Books like Harriet and the Secret Rings — picked by fans

Ever since I watched ‘the Goonies’ with my boys when they were young, I have loved reading a good pirate adventure. From the minute I read the title, I knew this book was for me. This story has all the elements that add up to one crazy fun-packed treasure hunt. With a mysterious treasure map, intriguing characters including a typically despicable villain and an exotic location in the Bahamas, Jock’s adventure is irresistible. It’s a fast-paced, easy-to-read story that has kids laughing at all the incredible scenarios. I love the opportunity to travel the world, but it’s not possible to go everywhere. Having read this adventure, I can now say I have enjoyed my visit to the Bahamas, if only in my imagination. 

Have you ever ridden a camel in the desert? I admit I have not been to Arabia, but I did ride a camel along the beach at sunset in Western Australia. I know the smell, the bumping from side to side, and the resulting aching bottom. That experience, while I did enjoy it, is not one I wish to repeat in a hurry. To read about it from a comfy chair at home is my preferred option. Amanda takes us on an unforgettable ride through history and culture, complete with intrigue, action, and drama for everyone. I tend to read adventure books with male protagonists because I have three sons and know they would prefer to read about boys, so to read a story with a female hero is delightfully refreshing. 

I absolutely adored this book. I laughed from beginning to end. This is an adventure like no other and set in one of my favourite countries, Scotland. I have been lucky to visit Scotland twice. Its history, culture, scenery, and people have intrigued me since I was a child. The main characters are kilt-wearing animals, eating lots of cake and doing their best to fit in. These wolves might be the polite high society type, but they have a voracious appetite that makes the story so entertaining. It’s a tale full of delightful Scottish humour, castles, dungeons, and a villainous real estate agent. This hilarious romp through the Scottish countryside brings back wonderful memories of all that I have encountered while visiting this fabulous country. 

I loved the title of this book, it had me intrigued from the start. I like writing clues and riddles into my own adventure stories, so I found this one irresistible. The story starts in Sydney where I grew up and leads us to a typical outback country town in Australia. Instead of a place I wish I could travel to, this one is very familiar to me. Its setting is similar to my own adventures, based on childhood holidays and memories. Instead of taking me on an adventure to a different country, this book travels back in time to the early 1920s. I found I was desperate to solve each riddle before the main character and unravel the mystery to safely bring the kids home, back to their own reality. 

This book rewrites the story of how Roman imperialism got started. It is written by one of the best archaeologists in the field, and it shows. It is brilliantly illustrated, and it explains the world into which Rome emerged. Instead of the traditional story of virtuous Roman heroes and bold wars of conquest, it shows why other Italian peoples decided to join up with Rome. We get a sense of how other Italians saw things. And we understand how the ruling families, Roman and Italian alike, came together and built a state that would conquer the Mediterranean in all their interests. Revolutionary!

In two volumes, this is quite simply one of the most beautiful books I own. Much more than an atlas of maps, it includes illustrations of archaeological evidence from across the city and is full of reconstruction drawings. It is a book to simply lose yourself in and spend time browsing through the pages that set out the city of Rome. The overlaying of the ancient buildings from Rome onto the modern street grid, also allows for the reader to see how those ancient buildings, such as the Theatre of Pompey, continue to shape the streetscape of the city of Rome.

This book is set in Italy at the end of the 6th century. It is a vivid account of an engineer who struggles to survive in a largely devastated country and longs to revive the former advanced Roman technology. It depicts a cruel world: old Romans attacked by Lombards, and merciless clashes between Pagans, Arian, and Catholic Christians. Of great interest to me were the personal interactions of both leaders and ordinary people.

Although, for my taste, it included an unnecessary preoccupation with violence and sex, the vivid cultural and factual detail provided me with much background information and food for thought. The characters are well developed and the story exciting.

No city of the Roman world survives more fully than Pompeii in southern Italy. Baths, bars, houses, and temples have been recovered, along with pots and pans, foodstuffs, medical instruments, and skeletons with evidence of an appallingly high rate of disease. For a knowledgeable and witty guide to the city you can’t beat Mary Beard, who helps us see it was not all marble columns and pretty paintings. I especially love her description of the House of the Tragic Poet, in which Edward Bulwer-Lytton set an early scene of his novel The Last Days of Pompeii, a dinner party hosted by the character Glaucus. Beard reveals that just behind this house was a cloth-processing workshop in which the main agent used would have been human urine. “In the background to Glaucus’ elegant dinner party,” writes Beard, “there must have been a distinctly nasty odor.”        

I must mention this book because it was one of the first alternate histories I read as a teen, and I remember how it caused me to dream about “what ifs.”

Although traveling back to 6th-century Rome didn’t sound like a lot of fun, I loved reading about the main character's ingenuity and how he uses his modern know-how to survive in the literal dog-eat-dog world of the past. It was a good roadmap in imagination about tackling a sudden change in fortune, and the writing was personable and fun to read.

Richards’ book broadens the perspective advanced here with a concise overview of American and British films and some American-European co-productions about ancient Greek, Roman, biblical, and other cultures.

Its main focus is on the 1950s and 1960s, when epic filmmaking reached its height with color and widescreen cinematography, giant sets, huge casts, stereophonic sound, extreme lengths, and ruinous costs.

Richards rides to the rescue of several less-than-stellar films but can be severe as well, e.g. about 300: “probably the most Fascistic film to come out in cinemas since the fall of the Third Reich.” (No argument here.)

A few inaccuracies concerning antiquity and cinematic details detract from the book’s value, but they are instructive, since errors can create new fictions from the fictions that films invariably create from history.