It’s a Don’s Life

Mary Beard

ISBN 1846682517

ISBN 13 9781846682513

November 2009

Price £8.99

Paperback, 288 pp.

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Subject: Autobiography

Mary Beard’s by now famous blog A Don’s Life has been running on the TLS website for nearly three years. In it she has made her name as a wickedly subversive commentator on the world in which we live. Her central themes are the classics, universities and teaching – and much else besides.

What are academics for? Who was the first African Roman emperor? Looting, ancient and modern. Are modern exams easier? Keep Lesbos for the Lesbians. Did St Valentine exist? What made the Romans laugh? That is just a small taste of this selection (and some of the choicer responses) which will inform, occasionally provoke and cannot fail to entertain.

‘This collection of her posts is pithy and engaging. The casual, humorous tone is seemingly informal. But the rhythm and cadence of the short blog have been honed to a fine art… Beard remains self-deprecatory, invigoratingly sane and zestful ’
— Frances Spalding, Independent