I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I have moved to the Boston area only a year ago, and this book has helped me learn a lot about the life in and around Cape Cod since 1621. The characters seem almost real with all the trials and tribulations they have had to suffer. I highly recommned it to any reader who enjoys historical novels (the best!).

You will forget about the outside world when you read this; nothing but sand, wind, and water. Plus some natural history, local folklore, a few shipwreck tales. Typical Thoreau; he finds beauty, interest, detail in the wilderness. The desolate landscape will help to clear your mind. Highly recommended.

Each year, in preparation for a week's retreat to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, I go in search of a book that would be perfect for a sojourn on a desert island. Of course, the Outer Banks are hardly deserted--the locals have printed up Wege's infamous photograph of a packed stretch of Coney Island with the caption "Nags Head, circa 2000 A.D."--but there we are on an island for seven days, my husband experiencing near death in the waves while I read. Sometimes we stop these pursuits and prowl the beach. Mostly we live as if we're the last two people on earth (which is easier in the off-peak season). I've learned that not every book is right for this way of life. The perfect desert island book has to celebrate the place you are in, not transport you. It should offer a tinge of society, because, after all, a human is a social animal, but it should not make you yearn achingly for what has been left behind nor should you be so repelled by it that you will never fit in again when you leave the island (you always leave the island). It should have some narrative sweep to withstand the competition of the seascape. It should make you think, at least a little: you want the stress to wash out to sea, not the little grey cells. Cape Cod by Henry David Thoreau is the benchmark by which I've chosen beach material for several years. it is the quintessential celebration of littoral life. If you are on the beach, you appreciate it all the more; if you are not, well, at least you know vividly what you are missing. There is drama, as in the specter of villagers racing to the shore at the news of a shipwreck. There is information, as in what part of the clam not to eat, how the Indians trapped gulls for food, how a lighthouse really works. There is Thoreau's contagious respect for solitude, his occasional crankiness, and that magic trick of his that can suck in high school sophomores and get them through his books without so much as a whimper. There is one flaw to Cape Cod: brevity. It lasts about a day and a half on the Robinson Crusoe plan. This is not to say that it does not withstand re-reading, it does, but at some point after you have committed it to memory, you may wish for the collected works of Shakespeare and move onto the Bard's beach play, The Tempest.

I bought this book to find out about soap factories supposedly found on Pompeii and Herculaneum but this book discounts the theory of several other places. There's a lot of history about the dig but you get much more information about what was actually found in the digs with pictures of the artifacts in the museums. The pictures are clear and the book reads very well. Lots of discussion about the various shops. Doesn't leave anything out. Does discuss the eros side a little. Not a good book for teachers of young students because of various images but overall an excellent secondary source of info with pictures from a primary source.

I greatly enjoyed this book. It carries you along deep into the personal lives of ancient Romans, nearly two millennia gone. Deiss constantly links the architecture to the minutiae of finds and to individual lives and actions. This is a wonderful way to do popular archaeology. It is worth taking along on a trip to visit Herculaneum, although slightly oversize for a pocket. It is not a street by street guidebook but rather is constructed by themes that make sense of the whole as well as the individual lives, and deaths, recovered deep in the ruins.

Herculaneum (and its neighbor Pompeii) are archaeological godsends, the rarest of time capsules showing the complete range of life at one particular instant in the Ancient world. The spectacular history, deep burial and rediscovery of Herculaneum is excitingly covered in the first five chapters, including eyewitness accounts of the fatal eruption of Vesuvius as lunches were being prepared on August 24, A.D. 79. In the next six chapters Deiss systematically tours you through Roman housing there, from top to bottom of the social hierarchy (including the astounding copy of a Roman villa Paul Getty built for himself in Malibu CA). Five more chapters take you through the public spaces and functions of the town revealed in tunnels and exposures. The book concludes with a summary of the skeletons and plans for site conservation and exploration. Yes, a few pages deal with earthy topics, just as the Romans frankly did. (I think the Getty Museum has since put out a separate book for parents of American kiddies.)

Excellent b/w photographs are found throughout. An absolutely vital aerial photograph and map is provided on p. 34 which you will want to bookmark. It's really too bad they are so tiny that a magnifying glass is needed to read the labels in order to locate the houses when their plans and ruins are discussed individually later in the text. Some locations are never identified. Larger foldout versions would be a real help in the next edition (excavations began in 1709 and new things are constantly found).