"The classical world has never been more approachable nor nearly as much fun." -Booklist

"The classical world has never been more approachable nor nearly as much fun." -Booklist

That sums up why we're so excited for THE ANCIENT GUIDE TO MODERN LIFE, new this month from Natalie Haynes. And Booklist is spot-on when they compare her work to a comic monologue--she's known for her smart stand-up comedy in the UK. A brief video based on the book is below, as is the full Booklist review.



BOOKLIST
Issue: May 15, 2011
The Ancient Guide to Modern Life.
Haynes, Natalie (Author)
May 2011. 288 p. Overlook, hardcover, $25.95. (9781590206379).

If you’ve never read The Aeneid, you may have wondered why the Trojans were so stupid as to fall for the Trojan Horse gambit? Did they really think the Greeks would leave them a going-away present after 10 years of war? Haynes, British TV commentator, stand-up comedian, and devoted classics student, spells it all out in this delightfully entertaining and enlightening guide to the ancient world. In a jaunty, freewheeling style more akin to a comic monologue than a discourse on the classics, she moves through various overarching subjects (politics, law, religion, women, the arts, money), both describing how each was approached in the classical world and reflecting on what the attitudes and actions of the Greeks and Romans can tell us about our own behavior in the very different (but shockingly similar) modern world. Along the way, tasty anecdotes drop from the pages as readily as grapes falling into a toga-clad hedonist’s mouth: satirist Juvenal, for example, ranting that what makes Rome intolerable in August is all the bad poets wandering about reciting verses. The classical world has never been more approachable nor nearly as much fun.
— Bill Ott