Free book in return for writing a review you probably would have written anyway

[strange_complex]

Like practically everyone else on LJ today, I have just signed up for Blog a Penguin Classic, and will shortly be receiving a copy of The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne to review.

I'm actually really pleased about this, because I absolutely love The Marble Faun, and have long thought I should try another of Hawthorne's oeuvres. Plus, I am blogging every book I read this year anyway, so fulfilling Penguin's requirement that I write a review within 6 weeks shouldn't be too hard. What are they going to do if I don't, anyway - send round angry Emperor Penguins to peck my door down?

Comments

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

By whom? I can think of quite a few Classical works whose titles could be translated thus, not to mention post-Classical ones I haven't heard of. Hopefully it'll turn out to be more fun than you think - but at least you're at liberty to say it was boring and sucked if you find that it does!

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

Googling suggested it's *probably* 'De re publica' by Cicero in an anthology with some of his other writing, including 'Against Verres', which like many people who learn Latin as adults I've already read quite a bit of in my first year course (I confess it was quite fun though, and involved more pirates than I would have expected anything by Cicero to).

I'll have read little bits of the other stuff when I wrote about Milton's politics as an undergrad. I suspect Milton kind of thought he was Cicero, only better.

I was prepared for something I hadn't heard of, something I liked or something I hated, but not really something I vaguely knew and could see was important, but not particularly interesting to me right now.

The idea's growing on me now though!

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Ah! Sounds pretty good, actually. I was hoping to get something Classical myself, but I suppose the real attraction of the random allocation is that we're likely to be exposed to something we ordinarily wouldn't be. As it is, mine touches on my existing interests while still expanding them - which I think is just right.