H.M. Classics Academy co-hosts a classical non-fiction book club with the Institute for Classics Education.
Everyone is welcome!
We meet on Zoom, on the last Sunday of the month at 7pm (GMT)/2pm (EST).
Reminders and the Zoom link are sent to the mailing list; join the list here: subscribepage.com/classicsacademy
Our next meeting is on Sunday, 30th November 2025, at 7pm (GMT)/2pm (ET) and we will discuss The Buried City: Unearthing the Real Pompeii by Gabriel Zuchtriegel.
About The Buried City: Unearthing the Real Pompeii
A vast area of Pompeii is being excavated for the first time, revealing astonishing insights into how people really lived. In this revelatory new history, Director of Pompeii Gabriel Zuchtriegel shares the untold stories that are at last emerging.
Pompeii is a world frozen in time. There are unmade beds, dishes left drying, tools abandoned by workmen, bodies embracing with love and fear. And alongside the remnants of everyday life, there are captivating works of art: lifelike portraits, exquisite frescos and mosaics, and the extraordinary sculpture of a sleeping boy, curled up under a blanket that’s too small.
The Buried City reconstructs the catastrophe that destroyed Pompeii on 24 August 79 CE, but it also offers a behind-the-scenes tour of the city as it was before: who lived here, what mattered to them, and what happened in their final hours. It offers us a vivid sense of Pompeii’s continuing relevance, and proves that ancient history is much closer to us than we think.
Sunday 28th December at 7pm UK (2pm EST): David Stuttard, Greek Myth: A Traveller’s Guide
The Greek myths have a universal appeal, reaching far beyond the time and physical place in which they were created. But many are firmly rooted in specific settings: Thebes dominates the tragedy of Oedipus; Mycenae broods over the fates of Agamemnon and Electra; Knossos boasts the scene of Theseus’ slaying of the Minotaur; Tiryns was where Heracles set out from on each of his twelve labours.
Here, the reader is taken on a tour of 22 destinations in Greece and Turkey, from Mount Olympus to Homer’s Hades, recounting the tales from Greek mythology and the history associated with each, evoking their atmosphere and highlighting features that visitors can still see today. Drawing on a wide range of Classical sources, with quotations newly translated by the author and freshly illustrated with specially commissioned drawings, this book is both a useful visitor’s guide to famous sites connected with Greek mythology and an enthralling imaginative journey for the armchair traveller.