I, Claudius: From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius (Robert Graves, Penguin Modern Classics ed., 2007, 416 pages)

I, Claudius, written by Robert Graves in 1934, is a novel written in the form of an autobiography of the Roman Emperor Claudius. It includes "history" of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and Roman Empire, from Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 BC to Caligula's assassination in AD 41.  In 1998, the Modern Library ranked I, Claudius fourteenth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2005, the novel was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the one hundred best English-language novels from 1923 to present.  I am hard-pressed to understand why.  True, I, Claudius, was regarded at the time of publication as a pioneering masterpiece of historical fiction, but in my view it is a meandering, aimless narrative with little to capture one's attention.