On a lighter note, has anyone read the Flashman series? Think of a history book with a comedic character placed at very interesting crossroads of history from the 1830s to the late 1880s.

The author (Fraser) had been a scholarly author of history with no sales. He then thought of dropping the cowardly Harry Flashman into British and world events (retreat from Afghanistan to India, Chinese uprising, rise of Bismark and the modern German state, Custer and Little Big Horn, charge of the Light Brigade) with a healthy dollop of very serious factual backgrounds to each event.