The Oxford History of the Classical World | John Boardman, Jasper Griffin & Oswyn Murray (Oxford University Press, 1994)
Purchased: 30 August 1995
“The subject of this book is enormous. In time it covers a period of well over a thousand years, from the poems of Homer to the end of pagan religion and the fall of the Roman Empire in the West.“
Oh man, I loved this book. And I hated it too.
It consumed a whole year of my life. I set up a card table in front of my heater so that I could leave it in place, open ready to read every night after work. I had pencils and highlight pens to hand. In the summer months, the portable heater was replaced by the portable fan that got me by in the early years of my twenties and living on my own for the first time.
This picked up where my HSC studies in Ancient History left off. It filled in the gaps between wars and civilisations, providing the context and chronology missing from the introductory highschool syllabus. It was exciting and informative but it was also incredibly long. At nearly 900 pages long, this book almost overwhelmed me.
But I persisted.
By the end my highlighting & note making had tapered off. I can still sense the relief flloating from the final pages that I experienced back in 1996 when I finally finished it. I felt confident at the time, that this would be a book that I would reference a lot, dipping in and out of it to satisfy some future need for information. But I haven’t. Not once.
It is time to let this book go.
(This) Authentic Life 