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Okay, I admit it: I have thirty two bookcases. There are times when I’d like to have fewer, like when I’m dusting. On the other hand, a big, fat reference book with tons of illustrations is heaven on earth for a historical author. What’s an author to do? E-readers and e-reading applications – like Kindle, Nook, and iBooks – aren’t known for their ability to showcase illustrations or complex tables, comparing multiple factors. They simply wrap text around the screen, no matter how large the letters or the screen are. Over and over again, until the book reaches the end of its tale. This means that I read fiction as ebooks but almost no research books in that format. Other people feel the same way: for example, this week’s top ten bestsellers in print were non-fiction while fiction ruled the digital bestsellers. But I’d love to do research in a digital book and do so whenever I get the chance. For example, biographies are often delightful. A friend gave me Adrian Goldsworthy’s Antony ...

Quick: what did Cleopatra look like? And if the beautiful face that comes most readily to mind is Elizabeth Taylor's from the lumbering 1963 movie extravaganza -- well, until recently it did for me too, and probably would have done so even before Taylor's lamented death last month. With, I'll sheepishly confess, Nefretiri's even more beautiful one a close second in my muddled imagination of the ancient world -- at least until a quick trip to Wikipedia informed me of the little matter of 1300 years intervening between the reigns of the two Egyptian queens. But even taking into account my historical imagination shamelessly in the thrall of pop history and history according to the movies, it turns out to be pretty understandable that I couldn't call an image to mind of a woman whose name has become a byword for fatal female attraction. Because the images we have of Cleopatra -- from an age when public representation of rulers was ubiquitous -- are a paltry few, most...

'Tis the season: things are slowing down at my day job and I finally have the chance (I hope) to catch up on my reading! Nothing beats sitting by the fireplace late at night, reading by the low lights and glow of holiday decorations---my wish list is naturally longer than "War and Peace" but my preference for a good historical tale, romance or otherwise, comes shining through. Here are my top picks this year: 1. Cleopatra, A Life, by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Stacy Schiff. Everything I've heard about this book is spectacular. Move over Philippa Gregory, from the excerpts I've read and the reviews, Ms. Schiff has done for ancient Egypt what Ms. Gregory did for Tudor England. Here's a bit from the New York Times review: "Ms. Schiff waves onto the stage Cleopatra’s Alexandria in all its splendor and beauty: its gleaming marble edifices, the oversize sphinxes and falcons that lined the paths to the city’s Greek temples, the Doric tombs decorated with cr...