The list has some surprises, which makes me wonder a little bit about its accuracy. Can Nicetas Choniates' history O City of Byzantium, long out-of-print, really clock in at #32 when Warren Treadgold's History of the Byzantine State and Society is at #84? Can the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, selling for $450 a set, really best (at #38) John Julius Norwich's Short History of Byzantium (at #42)?

Of course, to some extent its fun just to see where various books rank, and which take the top and bottom spots. The #1 seller at the moment, no big surprise, is Edward Luttwak's Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire; it's followed by Lars Brownworth's Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire that Saved Western Civilization and Judith Herrin's Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire. The #100 book is The Development of the Komnenian Army, 1081-1180. The first volume of Norwich's trilogy clocks in at #7; Colin Wells's Sailing from Byzantium at # 8; and Procopius's Secret History is at #5. And quality writing does tell: after all these years and many other treatments of the subject, Steven Runciman's The Fall of Constantinople still clocks in at #11, while his history of Mistra is right behind, at #12.

Changes in the public's book-buying habits are also reflected. Anna Comnena's Alexiad, as an e-book for the Kindle reader, ranks #17, while the old-style paperback edition is at #29.

[N.B. Because Amazon actually does update these lists hourly, don't be surprised if the rankings have changed from the numbers given above.]