It's a don's life -- the book

The book of this blog is due out on 5 November. But advance copies are now available from Amazon, and are on their way to those commenters whose comments are included in the compendium (you know who you are). I like the look of it and, obviously, feel some trepidation about how it will be 'received', and -- of course -- bought.

The book reprints some selected posts, as well as including quite a few comments (and I think that debate actually makes the book). It also has an essay, by yours truly, on the nature of blogging -- and why I am a convert to the genre, despite many initial misgivings about dumbing down etc etc.

I hope you'll like it.

I'm also hoping that the print form will reach even more people than this on-line blog.

I'd like to think that anyone planning to apply to a so-called "elite" university would find some reassurance here: Oxbridge interviews really aren't as mad as they are made out to be, and you'll find some useful reflections from someone on the "wrong" side of the interview in the book. You'll also find a glimpse of the day to day life of a don -- much less port, and much more hard work than is usually painted (though even the blog cant quite capture what my everyday life is like ... no student would fancy seeing our discussion dissecting her essay reprinted on the web). 

You'll also find some debunking of classical myths (Did the Romans wear togas? Well, not often -- about as we <men> wear dinner jackets). And you'll come across some sharp commentary on 'new' classical stories in the headlines, not to mention some expostulation about the world as we know it (why do mixed institutions make it so hard for women to find the women's loo?)

Not to mention the occasional pointed rant on "the erotics of pedagogy', or on the Elgin Marbles.

Hope you enjoy, because over the last few years you -- the commenters -- have done so much to make this blog what it is.

Ad multos annos.