Title: Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction Author: Paul Bahn Dates read: 12/10/26 – 19/10/26 Rating 4.5/5 Publisher: Oxford University Press Number of pages: 118 Fiction or non-fiction: nonfiction Subject or genre: classical studies, history, science Book blurb: This entertaining Very Short Introduction reflects the enduring popularity of archaeology – a …
Cassie 
Currently Reading: Seeing the Past, Imagining the Past
This week I’m reading DK’s Ancient Rome: The Definitive Visual History alongside Andrea Penrose’s Murder at Somerset House, which means the historian part of my brain is getting fed from two rather different directions. On one side, I’m going all the way back to Ancient Rome. Ancient Rome: The Definitive …
Book Review: The Roman Empire: A Very Short Introduction by Christopher Kelly
Title: The Roman Empire: A Very Short Introduction Author: Christopher Kelly Dates read: 04/08/26 – 15/09/26 Rating 3.75/5 Publisher: Oxford University Press Number of pages: 153 Fiction or non-fiction: nonfiction Subject or genre: classical studies, history Book blurb: The Roman Empire was a remarkable achievement. It had a population of …
Currently reading: routes, rivers & the layers of history
This week I’m reading The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan and Amongst Our Weapons by Ben Aaronovitch, and what initially looked like another completely mismatched pair has turned out to have a surprisingly obvious connection: both have me thinking about the ways history accumulates beneath the present. The Silk Roads …
Books With Nationalities in the Title
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each week a new theme is suggested for bloggers to …
Currently Reading: curses, crowns & catastrophic decisions
This week’s reading is another slightly ridiculous pairing on paper: Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung and The Plantagenets by Dan Jones. Surreal short fiction translated from Korean on one side; several centuries of medieval English monarchy on the other. Honestly, this is exactly the sort of reading week I enjoy. …
🦴 What Lies Beneath: Why I’m Fascinated by Burials and Bones
There’s something about bones. Maybe that sounds morbid, maybe it is morbid, but I don’t think I’m alone in the quiet fascination that settles in when a burial site is uncovered. When a skull is lifted from the soil. When archaeologists brush back the earth from a femur that last …
6 Books That Unearth the Past
There’s something irresistible about peering into the past – not just through textbook timelines, but through the soil, the bones, the stories buried with them. After finishing Ancestors by Alice Roberts, I found myself drawn to other books that don’t just tell history, but dig it up. Here are six …
Books set in the Wars of the Roses
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each week a new theme is suggested for bloggers to …
Book Review: Ancestors by Alice Roberts
Title: Ancestors Author: Alice Roberts Dates read: 20/05/25 – 28/07/25 Rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (5 stars) Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK Number of pages: 446 Fiction or non-fiction: non-fiction Subject or genre: history, science Book blurb: An extraordinary exploration of the ancestry of Britain through seven burial sites. By using new advances …