Dr. Alexander Lenard was an hungarian physician, who lived in southern Brazil and dedicated his life to medicine, literature and curious translations. His Latin version of Winnie the Pooh, made in the 50's, stood in oblivion for quite a while, until a fellow publisher in Sao Paulo decided to make 100 copies. One of these got the attention of a Swedish publisher, who prepared 2000 copies as a gift... and the rest is history. Dr. Lenard lived a quiet and secluded life, but managed to become famous in Brazil for a while, first for staying for weeks on the top position of the "Twenty-One" local TV version, then after being mistaken for the nazi officer Joseph Mengele (and chased by the police!).

He would surely have been delighted to know that his unusual idea became a much loved and admired book. He showed us that Latin is still a living and vibrant language, and hopefully will provide a stimulus to the study of Latin for ages to come.

I came to read this book for a paper I decided to write on Samuel Beckett, for my Theory of History course. A friend who's an actress recommended it for me, and it was an amazing discovery. From an historian's point of view, this book is a rich, challenging and informative approach to one of the most important aspects of the ideology crisis from the beginning of the XXth. Century. As I came to know later, it's a classic on the theatre field as well.

Apart from Beckett and some minor authors, there are chapters on Adamov, Ionescu, Genet and Pinter, and a superb essay on the meaning of the concept of "absurd" of human existence. A must read for anyone who wishes to understand not only the art, but the ideas which shaped the latest century.

At first, when I started reading this book, I thought I was going to be disappointed with its non-academic purpose. I've seen many works destined to the general reader which lack depth or are simply too plain on their approach. No footnotes, not even mention to the exact passages of ancient authors; I was prepared not to like it.

Mr. Freeman's book surprised me. Most of all, his writing style flows with ease and is extremely enjoyable to read. I finished its almost 500 pages in three days... Unlike many books about ancient Greece, it has a good space for discussion of Roman influence on the Greek world (going further until the end of Antiquity), as well as up-to-date information on the new historiography trends of gender and approach to slavery. It also includes information from recent archaeology discoveries, and the discussions on Greek architecture and art are very interesting.

On the whole, despite a couple of almost annoying repetitions of the same examples over the text, this book is a refreshing approach not only for the general reader, but also as a relief from some heavy, opinionated schorlarly texts on the same subject.

This book is a decent introduction to some of the most important trends of though on decline in the modern world. It is worth for that, as little else of what the author writes is coherent with these chapters. Basically, he believes that there is no real decline. His conservative liberalism is in constant conflict with the ideas he talks about, which in the end led me to think that he's unwillingly proving to be the wrong one.