Hello! And welcome! On this third day of my bumptastic books of the year, I give to you a selection of recent non-fiction. Which, er, for obvious reasons, are mostly to do with classics, but never mind. There's one about roads in there too.
1. Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin by Nicholas Ostler
This is a superbly erudite work tracing the birth of Latin as it fought against its neighbours (Oscan and Umbrian, anyone?) to become the global language that it still is. It's funny, well-written and even - dare I say it - gripping. Latin is alive! It also contains many interesting examples of real Latin, such as this, from a Roman school primer:
Et maledicit bestiarius? Dimitte me et dentes eius excutio.
Is this beastfighter dissin me? Let me go - I'll knock his teeth out.
Ego te excaeco.
I'll have your eyes out.
Video quid mihi facies.
I know your little game.
There is also a play written by a nun in the form of a Terentian comedy, about how maidens should keep their virtue, which is worth the price of the cover alone. And did you know that there were Incan princesses who wrote in Latin? (see picture). Oh yes. Ite! Legite! Emite!
2. Why Socrates Died by Robin Waterfield
This (also gripping) work traces the last days of the philosopher, placing him in a political and social context. He also has a marvellously clever interpretation of Socrates' last words - which you'll just have to read the book to find out.
3. On Roads by Joe Moran
Yes! It's a book about roads! I never thought I'd be excited by tarmac, but honestly, this is a work of genius. Moran has a novelist's sensibility; he interprets the psychological implications of roads in a way that J G Ballard would have been proud of. And if you've always wondered where Mills and Boon novels go when they die - well, they're under the wheels of your car.
4. A Single Swallow by Horatio Clare
Clare followed the swallows' migration from South Africa to Britain. This is a moving and vivid account of a young man's mental and physical journey.
5. Full Circle by Ferdinand Mount
I had the pleasure of interviewing Ferdinand Mount this year about this book - a warm, genial account of how in our thoughts and actions we really can't escape the classical world - and are in fact perhaps much closer to those Romans and Greeks than we think.
Toodle pip, till tomorrow ...
is one such. It's just won the Lost Booker Prize. Everything in this marvellous, meaty novel, is decaying. A taciturn Major returns from the trenches to claim his supposed fiancée from a crumbling hotel in Ireland. There are cracks in the wall, troops of wittering old ladies, an increasingly insane owner, and pulullating cats. Of myriad striking images, the most apt are a cold-hearted English officer consuming a rose, petal by petal, including the thorns; and a mournful peahen searching for her strangled mate amongst the wreckage of a violent ball. The hotel is a metaphor for the British Empire; the Major, post-Great War, tries his best to keep it standing. But the Irish Republican Army is advancing, and things fall apart. Farrell’s novel is so expertly controlled, with even the most minor characters (a well-dressed gardener, a Cockney officer) given vivid life, and the whole is spiked with such mournful humour, that it is a fine and fitting winner.
