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Greetings


Ketman

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I don't read much in the way of new books. I've always been years behind with my reading. I've just finished Barabara Tuchman's The Guns of August (1962) and How Charles Bravo Died by Yseult Bridges (1956). Now I'm on The Gallic Wars by Julius Caesar (c.50 BC). See what I mean?

 

I used to read a lot of fiction, but these days more non-fiction. History mostly. But back in the day I read all Graham Greene's novels, some of them two or three times, and everything George Orwell ever wrote, fiction or non-fiction. So, hello.

 

^Not knowing how to spell "Barbara" is the least of the ways I show myself to be unfit for literature.

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Hi Ketman welcome, yes, what Frankie says, it doesn't matter what books you read you will find someone here who will read the same books as you. Always meant to read Caesar, how is it? I wargamed the battle of Sambre once, that was great fun , I think that was when he broke the Belgian Gauls.

 

Oh and I think Barabara is a lovely way to spell it it certainly rolls off the tongue :D

Edited by vodkafan
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Thanks, frankie, chesilbeach and vodkafan.

 

It's some years since I last read Down and Out. I do remember it put me off eating in restaurants for quite a while.

 

Caesar's commentaries are very concise and unemotional. Dispatches from the front. He talks about himself in the third person singular - Caesar did this, Caesar did that. Some modern scholars think the death toll from his campaigns in Gaul might have run into the millions. But you'd never know that from his matter-of-fact narrative. Worth a read, but be sceptical. There was no one in Rome in a position to contradict him on anything. As for those on the spot, who could have done, it's a case of "what goes on tour stays on tour".

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