Most of our impressions of Cleopatra come from Shakespeare or Elizabeth Taylor—and, as author Stacy Schiff says in this book trailer, “all of those fabulous paintings with all those naked breasts.”
But to understand the real Queen of Egypt—”the very commanding, very clever, very quick-witted ruler”—we have to get past all that:
Schiff won the Pulitzer Prize for her biography of Vera Nabokov (wife of Vladimir), and she also received much praise for her biographies of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Benjamin Franklin.
In her new book, writes BookPage reviewer Anne Bartlett, “Cleopatra is not the sexually voracious, treacherous poisoner who seduced Julius Caesar and destroyed Mark Antony. Rather, she is an intelligent, able ruler who did nothing that male kings didn’t do routinely.”
Cleopatra: A Life comes out November 1. Will you pick it up?
What book trailers have you watched recently?
