Kirjahaku

Debra Hamel's book is a lively introduction to "The History of the Persian Wars", Herodotus' account of Persia's expansion under four kings - Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius, and Xerxes - and its eventual collision with the city - states of Greece. "The History" can be a long slog for modern readers, but it is full of salacious tales about sex, violent death, divine prophecies, and cannibals. Following the structure of the original work, Hamel leads the reader through a colorful tour of the central stories that compose "The History". She highlights the more interesting and important parts of the story while providing readers who are new to "Herodotus" with the background information necessary to appreciate the author's wide-ranging subject matter. At once academic and cheeky, the experience of this book is like "Reading Herodotus" while simultaneously consulting a history of Greece and a scholarly commentary on the text.

Debra Hamel's book is a lively introduction to "The History of the Persian Wars", Herodotus' account of Persia's expansion under four kings-Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius, and Xerxes - and its eventual collision with the city - states of Greece. "The History" can be a long slog for modern readers, but it is full of salacious tales about sex, violent death, divine prophecies, and cannibals. Following the structure of the original work, Hamel leads the reader through a colorful tour of the central stories that compose The History. She highlights the more interesting and important parts of the story while providing readers who are new to "Herodotus" with the background information necessary to appreciate the author's wide-ranging subject matter. At once academic and cheeky, the experience of this book is like "Reading Herodotus" while simultaneously consulting a history of Greece and a scholarly commentary on the text.

A pivotal skirmish involving nearly three hundred Athenian and Spartan ships toward the end of the Peloponnesian War, the Battle of Arginusae was at the time the largest naval battle ever fought between warring Greeks. It was a crucial win for the Athenians, since losing the battle would have led to their total defeat by Sparta and, perhaps, the slaughter and enslavement of their entire population. Paradoxically, the win at Arginusae resulted in one of the worst disasters to befall the Athenians during the brutal twenty-seven-year war. Due to a combination of factors-incompetent leadership, the weariness of the sailors, a sudden storm-the commanders on the scene failed to rescue the crews of twenty-five Athenian ships that had been disabled during the battle. Thousands of men, many of them injured, were left clinging to the wreckage of their ships awaiting help that never came. When the Athenians back home heard what had happened, they deposed the eight generals who had been in command during the battle. Two of these leaders went into exile; the six who returned to Athens were tried and eventually executed. The Battle of Arginusae describes the violent battle and its horrible aftermath. Debra Hamel introduces readers to Athens and Sparta, the two thriving superpowers of the fifth century B.C. She provides a summary of the events that caused the long war and discusses the tactical intricacies of Greek naval warfare. Recreating the claustrophobic, unhygienic conditions in which the ships' crews operated, Hamel unfolds the process that turned this naval victory into one of the most infamous chapters in the city-state's history. Aimed at classics students and general readers, the book also provides an in-depth examination of the fraught relationship between Athens' military commanders and its vaunted sovereign democracy.

A pivotal skirmish involving nearly three hundred Athenian and Spartan ships toward the end of the Peloponnesian War, the Battle of Arginusae was at the time the largest naval battle ever fought between warring Greeks. It was a crucial win for the Athenians, since losing the battle would have led to their total defeat by Sparta and, perhaps, the slaughter and enslavement of their entire population. Paradoxically, the win at Arginusae resulted in one of the worst disasters to befall the Athenians during the brutal twenty-seven-year war. Due to a combination of factors-incompetent leadership, the weariness of the sailors, a sudden storm-the commanders on the scene failed to rescue the crews of twenty-five Athenian ships that had been disabled during the battle. Thousands of men, many of them injured, were left clinging to the wreckage of their ships awaiting help that never came. When the Athenians back home heard what had happened, they deposed the eight generals who had been in command during the battle. Two of these leaders went into exile; the six who returned to Athens were tried and eventually executed. The Battle of Arginusae describes the violent battle and its horrible aftermath. Debra Hamel introduces readers to Athens and Sparta, the two thriving superpowers of the fifth century B.C. She provides a summary of the events that caused the long war and discusses the tactical intricacies of Greek naval warfare. Recreating the claustrophobic, unhygienic conditions in which the ships' crews operated, Hamel unfolds the process that turned this naval victory into one of the most infamous chapters in the city-state's history. Aimed at classics students and general readers, the book also provides an in-depth examination of the fraught relationship between Athens' military commanders and its vaunted sovereign democracy.

In the 5th century B.C., Herodotus of Halicarnassus wrote a lengthy account of the expansion of the Persian Empire and its ultimate collision with the city-states of Greece. The two Persian Wars of the early 5th century B.C.-with the legendary battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea-were decisive moments in the history of Greece and indeed of all Europe. We owe much of what we know about them, and about the history and cultures of the pre-Classical ancient world, to Herodotus. In 2010 Debra Hamel embarked on a project of tweeting an abbreviated version of Herodotus' History of the Persian Wars: each of the History's 1535 sections would be summarized in a single tweet (that is, in 140 characters or less) and posted to the twitter account @iHerodotus, one tweet per day. The project would take more than four years to complete. This book, which is being released to coincide with the conclusion of the Twitter project, contains the entire tweeted History. Although much of Herodotus' rich story was necessarily omitted from this abbreviated version of his text, The Twitter Herodotus conveys well the great breadth of Herodotus' remarkable account. This very readable and entertaining, if unconventional, summary of the History can serve as an introduction to Herodotus' masterpiece and will entice readers to find out more about the author and his subject matter. "A composition that will win the applause of the moment " - Thucydides

Debra Hamel has been tweeting the first lines of books since 2007. To date, she has posted more than 7000 first lines on her Twitter accounts @TwitrLit and @KidderLit. IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY TWEET is a collection of 500 of the best of these. The first lines in this collection are culled from a wide variety of genres and from children's books as well as books written for adults. Some of the titles excerpted will be familiar to readers. The first lines of Fahrenheit 451 and Slaughterhouse Five are included, for example, and Jane Austen and Charles Dickens both merit mentions. But readers will find a lot here that's unfamiliar. The book is intended to introduce readers to new books and authors, so that they'll come away from the collection itching to get their hands on an armful of new titles. Here's a sample: "Benny Rhodes loved his own bald head more than anything else in the world he could think of." (John A. Miller, Coyote Moon) "I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday." (John Scalzi, Old Man's War) "A dead man fell from the sky, landing at my feet with a thud." (Gary Corby, The Pericles Commission) The lines included in this collection are grouped into different categories, with chapters such as "Once Upon a Time," "Dead People," and "Pregnant Amish Men and Other Surprises." The book also includes three quizzes so that readers can test their first-line savvy.