Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town - Tapa dura

How exciting to have this perfect vademecum - another word for a guidebook, as all you Latin scholars will know, or literally, a "go-with-me". (Harry Mount Independent on Sunday)

[a] brilliant portrait of "the life of a Roman town"... [a] wonderful book. (James McConnachie Sunday Times)

Beard's cheerful scepticism makes her Pompeii more intriguing, more believable, than any version I have read. (Christian Tyler FT)

A vivid demonstration that sceptical scholarship can provide as gripping a read as sensationalism... a learned and fascinating book. (Tom Holland Guardian 2008-09-20)

Such verve and such mesmerising detail...A work of punctilious and scholarly devotion. (Ian Thomson Evening Standard 2008-09-22)

A vivid and engaging portrait of this enigmatic and historically important town (Clover Stroud Sunday Telegraph 2008-09-14)

Fresh and original, Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town makes history come alive (Daily Express)

Dynamically, wittily and authoritatively brings the ancient world to life (Simon Sebag Montefiore Standard 2008-11-17)

The book begins in darkness with desperate fugitives attempting to outrun the deadly flow. It ends with a practical guide to viewing the site, right down to tipping the lavatory attendants ... It is an odd justaposition, but an inspired one. Few could resist a visit having read Mary Beard's compelling account. (Elizabeth Speller Independent 2008-10-03)

What Mary Beard , one of the most distinguished Roman historians in the English-speaking world, has given us here is a delightfully readable account ... [She] has the facility for bringing all [the] characters to life ...without sacrificing scholarly accuarcy. (John Dillon Irish Times 2008-09-20)

The headings of Mary Beard's notes give a taste of this astonishing book: Bad Breath, Intestinal Parasites, Performing Monkeys, One-way Streets, Kosher Food, Water Shortages. The Temple of Isis serves to bring in multiculturalism. The House of the Menander tells how a house worked. At the Suburban Baths we go from communal bathing to hygiene to erotica. 154 writing tablets from the House of Caecilius Jucundus detail the accounts of its owner. A fast-food joint on the Via dell' Abbondanza introduces food and drink and diets and street life. These are just a few of the strands that make up an extraordinary and involving portrait of an ancient town, its life and its continuing re-discovery, by Britain's leading classicist.