Salammbô -- which Gustave Flaubert wrote in 1862 -- is a tale of blood-and-thunder that's nothing like what one would expect from the man who'd just finished Madame Bovary. It's a tale of war between Rome and Carthage, and in many ways, the novel is an exercise in the sensual, the violent -- the exotic. And that may explain why, despite the fact that the French appreciate this novel as a classic, it is today practically unknown today among English-speakers. Because the lot of us are a bunch of puritanical fuddy-duddies! Be the first on your block to read Salammbô today!