Rome: A Cultural and Literary Companion (Cities of the Imagination)

Rating:
Summary: Too jaundiced a view of Rome for this series.
Review: A great little book complete with history, maps, and personal insight. Boardman really opens up to the reader and spills his guts about his love for this city. His complete love for the subject matter really comes out in his writing. The book reads like a history book and a story book which makes for easy reading. A nice little book about a city you really need to visit in order to come away with your own story. Bravo.

Rating:
Summary: Roma per favore
Review: A great little book complete with history, maps, and personal insight. Boardman really opens up to the reader and spills his guts about his love for this city. His complete love for the subject matter really comes out in his writing. The book reads like a history book and a story book which makes for easy reading. A nice little book about a city you really need to visit in order to come away with your own story. Bravo.

Rating:
Summary: All roads lead to Jonathan Boardman!
Review: A witty insider's history of the Eternal City. Throw away your Baedeker and read Boardman.

Rating:
Summary: Too jaundiced a view of Rome for this series.
Review: I have read dozens of books on Rome over the years, and I am compelled to warn fellow readers that this one is for a very narrow taste. The author's idiosyncratic observations and very verbose writing style beg for better editing. This might have been entertaining as a magazine article. However, as a book purporting to be " a cultural and literary companion", author and editor must share the blame for not working the text into a better product. The acidic point of view almost worked, but in the end fell flat.

Rating:
Summary: a cynic's view of rome
Review: This very cynical Englishman, Boardman, uses this book to disparage Rome, its people and its culture.