Talking Classics : The Shock of the Old SIGNED, Mary Beard

Talking Classics : The Shock of the Old SIGNED, Mary BeardNew SIGNED Hardback What's exciting about a piece of bread 4,000 years old? Or some pots of paint abandoned in the eruption at Pompeii? Why should we be bothered with the distant past anyway? What's the point? The life, art and literature of ancient Greece and Rome have something to offer everyone. They are not the property of wealthy white men only. They make us wonder how to make sense of people who lived long ago (from angry landlords to giggling

from the medieval masons who worked through the Black Death to complete the chapel

The scenes here challenge our ideas about what fungi are

Their country has Europe’s fastest-rising child poverty rates

This book reviews the local history

the childhood homes

But while admiring the tenacity of some yellow horned poppies thriving on a shingle beach – a place where it seemed no plant had a hope of surviving – he was struck by a simple yet profound truth

These are days that have shaped her

they are a window into our deepest hopes

As Prime Minister and Home Secretary

Are you the next Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot

continue to shape lives across Britain today

their physical beauty