Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating, hilarious, and witty!
Review: "Courtesans and Fishcakes" is without a doubt thecleverest and most entertaining bit of writing on classical Athens Ihave ever come across. Davidson combs the classical authors (many of whom had seemed drained of life by other scholars) and finds remarkable and startling things about the ancients' love of wine, sex, and, not least, fish. Recommended! END
Rating:
Summary: Erudite AND fun!
Review: A book that can take preconceived notions of history, stand them on their heads, and at the same time open up new areas for further research by professional historians while entertaining lay readers is a necessary book. "Courtesans and Fishcakes" is a witty, rational, eminently readable social history of ancient Athens. You won't ever be sorry you read it.
Rating: 
Summary: Scholarly & accessible review of Athenian life
Review: Although I think that the general reader may find some difficulty with the use of transcribed Greek words, the writing is both intelligent,articulate and amusing. Davidson has delved into some of the lesser known aspects of Classical Athens, although perhaps has ignored the (already well documented) enthusiasms for theatre, war & politics that also engrossed the Greeks This gives the impression that all the Greeks were interested in was fish, wine and sex. Obviously, he has wanted to create an interesting and sale-able book, but no reader should forget that, as in the modern world, such pursuits formed only a part of most people's lives or indeed of the lives of a small section of society. And, as today, they are by far the most interesting things to read and write about, but they are only a part of the whole. His arguments provide a neat counterbalance to the rather one-sided products of recent years. I could detect quite a few axes being ground, quietly, in the background against many of his scholarly contemporaries. Such disputes are always gratifying to the non-combatants. I would recommend the book to any reader interested in a wider appreciation of Ancient Greek society or just for an amusing read.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard to read
Review: Although the topics of this book are appealing, I found it hard to read. It assumes a level of knowledge about Greek society, culture, and language that I simply don't have. There is no clear narrative line to it. However, it did succeed in making me realize how different the physical and conceptual world of the Greeks was from our own world and from our ideas of the what the past was like, and for that it was interesting and worthwhile.
Rating: 
Summary: try it, you'll like it...
Review: Any book on a scholarly subject that can manage to be completely readable and even amusing has my complete support, especially if it also manages to be fairly well-researched. Davidson's book can't be faulted just because he (and I'm sure it was him, and not his publishers) skews things here and there to snare the interests of the non-specialist reader. Let's face it: without working that extra little bit with that aim in mind, books on classical history are doomed to a much smaller audience than they deserve.
Rating:
Summary: The title is wittier than the book
Review: I'll read just about anything on the ancient Greeks, and the title and subtitle of this book intrigued me. It turned out to be surprisingly dry and tame. The Greeks celebrated the senses with gusto and brio and a lot of other words that end in -o, but this book offers a strangely anemic version of Greek exuberance. It's definitely not an in-depth examination of Greek gluttony, bibulousness, and polymorphous sexuality. What I remember most about it is how astonished the author was at how much the Greeks loved seafood. As for Greek pederasty, even an old prudish monograph like John Addington Symonds's A Problem in Greek Ethics does a better job of explaining it. I expected to laugh and learn a lot more than I did from Courtesans and Fishcakes. (I suspect the book is a warmed-over doctoral dissertation. If so, that would explain its curious "neither fish nor fowl" quality.) Though it's by no means an awful book (and displays considerable learning and insight), it's too often tedious. Something like Dowds's The Greeks and the Irrational is ten times better.
Rating:
Summary: Erudite Book Filled With Facts
Review: James Davidson's Courtesans and Fishcakes is a marvelously complex book that is at times fun, at times dull, but always filled with new insights strung through as pearls in the verbiage. The book is not as accessible as it is claimed by some to be. I have a bit of background in classical studies and I needed every scrape of it to plow through this book. The historical framework necessary to understand what the Athenians were passionate about was never given and would have been a help for the non-classical studies buff. In the end, this book is definately worth the ride and the reader will appreciate the struggle. A very intelligent book that requires much from the reader but will also deliver even more back.
Rating:
Summary: Erudite Book Filled With Facts
Review: James Davidson's Courtesans and Fishcakes is a marvelously complex book that is at times fun, at times dull, but always filled with new insights strung through as pearls in the verbiage. The book is not as accessible as it is claimed by some to be. I have a bit of background in classical studies and I needed every scrape of it to plow through this book. The historical framework necessary to understand what the Athenians were passionate about was never given and would have been a help for the non-classical studies buff. In the end, this book is definately worth the ride and the reader will appreciate the struggle. A very intelligent book that requires much from the reader but will also deliver even more back.
Rating:
Summary: brings the ancient world to life but tough to finish
Review: The best part of the book is how it brings the ancient world to life. What did these folks do day-to-day? That said unless you're doing an academic thesis on this topic you might lose interest halfway through.
Rating:
Summary: brings the ancient world to life but tough to finish
Review: The best part of the book is how it brings the ancient world to life. What did these folks do day-to-day? That said unless you're doing an academic thesis on this topic you might lose interest halfway through.
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