I learned a lot from this book and was also quite entertained by it, which I guess is all you need to know; maybe I should have put that sentence last. Let's try this again:
I was worried when I started reading this book - the first page has our hero riding into town and notes that "any raw-boned yokel" could kill him by hitting him over the head with a club. Luckily, Greenblatt's overheated style calms down quickly as we start following our main character around as he hunts for lost ancient works in the libraries of Europe's monasteries. Eventually, this winding path takes the reader through a tour containing a look at bookworms (the book-eating "teeth of time"), the recovery of ancient books from Pompeii, a tremendously entertaining polemic against the Catholic church, and a through examination of Epicureanism. This could be a mess, but Greenblatt's able to work all of these elements into a cohesive whole that I both (checks first sentence) learned a lot from and was quite entertained by. Easily recommended for book nerds (cough), history nerds (cough, hack) and really anybody with even a passing interest in the material.
Grade: A-
Grade: A-
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