Too cold to ride, just lots of reading

My internet at home has been down so I've been reading novels instead of just killing time reading blogs.   Theoretically the blogs are not just time eaters but a source of real time information but I feel like reading a novel is better mental stimulation.  Sometimes I only think "that is dumb" at the ideas or sci-fi world the author is creating but usually they are good for generating at least some musing on how people generally react and what kind of world would lead the highest # of people to live well.

Historical fiction and some really well written actual history are really fun though.  I'm reading Colossus by David Blixt right now.  I know just enough smattering of Roman history to find all the mentions of Nero, Agrippana, Vespasian quite compelling and there is a parallel story, which is minor right now of early Christianity.    I'm about 1/2 way through and will have to buy the companion novel.   I may buy some of his medieval European novels too.  

Sunday I read Fireblood by Jeff Wheeler and a romantic love tale set in 1500s Scotland by Kathleen Morgan.  I don't read a lot of romances but once in a while it is fun to read one just for fluffy reading entertainment.   I liked Morgan's tale well enough to buy another of her books; it is supposed to get about freezing this weekend but I think I'll only want to be outside for a few hours and I'm enjoying the break from the internet. 

I also read Raiders by Ross Kemp.  Recounts several Kommando raids by the Brits in WW2.   The accounts were riveting; I was hoping Kemp was very prolific and covered lots of military history but alas, he has another novel about the Brits in WW2 and that seems to be it.  I guess his writing about the Raiders is so compelling because he is very enthusiastic about that subject and researched enough to be able to fill in lots of real details about what they did down to heroic bits by actual individual soldiers. 

Reading about the level of debauchery in Rome put in place by Nero and how he was so jealous of his best generals that he made them fall on their swords --eeek, so reminds me of current times, but at least our generals are only asked to resign.   But none dare rebuke Caesar Nero and he surrounds himself by crowds that applaud anything he does, while he enacts gross parodies of normal customs of the time.  Except that no one is literally asked to fall on their sword and we have not gotten to quite that level of degradation it is eerily reminiscent of what we have today.   That has probably been a common worry across history, but studying history and thinking about how great empires failed is so discouraged by our educators today, sigh.