I would love to have seen you physically flipping through the book while you were talking about it. I'm thinking about buying a copy, but I still have no idea... Are there images in your book? Photos of famous notebooks? Or only quoted extracts? It would have been great if you'd described that physical aspect, or better still, shown us!

Highly recommend this book. Having visited the area a couple of times it is deeply moving and this book mixes historical events with the writers own struggles emotionally and physically. For me it was particulalry poignant as towards the end it deals with the battle at Loos, one of the most catastrophic and idiotic attempts to make ground and where my own relative was fatally injured. Very well written.

It be the bible

So sexy

Thank You Mary

i love folk horror and just folk speculative stuff - gonna check this out! Cover is so pretty BTW!!

please consider making an audiobook!

We love you Mary Beard!

Alice in the wonderland, 6:54 Self Gene

Thank you!

I love this book ❤

Reading and enjoying this at the moment. It has the same trippy, threatening summer fever-dream vibe as Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked or The Bridge by Iain Banks👍 The world of the novel feels both comfortably familiar yet disturbingly off kilter, and the fact that the characters don’t question this unsettling strangeness is what gives it that dreamlike quality. And the cover is gorgeous.

Loved this book!!!

Jonathan Strange mentioned! Thanks for crafting this brilliant tapestry of etymology, economics, and political science, Rebecca.

❤

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Sounds interesting! 🀄🃏♟️

I just heard about this, and I'm so excited to check it out!

Cant wait to read it.....

I would KILL for the prequel/sequel idea mention here!

What a great prequel about neurodiverse and autistic bullying. Amazing :)

It's a wonderful book, both informative and entertaining. She asks good questions and is not afraid of admitting when we don't know the answers.

Mary is always interesting. She’s sold the book to me.

I'm reading it now! Great insights. Causes thought.....

Love her voice! Just finished Babel and am desperately searching for more Babel content 😂

Outstanding at Hay Festival

Interesting.

I picked this book up on a whim shortly after my mum's death anniversary. I started reading it in the bookstore café and didn't make it more than a dozen pages before having to put it down and wipe away tears. A beautiful work. It's written with such vulnerability. I'd gladly listen to you talk about it for hours.

I read this book in a day it was so good your a great author and Keedie really inspired me

My absolute favourite historian right there. 👏👏👏👏

her theoretical sequel sounds so good

After purchasing the book I cam here to listen to the author .. let me say that was a very passinate pitch, but I felt weird. I love the french but I think we should not be mixing everything. After watching this video I feel the author should write more books rather than more videos. Oh Papyrus is great. Book is amazing

she´s so pretty😭the outfits and the background are perfect too

Gratia tibi ago

what's the instagram of the interviewer? 😅

So sad to see no comment in a book where novel science theory is expressed and explained. I found the theory of white hole interesting, since it gives an outlet to the matter that falls into a black hole, which are super massive. I have not read anything about white holes but I will speculate my imagination here: does it mean that every black hole is the end of “a universe” and a white hole a beginning of it? (Sort of a Big Bang?)

I taught Politics to A level and your commentary is fairly elementary.

I just finished reading this book - it is longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction this year. It is a lovely book! The writing style and format of the chapters from the characters' points of view just worked so well. What a great recommendation by Blackwell's. Congratulations to Victoria MacKenzie.

Thank you Elle McNicoll for writing about bullying as well as neurodivergence and thank you Blackwell's for bringing them to the forefront. Kids need more books like these. You are all making a difference 💚

I have yet to read his book but im enjoying the you tube clips I do find it puzzling why few historians spend hardly any time on the bloody islamic Colonialism from the 7th century onwards against the Cristian ortodox lands of Arabia north africa Spain and the Balkan region which over 400 years was the impetus for Pope Urban to call for a military confrontation against islamic invasion desacration genocide and enforced slavery In the TV program this was lightly touched upon but perhaps giving new students an incorrect impression that Pope Urban just called for the Crusades on a whim ? Were the battles of Yarmuk 636 AD or the moslim massacres iin Doziore in Anotolia and Spain and the Balkans mentioned at all ? And no mention of the modern woke myth of living under islamic rule was a huge multicultural utopia it definately wasnt ! This is boasted about my moslim croniclers of the time Christains and jews who were spared the slaughter had to live in diminitude or 2nd class citizens and pay a Jizra or protevtion money and had no legal standing under the medieval repression of sharia law ! This still goes on today in the theocractic Dictatorships Yes the European Royal Dynasties were in fighting amoung themselves and yes the collection of crusader armies were too dis organised to liberate jerusalem and the so called holy lands long term and yes they also did commit atrocities themselves in response to the fanaticism of the moslim armies cultural practices War sadly always involves innocent civilians but i have not heard any mention of the indoctrination of hatred towards the kaffir or all non moslims found in the so called holy book ? History is not just only dates of battles but of ideologies and ideas and it seems ttalt to examine their koran to gan insight as to why even today the Fundenmentalist Theocraies recruit young men to blow themselves up in public European Spaces and endorse what is now called hate speech in order to encourage the devout to carry out random attacks on civilians This seem ingrained at a psycological level ? I apologise if David Asbridge has covered this aspect in his writings already but i have yet discovered it Jihad is not always military as we are now seeing in Europe jihad by Hizra or invasion by migration and infiltration ? When the numbers reach high enogh a miltary coup can take place which seems to be building up as we speak ? Shamefully aided and abetted by our Traitor politions most of whom seem to be under the influence of another newer ideology ie Marxism Some say that the 1860 Crimea war was the last Crusade ? In that the european Cristian powers could of re taken the old Bzantine Capirol Constantinople now istanbul for Christianity ? But decided instead to deny an expansionist russia access to the Black sea which would of given them axcess to the Mediteraniean ? Either way the books TV presentations and KZbin clips do shed important light on our current world But will our blockhead politions learn from history or be doomed to tepeat the same tragic mistakes ? We all have a collective resoonsibity to recocgnise and confront evil and not wait 400 years ,!

I'm enjoying the book right now. I love that you have "How late it was, how late" on the shelf!

What about Sistine Chapel?

I love her so much! Poppy wars is my favorite book ever!

Wish we had Blackwell's in the USA

I was lucky enough to get an e-arc of this novel and am about halfway through. It's fantastic so far! I know I will want a physical copy so have preordered it from Blackwells of course 😉

Fantastic interview! 😃

I wish this video was longer. I love hearing you talk about your book and how you brought such a difficult time to life with your illustrations. Waiting for my copy to arrive! 💝

Will you be flat signing your books?

Superb!!!!❤

An inspiring interview. Monbiot is so wise because he can bring many disciplines together; ecology, anthropology, neuroscience, history... Disciplinary boundaries in modern industrial science and education make people stupid and dangerous.