Steven Pressfield, Gates of Fire

I'm doing well with Colleen McCullough's The First Man in Rome. I'm almost 100 pages in and I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised. As I've mentioned at some point, with novels I know pretty quickly if I'm going to like the book. When the pages fly by, it's going to be a pleasure. When you're wading through, grinding it out and daydreaming of other things, it's work. And that's not going to work out. So, more about McCullough later. I've got all of her books in the "Masters of Rome" series (well, actually, the last two are being delivered shortly, The October Horse [2002] and Antony and Cleopatra [2007]). I do recommend them, for sure, so click heavily on the links if you're inclined.

That said, I've found a few other things of significant interest in my used bookstore puttering. Especially noteworthy, for a cheap paperback, is Steven Pressfield, Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae.

Apparently this one's frequently copied but rarely matched. And the cover blurbs are effusive. It's going to be one or two more books in the future for me, but it'll be a quick read. Go ahead and get yours at Amazon.

More later.