Historian Tom Holland is the award­-winning author of Rubicon, Persian Fire and Millennium. He appears regularly on radio, TV and in print. His latest book Dynasty is published in paperback. He shares the books that changed his life.

Moominsummer Madness

By Tove Jansoon

What I love about this book, as a child and still today, is its mix of the fantastical and normal. On the one hand, it’s about a family and their friends all enjoying themselves, quite happy not doing much. On the other hand, it’s about characters that can change into strange shapes, magicians coming down from the moon and strange creatures coming out from the roof. That mix of the familiar and extraordinary informs all my writing.

The Histories

By Herodotus

By the time I was 12, I was attracted by Ancient Greece and Rome. At first, I found the early section of The Histories really boring because it’s like a long story that never gets to the point. In the second half I was rewarded with the stories I’d been waiting for, like the battles of Marathon, Salamis and Thermopylae. Over the years, I came to value the infectious curiosity of the first half and the description of the world in the fifth century BC seen through the eyes of this extraordinary Greek historian.

A Distant Mirror

By Barbara W. Tuchman

Tuchman’s book The Guns of August won the Pulitzer Prize, but it’s this slightly less well­known work that provided me with a role model for my own writing. Both scholarly (学术的)   and interesting, it’s a description of the 14th century in Western Europe and brings medieval civilization (中世纪文明) to life, transporting the reader back to the horror of the Black Death, the Peasants’ Revolt and the Great Papal Schism. I felt I knew what it was like to die of the plague (瘟疫) or to have a sword put through me — real stories told outstandingly.

【小题1】What do we know about Moominsummer Madness?

A．It’s both typical and imaginary.

B．It tells the writer’s life stories.

C．It’s undervalued by readers.

D．It features family struggles.

【小题2】How does Tom Holland find the first half of The Histories now?

A．It’s quite stupid.

B．It’s entertaining.

C．It’s culture­centered.

D．It’s hard to understand.

【小题3】Which book does Tom Holland admire and try to imitate?

A．The Histories.

B．A Distant Mirror.

C．The Guns of August.

D．Moominsummer Madness.