Pompeii

"Yes, I feel Robert Harris is just really good at telling a story and making it thrilling. The plot really engages you. This is true with his other books as well, like Fatherland and Archangel , even though they’re more alt-history rather than the two that I’ve chosen, which are more based on history. Pompeii is about the eruption of Vesuvius and an aqueduct engineer who finds out about it through the sulphur found in the water supplies of the Roman towns nearby. It’s this plot combined with a power-hungry millionaire, a former slave and his ambition to earn money. It’s got a great ending, and it’s filled with action. It keeps you entertained the entire way through. Yes, you can see the individual towns and how it affected them, you hear about places. Even though the book is not a history, you can see how the average person would have viewed the eruption. Like news comes after three days from around the mountain that this town has just been cut off completely. It’s this very slow development of information that really helps you imagine yourself in the moment. Pliny does feature and his death, sleeping. In the story, he goes out to try and save the library of a friend, who’s living along the shore. The library has incredibly-filled-with-information books, and Pliny feels he needs the Roman navy to come out and save it. So he went out in a ship to try to save it and he did, I think, but he died. Sign up here for our newsletter featuring the best children’s and young adult books, as recommended by authors, teachers, librarians and, of course, kids."