I, Claudius by Robert Graves

This is a great book. I highly recommend it.

In my case, I watched the TV series before reading the book, so I had a face and a voice in my mind for each of the characters as I read the book. Made it more interesting I think. The TV series is very good, even all by itself.

The book is historical fiction, but (heavily) based on fact. It is written in the first person with Claudius as the narrator. Claudius being the fourth Emperor of Rome. He had a limp and stammered and was thought to be stupid, at least before becoming Emperor, but he was far from it.

After some background, the book covers events in and around Claudius' life up to him being proclaimed Emperor at the death of Caligula. Be ready for the treachery and violence that seems to have been the norm in ancient Rome; the violence is not presented in overly gory detail, but there is a lot of it. The presentation of the violence is kind of matter of fact which was disturbing - it's as if the people at the time took it as unfortunately "normal". Seems like you had to be a stoic or you'd go crazy.

There are so many great parts of the book that it is impossible for me to select a "best" one. Suffice it to say that Livia, Claudius's grandmother and wife of Augustus, was a real piece of work. Caligula was a real nut case. Tiberius was almost as bad. Being in their family might have been more dangerous than being unrelated to them. It is hard to believe that the Empire stayed together given all that went on - maybe things were even crazier elsewhere.

The book is well written and a fast read. Give it a try.

We've Never Been Alone by Paul von Ward

I have read three books in the past that are similar to this one and found them interesting - Chariots of the Gods by von Daniken, the Gods of Eden by Bramley and Everything You Know is Wrong by Pye. I recommend all of these, especially Bramley's book. They are all very entertaining, if nothing else. I was very hopeful about the von Ward book reviewed here.

Basically, von Ward contends that aliens have been involved in our history in some very fundamental ways. This was positive in some ways, but negative in many others. He makes some proposals as to what we should do about the lingering negatives.

I am giving the von Ward book three out of five stars, because it has some interesting parts, but is lacking in other ways. It took forever to get through. The book is just too long for what it has to say. It should either be made more detailed and less rambling/repetitive in the same number of pages or shortened by cutting down on rambling/repetitive parts. A good editor could make this a 4 or 5 star book.

For me, the middle of the book is the best part. There, the author makes some very good points about how many religions evolved - in the wrong direction. It gave me much food for thought, and I thank the author for that. This book is probably not for fundamentalist Christians, but it is not anti-Jesus by any means.

If you only have time to read one book in this subject area, I would recommend Bramley or maybe Pye. They are much faster reads and give more details at the same time.