The Ancient Busybodies (Book 1)

These two short books of stories are for young and not-so-young children, for young and not-so-young adults. They tell how great philosophers and scientists of the distant past and of Greek Mythology hover around us to help us out, or to give us a harder time than we are already having.

These are stories of high adventure, tomfoolery and fun. Great figures of ancient Greece, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment return as friendly ghosts who laugh up at their sleeves when they watch us try hard and fail, when they realize how ignorant and helpless we are. Well, sometimes they are quite ignorant, helpless and downright ridiculous themselves.

So we watch cutthroat races of flying devices that take place in 1910 – where the modern Greek flyers turn out to be equally stubborn and reckless as the ancient ones.

We see how Archimedes taking a bubble-bath and humming cheerfully in his tub discovers a law of nature and runs through the city stark naked.

We see the famous astronomer and geographer Claudius Ptolemy (his buddies called him “Claudio”) who explored the Island of the Blissful only to find out what a boring place that was (too quiet! How dull the green meadows were!).

Then, Copernicus (“Nicholas” for his buddies) threw Claudius’s astronomical theories in the wastebasket and everyone started to insult him, although the man was right.

Christopher Columbus, some Northern heroes, Eratosthenes measuring the width of the earth with a huge scoop, Daedalus, Icarus, the Cretan Minos, the Austrian Georg Reticus are part of this human comedy, full of time travels, jokes and pranks.