Catullus Bedspread

Biographies & Memoirs

Daisy Dunn

Community & Culture

HARPER/COLLINS

The Missing Thread

Penguin US

When Pliny the Elder perished at Stabiae during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, he left behind an enormous compendium of knowledge, his thirty-seven-volume Natural History, and a teenaged nephew who revered him as a father. Grieving his loss, Pliny the Younger inherited the Elder's notebooks&#8213;filled with pearls of wisdom&#8213;and his legacy. At its heart, The Shadow of Vesuvius is a literary biography of the younger man, who would grow up to become a lawyer, senator, poet, collector of villas, and chronicler of the Roman Empire from the dire days of terror under Emperor Domitian to the gentler times of Emperor Trajan. A biography that will appeal to lovers of Mary Beard books, it is also a moving narrative about the profound influence of a father figure on his adopted son. Interweaving the younger Pliny's Letters with extracts from the Elder's Natural History, Daisy Dunn paints a vivid, compellingly readable portrait of two of antiquity's greatest minds.

The Shadow of Vesuvius: A Life of Pliny

Historical

Blackstone Publishing

Not Far From Brideshead: Oxford Between the Wars

Weidenfeld&Nicolson

The Missing Thread: A New History of the Ancient World Through the Women Who Shaped It

Orion Publishing Co, London

Missing Thread: A New History of the Ancient World Through the Women Who Shaped It

Orion Publishing Group, Limited

History

Ancient Civilizations

A vivid narrative that recreates the life of Gaius Valerius Catullus, Rome's first ''modern'' poet, and follows a young man's journey through a world filled with all the indulgences and sexual excesses of the time -- an accessible, appealing look at one of history's greatest poets. Born to one of Verona's leading families, Catullus spent most of his  young adulthood in Rome, mingling with the likes of Caesar and Cicero  and chronicling his life through his poetry. Famed for his lyrical and  subversive voice, his poems about his friends were jocular, often  obscenely funny, while those who crossed him found themselves skewered  in raunchy verse, sudden objects of hilarity and ridicule. These bawdy  poems were disseminated widely throughout Rome. Many of his poems recall  his secret longstanding affair with the seductive Clodia, an older  woman who would eventually be plunged into scandal following the  suspicious death of her aristocratic husband.While Catullus and  Clodia made love in the shadows, the whole of Italy was quaking as  Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus forged a doomed alliance for power. During  these tumultuous years, Catullus increasingly turned to darker subject  matter, and he finally composed his greatest work of all -- a poem about  the decoration on a bedspread -- which forms the heart of this biography, a  work of beauty that will achieve immortality and make Catullus a  legend.

Catullus' Bedspread: The Life of Rome's Most Erotic Poet

Arts & Literature

HarperCollins Publishers and Blackstone Audio

A vivid narrative that recreates the life of Gaius Valerius Catullus, Rome's first ''modern'' poet, and follows a young man's journey through a world filled with all the indulgences and sexual excesses of the time -- an accessible, appealing look at one of history's greatest poets. Born to one of Verona's leading families, Catullus spent most of his young adulthood in Rome, mingling with the likes of Caesar and Cicero and chronicling his life through his poetry. Famed for his lyrical and subversive voice, his poems about his friends were jocular, often obscenely funny, while those who crossed him found themselves skewered in raunchy verse, sudden objects of hilarity and ridicule. These bawdy poems were disseminated widely throughout Rome. Many of his poems recall his secret longstanding affair with the seductive Clodia, an older woman who would eventually be plunged into scandal following the suspicious death of her aristocratic husband. While Catullus and Clodia made love in the shadows, the whole of Italy was quaking as Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus forged a doomed alliance for power. During these tumultuous years, Catullus increasingly turned to darker subject matter, and he finally composed his greatest work of all -- a poem about the decoration on a bedspread -- which forms the heart of this biography, a work of beauty that will achieve immortality and make Catullus a legend.

Of Gods and Men: 100 Stories from Ancient Greece and Rome

Literature & Fiction

Classics

Apollo

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Books by Daisy Dunn