Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures, and Innovations (Paperback)

from bezoar44

Collections of book reviews can be great, but if an author has certain habits of thought or writing, they tend to become painfully obvious. In this collection - mostly reviews from the New York Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, and the London Review of Books - Mary Beard maintains a...

from Eyejaybee

A few months ago I chanced to remark to a fellow official in the Department for Education as we queued at the coffee stall in Sanctuary Buildings that I now felt that Latin was the most useful subject that I had learned in school. I hadn't realised that the former Secretary of State, Michael Gove...

from bodachliath

I must admit that I'm a little nervous of reviewing a book whose last chapter concerns the process of reviewing academic books. This is a surprisingly accessible account of what modern Classicists do and argue about, in the form of a series of book reviews, and one which I found enlightening and ...

from datrappert

Almost totally adapted from several years worth of book reviews, this is a fascinating survey of Greek and (mostly) Roman history by a woman who seems to know it all. At least she purports to know a lot more than the authors of most of the books she is reviewing! But she's absolutely convincing a...

from nmele

After studying Latin for six years and Greek for two, I am a bit nerdy about ancient Rome, so I quite enjoyed this collection of reviews and essays by Mary Beard, whose frank evaluations are both entertaining and enlightening.