Now that I’ve done the – 9th? 10th? – revision of the third novel in my Lucius Sestius trilogy, I am beginning …

I have a problem; Roman names . . .

My goodness, Pliny the Elder did not like pearls. Or seafood. “Luxurious living and the corruption of morals arises mostly from shellfish.” (Book 9. 104) Straight from telling us about crabs running backwards and changing into scorpions, Pliny gets right down to the nitty-gritty (oyster and pearl joke there), and goes on: “Out of the whole of the natural world, the sea causes most harm to our stomachs.”

I was very happy when the Qatar National Library published my short story “The Pearl of Catara” on their blog yesterday! For …