Bøger af Debra Hamel

Debra Hamel's Killing Eratosthenes tells the true story of a murder trial that took place two and a half millennia ago in ancient Athens. Euphiletus, the defendant, freely admitted to killing Eratosthenes, whom he'd found in bed with his wife. But he argued that his execution of the young man was legally justified. Killing Eratosthenes talks readers through Euphiletus' version of events-from the early days of his marriage to the night he killed his wife's lover-providing relevant background along the way. The book is intended for a general audience. No prior knowledge of the period is required. NOTE: This is a chapter-length work of nonfiction.

In the 5th century B.C., Herodotus of Halicarnassus wrote a lengthy account of the expansion of the Persian Empire and its ultimate collision with the city-states of Greece. The two Persian Wars of the early 5th century B.C.-with the legendary battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea-were decisive moments in the history of Greece and indeed of all Europe. We owe much of what we know about them, and about the history and cultures of the pre-Classical ancient world, to Herodotus. In 2010 Debra Hamel embarked on a project of tweeting an abbreviated version of Herodotus' History of the Persian Wars: each of the History's 1535 sections would be summarized in a single tweet (that is, in 140 characters or less) and posted to the twitter account @iHerodotus, one tweet per day. The project would take more than four years to complete. This book, which is being released to coincide with the conclusion of the Twitter project, contains the entire tweeted History. Although much of Herodotus' rich story was necessarily omitted from this abbreviated version of his text, The Twitter Herodotus conveys well the great breadth of Herodotus' remarkable account. This very readable and entertaining, if unconventional, summary of the History can serve as an introduction to Herodotus' masterpiece and will entice readers to find out more about the author and his subject matter. "A composition that will win the applause of the moment!" - Thucydides

Thucydides of Athens wrote an account of the great conflagration of his age, the Peloponnesian War, which began when the Spartans invaded Athenian territory in the summer of 431 BC and ended with the Athenians' surrender in early 404. Thucydides served as one of Athens' generals in 424 but was exiled from the city afterwards for a period of twenty years, during which time he researched and wrote his unfinished masterwork, History of the Peloponnesian War. Debra Hamel spent more than four years posting an abbreviated version of Herodotus' History of the Persian Wars to the Twitter account @iHerodotus. The project, begun in 2010, was concluded in early 2015. Hamel then started again, this time tweeting Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War to the Twitter account @iThucydides. Each of the 917 sections in Thucydides' text was ultimately summarized in a single tweet of 140 characters or less, with one tweet posted per day. The project took just over two and a half years to complete. The final tweet was posted on August 5, 2017. This book contains the entire tweeted History. It is the author's hope that this abbreviated version of the History will attract readers to Thucydides who might otherwise not read him at all.

Debra Hamel has been tweeting the first lines of books since 2007. To date, she has posted more than 7000 first lines on her Twitter accounts @TwitrLit and @KidderLit. IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY TWEET is a collection of 500 of the best of these. The first lines in this collection are culled from a wide variety of genres and from children's books as well as books written for adults. Some of the titles excerpted will be familiar to readers. The first lines of Fahrenheit 451 and Slaughterhouse Five are included, for example, and Jane Austen and Charles Dickens both merit mentions. But readers will find a lot here that's unfamiliar. The book is intended to introduce readers to new books and authors, so that they'll come away from the collection itching to get their hands on an armful of new titles. Here's a sample: "Benny Rhodes loved his own bald head more than anything else in the world he could think of." (John A. Miller, Coyote Moon) "I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday." (John Scalzi, Old Man's War) "A dead man fell from the sky, landing at my feet with a thud." (Gary Corby, The Pericles Commission) The lines included in this collection are grouped into different categories, with chapters such as "Once Upon a Time," "Dead People," and "Pregnant Amish Men and Other Surprises." The book also includes three quizzes so that readers can test their first-line savvy.

At once academic and cheeky, the experience of this book is like reading Herodotus while simultaneously consulting a history of Greece and a scholarly commentary on the text.

Aimed at classics students and general readers, the book provides an in-depth examination of the fraught relationship between Athens' military commanders and its vaunted sovereign democracy.