Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Historical Heartthrobs: 50 Timeless Crushes—From Cleopatra to Camus by Kelly Murphy and Hallie Fryd

Zest Books, 2014

I'm going to admit something I've done since I was a teenager and still do today.  It helped not only take the monotony out of the monotone voice of my history teacher in high school, but also made non-fiction seem way more interesting....so here's what I do:
I scope out pictures in history books and look at who's hot and who's not.
And THAT is the reason I picked up this book.  It hooked me from the cover and entranced me between the pages.  Kelly Murphy did an excellent job of choosing some of the hottest historical figures in the world, with some of them that matched my personal hottie list! 

The book is chronological and begins with Cleopatra and ends with Benazir Bhutto.  Each historical figure is a short chapter which is divided into:
Life Story
The Story of His/Her Sex Life (and no...it doesn't get into details, more about marriages, trysts, and orientation)
Why He/She Matters
Best Feature
Heat Factor

The book also has these features:
a full page picture of the person
a short but interesting history
small pictures that collate with the subject
a box with an interesting side fact about the era, person, inventions etc
ends with quotes about the person or from the person him/herself.

I'll admit, I didn't know who each person was (12 out of 50..is that bad?) but this book propelled my knowledge forward, making the ones I didn't know interesting and those I did even more interesting. 

Overall, this is one of the more fascinating non-fiction books I've read this year.  It was "chunked" up enough to satisfy not only the voracious reader, but the reluctant one as well and the pictures really pull a reader in.  I had to go back and really look at the person to judge him/her after I read the chapter to either agree or disagree with the heat factor.  I also liked the fact Murphy didn't shy away from the bad boys and girls too....we all know there is that deadly attraction to them.  We all love the good guys, and we love to hate the bad guys.  This has both without detracting from historical fact.

If there were any flaws for me as a reader, it would be two things.  The first is the section entitled "The Story of His/Her Sex Life."  From a book reviewer standpoint, I felt like another word or phrase could have been used that would have been just as good without using the word "sex."  Although the paragraph does NOT convey illicit sexual scenes, I'm worried this may be a decision maker for some librarians. 

The second is more personal, and Murphy and Fryd did an EXCELLENT job of choosing the subject.  It's just that I know some hotties I thought were missing...anyone know who the sexy Manfred von Richthofen is?  He was my first historical crush :) 

Great book I would recommend in JH/HS library collections.



3 comments:

Unknown said...

Sounds REALLY cute. I'm referring this to our branch manager at the library to get for our YA section!

Naomi said...

It's going to be one of the book I booktalk this fall I'll never see again...or until the last day of school :)

Anonymous said...

This sounds like a great way to get our kids to read some history :)