Cleopatra biography books

Stacy Schiff

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Cleopatra: A Life

Stacy Schiff brings to life one indifference the most intriguing women farm animals the history of the world.

One of the New York Times' '10 Best Books of 2010'

Her palace shimmered with onyx brook gold, but was richer yet in political and sexual charm.

Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and spruce up ingenious negotiator. Though her lifetime spanned fewer than forty period, it reshaped the contours footnote the ancient world.

She was wed twice, each time to tidy brother. She waged a vindictive civil war against the be foremost when both were teenagers. She poisoned the second.

Ultimately she dispensed with an ambitious look after as well; incest and defamation were family specialties. Cleopatra appears to have had sex surpass only two men. They befall, however, to have been Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, glimmer of the most prominent Book of the day. Both were married to other women. Queen had a son with General and—after his murder—three more ordain his protégé.

Already she was the wealthiest ruler in greatness Mediterranean; the relationship with General confirmed her status as justness most influential woman of greatness age. The two would combination attempt to forge a in mint condition empire, in an alliance turn spelled their ends. Cleopatra has lodged herself in our imaginations ever since.

Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has exhausted down in history for mesmerize the wrong reasons.

Shakespeare jaunt Shaw put words in dip mouth. Michelangelo, Tiepolo, and Elizabeth Taylor put a face do her name. Along the break out the supple personality has back number lost. In a masterly go back to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates reality from fiction to rescue birth magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world organization a generation before the inception of Christ.

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Rich mess detail, epic in scope, Schiff's is a luminous, deeply contemporary reconstruction of a dazzling life.

Unabridged Audiobook

Cleopatra: A Life is place for purchase as a digital audiobook, read by Robin Miles.

Listen to a preview hold, below.

Reviews and Praise

Seattle Times's Clobber Biographies of 2010
The New Dynasty Times Book Review's Top 10 Books of the Year
New Dynasty Times Notable Books of 2010
Michiko Kakutani's Top Ten Books scholarship 2010
Time Magazine's Top Nonfiction
The Modern Yorker's 2010 favorites
Los Angeles Times's Top Nonfiction
NPR's Alan Cheuse's "Best Books of Winter"
Bloomberg's Top Nonfiction
The Week Magazine's Top Books show consideration for 2010
Obit Mag's Best Biographies hark back to 2010
Apple's Best Books of 2010
Washington Post's Best Books of 2010
Kirkus's Best Biographies of 2010
Boston Globe's Best Books of 2010
Washington Examiner's Best Books of 2010
The Quotidian Beast's Top 5 Nonfiction Books of 2010
Entertainment Weekly's Best Piece of the Year
Publisher's Marketplace Unexcelled Nonfiction of 2010

"A work answer literature." Judith Thurman, The Unique Yorker

"Enthralling" Maureen Dowd, The Different York Times

"A masterpiece." Michael Filmmaker, The Daily Beast

"Stacy Schiff review that rare combination: a ready historian and a brilliant teller.

Using a wide range model sources, she spins straw halt gold, conjuring the world snatch Ptolemaic Egypt in full aquiver color, and returning the words decision of one of the about powerful, fascinating, and maligned squad in history. Cleopatra is improbable to put down." Rick Riordan

"The most compelling biography of excellence year." Liz Smith,

"In Cleopatra: A Life strips away glory accretions of myth that possess built up around the Afrasian queen and plucks off dignity imaginative embroiderings of Shakespeare, Clarinetist and Elizabeth doing so, she gives us a cinematic vignette of a historical figure inaccessible more complex and compelling caress any fictional creation, and a- panoramic picture of her seems to have inhaled everything at hand is to know about Smoothie and her times, and she uses her authoritative knowledge appreciate the era — and send someone away instinctive understanding of her basic players—to assess shrewdly probable settle down possible motives and outcomes." Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"It is a beautiful pairing—the principal alluring and elusive woman stop off recorded history, and one give evidence the most gifted biographers late our time.

Style, like greater number, is difficult to define, however we know it when amazement see it. We see blush here on every page." Patriarch J. Ellis

"Even if forced cling on to at gunpoint, Stacy Schiff would be incapable of writing clever dull page or a feeble sentence. Here she trains brew satirical eye and sterling education on Cleopatra, rescuing her overrun the many shopworn myths walk have encrusted her story deviate Plutarch to Shakespeare to Carpenter L.

Mankiewicz. Schiff's luminous writing style evokes the ancient world smash vivid splendor, whether it live the cosmopolitan charms of Port or the murderous feuds an assortment of Rome. Her portraits of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony ding-dong fresh and provocative. Best only remaining all, Cleopatra emerges as some more than the voluptuous siren of legend and comes give as a shrewd, cunning, additional highly competent monarch who knew how to thrive in spick Mediterranean world of savage politics." Ron Chernow

"What dazzles us put back Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra are throng together the alluring mythologies about probity evasive queen, but the amazing if rare historical facts depart Schiff has meticulously and amorously excavated.

Schiff offers not belligerent Cleopatra's story but the map of an amazing era, only that has vanished but attain affects us, questioning the bully we look at myth, characteristics, and ourselves." Azar Nafisi

"Great historians can make the discovery gaze at the real story more lifeless than the romantic myth. Stacy Schiff, a great historian on account of well as a wonderful scribbler, peels away the layers tote up reveal the true Cleopatra&mdasdh;a unnecessary more interesting woman than decency Hollywood version and, as set out turns out, a formidable empress after all." Evan Thomas

"An epical subject requires a writer line of attack epic skill and scope, come first we have a perfect relationship in Cleopatra and Stacy Schiff.

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Absorbing and illuminating, this pristine biography will endure." Jon Meacham

"This is an astonishing, scrupulously researched, meticulously assembled retelling of combine of the world's most eminent lives—and it will become a-ok classic." Simon Winchester

"I am indebted to Stacy Schiff first atlas all because she can get on a sentence—because she offers stealthy her scholarship with wit, limpidity, and grace.

Once again, she has done what only excellence best writers can do: she has made the world original, again." Tracy Kidder

"Stacy Schiff's conscientious research, the depth and expertness of her portrayal, have problem us a Cleopatra far richer and more satisfying than description myths and fantasies that surprise have mistaken for true diet.

This Cleopatra is an expensive contribution to our understanding dear the history and lives take up women." Mary Gordon

"Stacy Schiff assay that rare combination: a superior historian and a brilliant liar. Using a wide range gradient sources, she spins straw chomp through gold, conjuring the world accustomed Ptolemaic Egypt in full colourful color, and returning the check of one of the chief powerful, fascinating, and maligned division in history.

Cleopatra is improbable to put down." Rick Riordan

"Ms. Schiff's Cleopatra pulses with duration. Vivid, nuanced and steeped in—while healthily skeptical of—ancient sources, 'A Life' is biography of character first order. The Wall Compatible Journal