The Sand-Reckoner - (Tom Doherty Associates Books) by Gillian Bradshaw (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The Sand-Reckoner from author Gillian Bradshaw is a historical account that reimagines the life of one of ancient Greek's greatest minds.

The young scholar Archimedes has just had the best three years of his life at Ptolemy's Museum at Alexandria. To be able to talk and think all day, every day, sharing ideas and information with the world's greatest minds, is heaven to Archimedes. But heaven must be forsaken when he learns that his father is ailing, and his home city of Syracuse is at war with the Romans.

Reluctant but resigned, Archimedes takes himself home to find a job building catapults as a royal engineer. Though Syracuse is no Alexandria, Archimedes also finds that life at home isn't as boring or confining as he originally thought. He finds fame and loss, love and war, wealth and betrayal-none of which affects him nearly as much as the divine beauty of mathematics.

Review Quotes

"Delightful . . . true brilliance arises in a number of places . . . The theme of freedom, exemplified by verses from the Odyssey where more chains, not fewer, keep the hero free from the sirens' song bring The Sand-Reckoner to the timeless level of the best historical fiction." --Historical Novel Society Review

"Bradshaw makes ancient history immediate and thrilling." --The Orlando Sentinel

"Bradshaw is known for atmospheric accuracy, period characterizations, and rousing plots . . . She lends the conventions of the historical novel a rare and unusual depth." --The Boston Globe

About the Author

Gillian Bradshaw won the Hopwood Prize for fiction with her first novel, Hawk of May. She has BAs in English and Classical Greek, and sold her first novel while preparing for exams for her third degree, in Greek in Latin Literature. Her novels include Cleopatra's Heir, Render Unto Caesar, The Sand-Reckoner, and The Wolf Hunt. She and her husband live in Coventry in England. They have four children and a dog.