Alessio Serafini's 3 favorite reads in 2024

This absolute classic is certainly one of the best examples of widely accessible scientific literature ever written. The fact that natural at the level of genes and not species is incredibly revealing, when relating to the natural and human world at all levels, from the biological to the psychological, up to the societal and political. The main messages of this book should feature in all mid- and high-school curricula.

This is a book like no other. Through a meticulous (and frankly almost miraculous!) work of interpolation, synthesis and extrapolation, H. M. Wiseman navigates the vast quagmire of more or less questionable, contradictory and vague sources (of all sorts, from historical and pseudo-historical chronicles and commentaries to medieval poetry, folk lore and archaeological evidence) to produce a plausible (“non-falsifiable”) quasi-history of the whole Matter of Britain, from the late fourth to the early seventh century. Central to this epic narrative arc is of course Arthur, Dux Bellorum and chieftain of the Britons in their hour of need. The extensive nature of Wiseman’s narration is not only temporal, but also spatial, as all foreign affairs of any magnitude and nature with any bearing on the matter of Britain are duly and patiently fleshed out and accounted for, on a sweeping stage stretching from Scandinavia to Byzantium. The tone and style, most critical to an endeavour of this sort, deftly and seamlessly switches from the historical commentary’s to the epic, though not overly archaic, medieval chronicle’s. Accordingly, on several most momentous occasions, such as, to name one, the crescendo and crepuscular climax of the battle by the river Cam (whence, by the way, “Camelot”), arguably the most dramatic of all Arthurian confrontations, the narration aptly zooms in, as gaps are filled with plausible detail, making for a compelling and engaging tale. No cue is overlooked, no plotline is unresolved (including, most appropriately, dreams and prophecies!), no end is left loose in Wiseman’s complex and epic tapestry, which delivers a powerful, vivid and, I would argue, also historically relevant - since believable and detailed accounts of this period are so rare, given the complexities of the sources - depiction of grand politics in a most tumultuous era, as the ancient world fades into the Middle Ages.

The uncanny and dispassionate insight into the affairs and turmoils of the human soul by one of the greats, at the high point of the great era of novel.