Roads still leading to Rome

I got a book token for Father's Day from No. 2 son and it was burning a hole in my pocket, although I have not been reading as much as I used to but I always have one on the go, so while I waited for the little sweet shop to open I had some time to kill so popped into the local bookshop across the lane. It doesn't have a lot of books and a dearth of military history but it does have thousands upon thousands of second hand books, however imagine my surprise when I noticed a new novel called 'Vindolanda' by Roman historian Adrian Goldsworthy.

Roman historical novels are very popular as you know, I have kept up with Harry Sidebottom and am thinking of moving on to Simon Scarrow, I have tentatively returned to fiction after about forty years of non-fiction, but it is still military. Anyway I returned and have now started the book having put down Douglas Murray's 'The Slow Death Of Europe', an excellent book but one which is depressing in its clarity of our future and my blood pressure needed to get back to normal levels before continuing.

So far Goldsworthy has been entertaining, but it is a slow build up as our hero looks after his little patch on what will become a section of Hadrian's Wall with a recent mysterious raid on a small caravan, many questions remain to be answered. So far so good.

I was talking to a customer the other day and she mentioned she had picked up a Roman coin while in Spain, she had had it checked and was told it was contemporary with the Emperor Vespasian, I trumped that with the cannonball found at Jenkins' Ferry, Arkansas. The upshot was she offered me the coin and brought it in the next day, a nice gesture.