Bite-Sized Roman Society

The book is an an excellent story of Rome right about the height of Roman dominance and stability. If you are thinking Roman Empire, this is probably about the time period you are imagining and the book does a good job of giving you bite-sized chunks of Roman History.

Each chapter is about a set of characters that are loosely intertwined by chance encounters or observations in the street. Each chapter takes place in one Roman hour, which you realise later is far more complicated than our 60 min hours of today. The chapters themselves in audio form are only about 15 or so minutes, so it is a pretty quick listen/read. If you are a non-fiction reader/listener, the depth this book dives is pretty shallow compared to something like SPQR. It is however a really nice book for giving you a look into the daily lives of mostly normal people and not just focusing on who the Emperor is and his close advisers or adversaries.I would certainly recommend if you are someone who likes "slice of life" history.

So why the 4 stars instead of 5? This is probably the biggest sticking point for me, I don't want to pin this on the Performance because it is more how the book is written and the performance was excellent. Every chapter, sometimes multiple times a chapter, there is an excerpt thrown into the text to provide an actual historical reference. These are really cool and I enjoy these parts, but with the way the book is written sometimes its nearly impossible to tell whether you are in an excerpt or not until the either it sounds nothing like the characters in the chapter or the actual source is read out. This does not drastically take away from the book but when you are listening to it, sometimes it can catch you out for a moment or two.

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1 person found this helpful

A Great Way to Learn About the Real Rome

This style of book is a very different concept to any others I have read. I found it very memorable and accessible. Great book and recommended heartily.

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Great Book

If only my Latin lessons at school had been this interesting I'd have done it for O Level.

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Excellent

I've listened to this book several times, it is very easy going yet, informative and entertaining. After the second listen you become intrigued by how the characters cross paths.

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Great take on historical books

Brilliant idea, brings history to life, like all the origin stories of modern sayings and words

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not what I expected

Nevertheless, this was immensely entertaining and informative. The narrator's performance adds to the experience.

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Well you know what they say, when in Rome do as the Romans do.

That was good. That was very interesting. Normally I wouldn’t read anything that goes as far back in time as this book does but I geve this a go just because it sounded interesting and I was not disappointed. The story is told from the point of view of a cross section of people that lived there in all walks of life from the aristocrat to the prostitute and what they might have done for each hour of the day. A typical day in typical lives and with notes as to phrases and words still in sue today. Told with humour this book is far from dry as old fossils would be, and absorbing. The naration is brilliant. I’d read nnother book by this author any time. Waht more can I say? it’s short. A pocket guide book to the city of Rome, enjoy your walk.

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11 people found this helpful

Quote heavy but quite interesting.

For the most part an easy and interesting listen about everyday life in Rome. However it's quite heavy with quotes from ancient texts. Sometimes bewilderingly so due to them often appearing in the story telling, without any clue that its a quote or even a long excerpt from a book, letter or other text. The sources ARE almost always revealed but mostly after the thing is read.

I'm sure this is not an issue in reading the printed book. Cursive fonts, quotation marks and so on would make it obvious. But with an otherwise good narrator that reads everything in the same voice it's a bit annoying.

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2 people found this helpful

Brilliant. A treat.

Informative. Entertaining. Enriching. And beautifully read too. A wonderful book, one which, beyond its value as a source of information about Imperial Rome, also demonstrates something both of the striking similarities and marked differences between the world of the Roman Era and our Western world today.

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1 person found this helpful

helps you feel what it was like to live there

would make a good TV mini series please! could easily make a great show for Amazon et al

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