Book cover of The Nature of Alexander

Book description

The acclaimed biography of Alexander the Great by Mary Renault, the author of Fire from Heaven and The Persian Boy, two best-selling novels about Alexander.

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Nature of Alexander as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Mary Renault’s partly fictional biography of Alexander reminds us that the King had more trouble with his courtiers than with his subjects or enemies.

She tells the story of how they poisoned him. That tendency of ours—to shoot the religious messenger bringing strange news—to think that that the strange news is freakish or threatening—is one to remember.  

If you love The Nature of Alexander...

Book cover of Serpent Visions

Serpent Visions by Jinny Webber,

Set in pre-literate Bronze Age Greece, Serpent Visions reimagines the enigmatic myth of the gender-switching seer Teiresias. Walking in the deep woods, he strikes apart two coupling serpents and transforms into a woman. Seven years later, she, now called Teira, encounters mating serpents, strikes between them, and becomes male again.

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