Sunday, December 04, 2005
The Parthenon - Mary Beard
I am well aware of a major failing in my reading: too often the authors are male. I wring my hands about it occasionally, promising to cast my net wider. This year I have put in a woeful performance. I’ve tried to clear up those books that have been knocking around for years, books bought when I was not the new man/metrosexual/ubersexual/whatever-I'm supposed-to-be I am now. But one of the few writers who will make multiple appearances in this list is Mary Beard. She’s a Cambridge classicist; she writes for the Guardian; she is excellent. This is more than a straightforward history of a building; she raises interesting questions about representation and especially restoration, and it’s all very readable.
A less long-winded entry, this one: it’s Sunday evening and I have dinner to make. There will be more to come from Beard, and I need to up the pace of these entries.
|
I am well aware of a major failing in my reading: too often the authors are male. I wring my hands about it occasionally, promising to cast my net wider. This year I have put in a woeful performance. I’ve tried to clear up those books that have been knocking around for years, books bought when I was not the new man/metrosexual/ubersexual/whatever-I'm supposed-to-be I am now. But one of the few writers who will make multiple appearances in this list is Mary Beard. She’s a Cambridge classicist; she writes for the Guardian; she is excellent. This is more than a straightforward history of a building; she raises interesting questions about representation and especially restoration, and it’s all very readable.
A less long-winded entry, this one: it’s Sunday evening and I have dinner to make. There will be more to come from Beard, and I need to up the pace of these entries.
|
