Its late, I can't sleep, and I'm not coming up with any deep, profound thing to talk about like I want to. Also, I got tired of trying to properly format the formal book review I was doing. So instead, I give you some fun facts from the books I was GOING to review. I can assure you, though, that I thought that they were all excellent.
- Between the World Wars, it was easier (sort of) to be a bum in Paris than in England.
- Emperor Justinian I (or Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus, as his full name read), the last 'great' Roman emperor, had a wife named Theodora. Before becoming the Empress, she was a popular prostitute whose most famous trick involved some oats and a goose.
- Tom Hanks is still an awful choice to portray Dan Brown's character, Robert Langdon.
- Marcus Aurelius was a very, very chill dude. His collection of private scribblings, known as the Meditations, are good light reading.
- The Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (now Istanbul) was completed in five years. That's roughly 1/7 the amount of time it took to build some of the cathedrals of Western Europe, such as St. Peter, even though they were comparable in size.
- Also between the World Wars, Parisian waiters and hotel workers were more interested in appearance than in cleanliness.
- Apparently, the Albanian idea of a dystopia is a world in which a government agency reads your dreams, and base important decisions on the national dream-mood. Actually, that method of decision making is probably more effective than the methods of some of our real politicians. (Yes, Barry, I'm looking at you and your posse).
- Persians were totally cool with not sacking your city, if you gave them some cash. Occasionally, their army would just travel from city to city, look vaguely menacing, and demand some gold.
Well, I know I enjoyed this little compilation. Hopefully, I've made you all want to go out and read these four excellent books in their entirety.
Sauces:
Justinian's Flea, by William Rosen
Palace of Dreams, by Ismail Kadare
Down and Out in Paris and London, by George Orwell
The Emperor's Handbook, by Marcus Aurelius
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