The Books canon

Sourced and shelved.

Every book chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.

Rubicon

2003 · 464 pages

The Roman Republic destroyed itself, and Tom Holland tells it at the pace of a thriller. Caesar reaches the Rubicon with a single legion, knowing crossing it means war against his own state.

★ 6.0

SPQR

A History of Ancient Rome
2015 · 608 pages

Beard covers a thousand years of Rome, opening on Catiline's conspiracy and closing the day Caracalla made every free inhabitant a citizen, and she cares as much about slaves as emperors.

★ 6.7

The Twelve Caesars

121 · 464 pages

Secretary to the emperor Hadrian, Suetonius wrote the lives of Julius Caesar and eleven emperors after him, omens, gossip, last words and all. Our picture of Nero comes straight from these pages.

★ 7.2

The History of Rome

25 BC · 487 pages

Livy tells Rome's story from the wolf and the twins onward, pausing on the people whose conduct he believes made the city. These are the legends Europe retold for two thousand years.

★ 7.2