This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is books with ordinal numbers in the title, which took me some doing! But I got there in the end, by spelunking through past books read.

1. The Eagle of the Ninth, by Rosemary Sutcliff.
   This was the first to jump to mind, as it’s a book I’ve loved for a long time. Sutcliff was great at writing historical fiction that was perfect for kids without being patronising and without skimping on detail. The germ of the story for this one is a Roman eagle that was found during an archaeological dig, along with the alleged disappearance of the Ninth Legion (though the status of the Hispana and how it ended are questioned more now, if I understand correctly). Despite that, it’s not meant as a history lesson, and I love Marcus, Esca and Cub, and the story of the Ninth Legion that Sutcliff imagined.
2. The Fourth Island, by Sarah Tolmie.
   Turns out I never posted my review of this book here, so I’ve added that to my list! I’ve loved several of Tolmie’s novellas, and remember enjoying this a lot — though it’s not a story that comes to many conclusions, but rather one that leaves you with all kinds of questions and things to ponder. As I recall, it’s beautifully written, too!
3. The Ninth Rain, by Jen Williams.
   This one’s stuck in my head for ages! I’ve been contemplating a reread of this as well, because this trilogy just felt so chewy. I don’t know if that makes sense to say, but there was a lot of worldbuilding, a lot of stuff going on, and I got really attached to some of the characters.
4. The Seventh Bride, by T. Kingfisher.
   And another one I’d really like to reread! It’s been quite a long time, but I remember finding this a really fun retelling, and there’s a hedgehog! I definitely remember the hedgehog.
5. The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin.
   I imagine this one is on a lot of fantasy and SF lovers’ lists, because there’s so much going on in this one. It’s hard not to spoiler, honestly, because so much of it should probably just be experienced without knowing, leaving you picking up the pieces… I need to finish the trilogy someday.
6. The First Ghosts, by Irving Finkel.
   This was a complete impulse read back when I picked it up, and I found it really fascinating. Finkel discusses the ancient sources that tell us what people in ancient Sumeria, Babylon and Assyria believed about ghosts, and digs into what he thinks that means. I felt somewhat differently about that part (which dinged the rating a touch), but I still found it really interesting.
7. The First Fossil Hunters, by Adrienne Mayor.
   I really enjoyed this one: Mayor digs into what the ancient Greeks and Romans thought about fossils, because obviously they did see fossils in the world and wonder about them and have stories about them. I think at times it goes beyond the evidence a bit, but it’s still really interesting.
8. The Sixth Extinction, by Elizabeth Kolbert. 
   The sixth extinction is, of course, the one that’s happening now, with massive losses in biodiversity in pretty much every biome. Kolbert’s book is partly a discussion of that, and partly a celebration of biodiversity in hopes that people can be convinced to protect it. Definitely a worthy read.
9. Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs, by Camilla Townsend.
   This book attempts to look past the Spanish sources that are frequently used to understand the Aztec world, looking for sources written by indigenous people wherever possible and trying to dispell certain myths (like the idea that Moctezuma believed Hernán Cortés was a god). And it finally taught me to pronounce certain Nahautl words, as well; the pronunciation guides were really good.
10. Third Time Lucky, by Tanya Huff.
    Confession: I don’t really remember this collection, but I thought highly of it at the time, and Huff is a fun writer in general. So I’d probably stand by past-me’s recommendation!

See? I did it in the end!

Very curious to see others’ choices, and whether everyone struggled as much as I did!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is a genre freebie, so I decided to go with a genre I enjoy a lot: microhistory! I’m technically going to use the term somewhat broadly, but the idea is to take a tiny slice of history and zoom in, using analysis of that small aspect to understand bigger themes and trends.

So here we go! Let’s see what I can pull off my shelves.

1. A History of England in 25 Poems, by Catherine Clarke.
   I read this last month, so my review isn’t up yet, but I think it was my first 5-star read of the year. It does a really good job of staying aware of England’s colonial history (including toward Scotland, Wales and Ireland) and picking poems that aren’t the obvious poems everyone would always pick. I highly recommend it: poetry can tell us a lot about history, because it’s written by the people who lived it.
2. A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, by Emma Southon.
   This is a book I read quite a while ago, but I think of it very fondly. It digs into Roman society through the lens of what might count as murder — and what was just considered justified. I loved it.
3. The Notebook: A History of Thinking On Paper, by Roland Allen.
   I really loved the way this book rambled around the history of how people use notebooks, from ledgers to ICU diaries. The idea that something that we might take for granted as much as the idea of keeping a notebook has a whole history behind it is very fun to me.
4. The Story of the Bayeux Tapestry, by David Musgrove and Michael Lewis.
   Of course, it isn’t really just the history of the object itself, but the events it depicts, and how the events have been understood in the years since, in part because of the tapestry. I really loved this one, because it makes clear that we aren’t always certain about what happened and why.
5. The British Museum, by James Hamilton.
   The British Museum didn’t just spring into being, it’s a whole institution with a history of its own. I will caveat that this book isn’t a critique of the British Museum; it’s in awe and support of the endeavour, and barely discusses the issues with the British Museum’s practices of cultural theft. But it’s still fascinating to learn about how the building came to be what it is today.
6. Soda and Fizzy Drinks: A Global History, by Judith Levin.
   I’m letting this book stand in for the whole Edible Series, because I could’ve picked out a whole bunch of those. Food tells us a lot about history: how food traditions travel, whether they’re adopted, imposed or absorbed and changed, tells us a lot about contact between different cultures. (So yes, this particular book discusses “coca-colonisation”.) Sometimes with books in this series, I hadn’t really thought about the history and relevance of that particular food at all, so it’s always nice to dig in.
7. Chinese Dress in Detail, by Sau Fong Chan.
   This book isn’t exhaustive, because it’s based on the holdings of the Victoria & Albert Museum, which inherently biases collection of European items. Still, I found it a fascinating introduction, and the author makes sure to be clear that “Chinese” is a bit of an umbrella term, also discussing Uyghur clothing history as well. Like food traditions, fashion reflects the periods it comes from, with influence from other countries as well as industrialisation and the changing needs of the population. The other “Fashion in Detail” books from the V&A are similarly fascinating.
8. The Button Box, by Lynn Knight.
   This was one of the first books I read in this sort of genre: Knight focuses on the buttons she finds in a box of old buttons that has been used and added to by the women of her family, and thus tracks the history of not just fashion, but women’s place in society, technological advances, etc. I reread it semi-recently and didn’t love it as much as I had before, but I still remember it fondly.
9. Heavenly Bodies: Cult Treasures and Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs, by Paul Koudounaris.
   Prior to reading this, I knew little to nothing about the catacomb saints. It’s not a tradition that particularly speaks to me, but I was fascinated to learn how the practice of venerating and decorating the bones of (supposed) saints reflected people’s faith. The photography for this volume is absolutely stunning, too. Macabre, but riveting.
10. The Sarpedon Krater: The Life and Afterlife of a Greek Vase, by Nigel Spivey.
    If anything on this list is microhistory, this book’s the one. From a single vase, the scope expands to Renaissance art and modern museum collections (and looting). I didn’t know much about this specific vase before I read it, and I’m not really one for art history so I couldn’t evaluate if it was really as influential as the author says… but I loved the process of learning more about it, and the potential influence it’s had all this time.

I ended up with a “shortlist” of at least ten more books, but let’s stop there, before I get too obsessive about pruning the list. Hopefully it’s a nice spread of options for the way histories of objects or types of objects, or seemingly more transient things like fashion and food, can tell us all kinds of things about history!