Two recent books I have read are Digging to America by Anne Tyler and Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor by Anthony Everitt. Actually I listened to the Audio Book version of Digging to America but I read the book version of Augustus.
The novel, Digging to America is about two families: One is American and the other is Persian (Iranian) who meet at the Baltimore Airport as they are each meeting their respective arriving adopted Korean babies. It relates the story of how they become close friends and the different cultural issues that they deal with. It's a very perceptive and touching story.
Reading Augustus showed the significance of the historical role of the first Emperor of Rome who, in his day, ruled relatively humanely and established precedence of governing with the support of the governed in an innovative way. Early in his career, one would have never imagined that the sickly young grand nephew of Julius Caesar would have survived to reign for 40 years to establish a reasonably stable Empire that lasted several generations after he passed on from the scene.
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