The Book of the City of Ladies

Christine de Pizan, 1405 [Rosalind Brown-Grant, 1999]

(May 2016)

  

There is a woman who occasionally crops up on my twitter feed who spends a large part of her time responding to men with anime avatars asking “BUT WHAT HAVE THE WOMENZ EVER DONE FOR US?” by sending them explicit lists of accomplished women in science, politics, the arts, and such like. A service that is both valuable and depressing in its necessity. This book is basically the mediaeval version of that, made even more depressing because apparently we’re still having these arguments more than half a millennium later. Plus ça change.

The Elements of Eloquence

Mark Forsyth, 2013

(February 2015)

  

A pleasingly concise and accessible catalogue of rhetorical figures. While occasionally slightly too pleased with itself in the way that only expensively educated Englishmen of a certain age (and the texts they produce) can be, its underlying message that anyone can be taught to produce a decent turn of phrase is something I can definitely get behind. Would make a nice twofer with You Talkin’ to Me? as a starter set on oratory and persuasion. And that’s all I have to say about that.

The Song of Achilles

Madeline Miller, 2011

(October 2012)

Now, this is a good one. Another wartime love story where everyone dies, but somehow not depressing in the slightest.