Rest in Peace Colleen McCullough

I felt a small tug of personal loss when author Colleen McCullough passed away last week. ....reads the Salon article I was browsing.

Wait, what!

Well, just as with Pete Seeger's death last year, I'm finding out about this belatedly. But let me chime in with my two cents nonetheless. Her epic Master's of Rome series is my favorite book series of all time. I read the first couple books in the series when I was 14, and in fact much of my understanding about ancient Roman history still comes from these books (for better or for worse).

The books have their flaws, to be sure. (I mention some of them in my review, others I'm aware of but never wrote down). But in terms of the epic ambition to write such a long section of history as a series of novels, it's impossible not to admire these books, for all their flaws.

The first four books in the series I read as a youngster before I started blogging, but I reviewed the last two on this blog: Caesar and October Horse. (Actually since I read the "last book", a new final book in the series was published, which I still have to track down and read.)

I also mentioned my affection for this series in several other blog posts: here, here , here , here , here, and here .