We love books about ancient history at Five Books. Not only is it relaxing to escape from the present by reading about events several millennia ago, but the brutality of that period also helps put our modern challenges in perspective. One exciting trend in the past few years is a move away from accounts of ancient Rome and Greece to other ancient civilisations. Here's a roundup of some of the books published recently.
A really immersive book that makes it hard not to pack your bags and head to Tunisia is Carthage: A New History of an Ancient Empire by Eve MacDonald, a classicist and archaeologist who teaches at Cardiff University:
The Library of Ancient Wisdom, a book by Assyriologist Selena Wisnom, takes us to Iraq in the 7th century BCE and the library of Ashurbanipal. It’s been shortlisted for the Wolfson Prize, the UK’s most prestigious history prize:
Staying in Mesopotamia, our contributing editor Tuva Kahrs also really enjoyed Between Two Rivers and the way it’s concerned with people’s lives. “I particularly loved the description of bricks with dog paw prints and clay writing tablets with children’s fingerprints from thousands of years ago,” she writes. She interviewed the author, Moudhy Al-Rashid, on the best books about Mesopotamia.
We spoke to historian Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones about the Persian Empire a few years ago. He’s now written a book on Babylon, ‘the mother of all cities.’ Given how it’s been vilified in the Biblical tradition, it’s quite fun to read a book that puts the record straight. “The Babylon you will meet in this book was a thriving, rich and advanced ancient Near Eastern city with a singular identity, which it maintained for well over 2000 years,” he writes.
We’re fans of books by Robert Harris at Five Books, as his historical fiction tends to be based on primary sources, and it’s a relaxing way to learn about history. Agrippa is about Augustus’s best friend and presents him as the genius behind the military victories that enabled Octavian, the great-nephew of Julius Caesar, to become the first Roman emperor.
Also recently recommended on Five Books in historical fiction is Boudicca’s Daughter by Elodie Harper. Set in Britain at the time of the Roman invasion, it’s about the daughter of the late Iron Age queen, Boudicca. According to Alex Bescoby, one of the judges of the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, the book is realistic, in as much as it can be “about a culture that was essentially eradicated and happened a very long time ago. There’s not a lot to work from, but I found the story compelling.” (We also have nonfiction book recommendations about Boudicca, by Richard Hingley, a professor of Archaeology at Durham University).
October 25, 2026
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