Name: It's a Don's Life
ISBN: 9781846682513

Mary Beard

In her now famous 'Timesonline' blog, Mary Beard has made her name as a wickedly subversive commentator on the world in which we live. Her central themes are classics, the universities and teaching, but there is much else besides. This selection will inform and provoke and cannot fail to entertain.

It's a Don's Life

Emmett

First time reading an academic's blog; or at least a print version of it. I like how witty it is; and how Professor Beard can turn something mundane or quotidian into something Classical to talk about. All in all a good, gentle introduction to the Classical world at large without launching cannonball into the more heady, esoteric details. Others would appreciate how she continuously illuminates the applicability of what would seem to most an antiquated, subject of little practicality to everyday life/modern situations. At almost every blog entry I learn something new, and the comments add some lively banter that would be sorely missed if they had been excluded. The treatise on how Oxbridge comes up with its interview questions and how exams aren't getting any easier in this century were delightful perks.