Two additional things:

Adding BigAlice to my blogroll. I've been reading her for a little while (clicked through from Mimoknits) and I find some of her insights interesting and funny.

I also have to talk about a book I'm reading. It's called Everyday Life in Roman and Anglo-Saxon Times.. It's another book about Roman Britain. (The Amazon link shows the same edition I have in the photo; the book is by C.H.B Quennell and Marjorie Quennell, who I presume was C.H.B.'s wife.)

The book is really absorbing. It's actually a history of Romain BRITAIN (perhaps not obvious from the title) written for British schoolchildren. (I'm not sure what age - as I'll note later - but I'm guessing it's maybe 10-14 year olds).

They go through tremendous detail of the everyday life stuff - what the baths were like, what commerce was like, how the Roman soldiers were almost as much surveyors and builders as they were an occupying force.

The book (which is actually a compilation of two books) is fairly old; the edition I have was published in the 60s, but looking at the copyright page, I see they were originally published in the 20s. (Which makes me wonder a bit at writing and how it's changed and does it perhaps not say something very good about the history education an American who was a child of the 70s and 80s learning a lot and being quite absorbed by a book written for Edwardian British 10-year-olds?)

What I like particularly about the book is its tone. I guess the best word to describe it is "avuncular," in the best sense of the word. It's kind of like a learned older relative is sitting down to tea with you and entertaining you with stories about what they've studied over the years. (There is sort of a "dear Reader" tone to the book, which I know some people hate, but I love, because it feels cozy and personal to me).

The drawings are also excellent - for example, there are ones of the various classes of soldiers and the types of armor they wore, and everything is labeled and described in the text.

It's been the book I turn to - even though I AM reading "Pickwick Papers" and have just started "Gaudy Night" - before I go to bed these past few days. Partly, I think, because it's written at a level my tired brain likes, and partly because - and this is one of the things I like about non fiction - there's no DRAMA. You don't feel worried for particular characters, there's nothing bad happening. And also, I find I have a hard time remembering characters in books (like "Pickwick") where there are all these little subsidiary characters who kind of blip on and off the stage, but who come back later and and you find yourself going, "wait - was he the vicar or the publican?"

Another thing I have to say - after reading the Quennell book and the other one I read last year on Roman Britain - if I ever have the chance to get to the UK, and there's time at all to do it, I really want to go up and see Hadrian's Wall. Just to be able to say I've seen it, I've been there.