Take a photo of a barcode or cover
wildweasel105 's review for:
Pompeii
by Robert Harris
Pompeii, late August, 79 A.D. …One of the world’s most famous volcanic eruptions is about to unfold, and you are there to witness it through the eyes of Marcus Attilius, a Roman aqueduct engineer sent to the coastal town of Misenus to investigate why there is a sudden drop in the town’s aquifer. Robert Harris’s tale is historically accurate, weaving the lives of the aristocratic Romans with Attilius’s attempt to find the cause of the water shortage. Power struggles, the decadent lifestyles of the Roman elite, betrayals, and ultimately the triumph of love are all overshadowed by the imminent eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.
I’ve loved anything to do with volcanoes since I was eight years old. The history of how Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 A.D. encased the hapless citizens of Pompeii and Herculaneum in pumice ash and preserved them for posterity has always fascinated me. This novel, for the first time, places a “personal face” of one who lives with the doomed denizens of that coastal region for several days prior to the eruption. Even more fascinating is Attilius’s involvement with Pliny the Elder, whose historical observations of the eruption were written down and preserved by his nephew, Pliny the Younger.
This was a remarkable and utterly enjoyable novel, and I highly recommend it to any lovers of historical fiction.
I’ve loved anything to do with volcanoes since I was eight years old. The history of how Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 A.D. encased the hapless citizens of Pompeii and Herculaneum in pumice ash and preserved them for posterity has always fascinated me. This novel, for the first time, places a “personal face” of one who lives with the doomed denizens of that coastal region for several days prior to the eruption. Even more fascinating is Attilius’s involvement with Pliny the Elder, whose historical observations of the eruption were written down and preserved by his nephew, Pliny the Younger.
This was a remarkable and utterly enjoyable novel, and I highly recommend it to any lovers of historical fiction.