Italy GR: Caligula, The Corruption of Power by Anthony A. Barrett

[Colleen, The Enforcer/Mod #2]

This is in advance, in case anyone decides to get a jump start and wants to comment and/ discuss.

Caligula: The Corruption of Power by Anthony A. Barrett

[Lyn (Readinghearts), The mod of last resort/Mod #3]

You beat me to it, Colleen. I was just going to open it, lol. Can't wait to read the book. I will ask the library for it.

Did anyone see the history channel show Sunday on Caligula? I taped it but haven't watched it yet. It should be fun to watch it in conjunction with reading the book.

[Colleen, The Enforcer/Mod #2]

Well, we are a few days late but I finally remembered today!

Rats I missed it! Thanks for telling me though so I can go to the channels page and see when it will be shown again.

[Lyn (Readinghearts), The mod of last resort/Mod #3]

I have my copy, but am not going to be able to start for a few days. What we usually do is just start reading and post our thoughts as we go along in here, then as people get the book, they pop in and post thoughts and respond. That way if we don't all get the book at the same time, it's all good.

[Colleen, The Enforcer/Mod #2]

I am hoping to get to the library tomorrow to get my copy. I did know that "little boots" was his nickname (which he actually hated when he got older BTW) but I think he isn't referred to his real name to avoid confusion.

So, Alexandria, how does it start out? With his childhood or parentage first?

OMG I am soooo looking forward to this book! Oh, and that's my bad for putting the end date as March instead of April; sorry for the confusion everybody. We do the group reads every other month because a lot of us belong to other groups who do group reads. Oh, and Alexandria, post away at your thoughts as you read, that's how I do it too :)

[Colleen, The Enforcer/Mod #2]

Oh, just so everyone knows I just posted two Caligula pictures in our group picture section. One is a Caligula statue and the other is the front and back of a Caligula coin.

[Lyn (Readinghearts), The mod of last resort/Mod #3]

Ya Alexandria - we are kind of easy going around here. We take two months for each group read, and people jump in and out as they are reading. It is definitely not structured. Feel free to post a synopsis of each chapter, the good thing about most of these books, is that there are no real Spoilers since everyone knows how things come out. Glad you are liking the book. I finishing a book for a challenge today, but will start this one soon.

[Claire]

I have just ordered it from Amy so i will get started soon.I have read I Claudius and Caligula by Alan Massie so I know the story and will catch up.

[Kimberly]

I just finished Caligula tonight. I have two other books going and I just couldn't stand have the half-nosed Caligula staring at me any more, LOL.

I thought the book was ok. I've posted a full review for anyone who is interested to read it.

[Kimberly]

I posted my review on my page. You can find it under my "non-fiction" category. Or, you can go here and it should be the latest review:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20...

[Kimberly]

Whew! Glad I'm not the only one too! It was really up and down for me--there would be 4 or 5 boring paragraphs and then suddenly there would be an interesting one. I wasn't sure if it was just me, because I don't read much non-fiction (aside from what I read in college).

[Lyn (Readinghearts), The mod of last resort/Mod #3]

I new I shouldn't come here and peak, LOL. I was afraid it was going to be dry. I'm still going to read it, though, and will post thoughts as soon as I can. Thanks for participating.

[Lyn (Readinghearts), The mod of last resort/Mod #3]

I finally got to this one, and I agree with Alexandria. Although I am finding Caligula's life interesting, the book itself is quite dry and reads like a textbook. From the comments here, it doesn't seem like many people were interested anyway.

A couple of impressions, though:

The Tudors have nothing on the Romans as far as intrigue goes. Talk about plots and who is going to kill who, etc.

There was a lot of wife and child swapping going on in Rome! I was finding it really hard to keep track of who belonged with/to whom. Add that to the fact that names were repeated without the Roman numerals to tell them apart...WOW.

I thought it was interesting that Germany got it's name from Caligula's father, Germanicus.

My husband and I were cracking up at some of the names. They sound much worse than they probably were. In addition, they all had 3 or more names, but the one they went by had nothing to do with their actual name, or was the one that 10 other people were also using at the time.

All in all an interesting read, but I don't think I would recommend it unless you are a Caligula scholar.

On to Marie Antionette