hall_, by Hilary Mantel, it was as good as I remember. This time through, I also spent some time on the Internet tracing the histories of the major characters before and after the events of the book, and it really enhanced my appreciation of it. (I also read, for the first time, its sequel, which was fine but not quite as good.)