Mary Beard on Desert Island Discs

It's not that often that classicists or Biblical scholars are on Desert Island Discs, but it's little surprise that Mary Beard appeared on the programme last week. It's a very entertaining and quirky episode, as you might expect. She defends her notorious post-9/11 column, talks about her parents and her past and says that life as an academic is "bloody hard work" and yet the ideal job. Not sure Kirsty Young should have allowed her the Elgin marbles as her luxury item, though.

The nice thing about Desert Island Discs these days is that you can download it as a podcast too, with the tracks reduced to an even shorter length (10 seconds or so?!) than on the actual programme.

Also mentioned on Rogue Classicism.

From Blog to Book?

How do you like the idea of taking the best of your blog, including lots of the comments, and converting it to book form? Mary Beard has led the way on this one:

It's a Don's Life: The Book

Mary Beard

. . . . The book reprints some selected posts, as well as including quite a few comments (and I think that debate actually makes the book). It also has an essay, by yours truly, on the nature of blogging -- and why I am a convert to the genre, despite many initial misgivings about dumbing down etc etc. . . .

Sounds like an interesting experiment. Is this an example of the blog coming of age? Initially the idea seemed strange to me, but then one of the most enjoyable (to me) genres of book is the diary, something that initially belongs to a different forum than the published book, so perhaps it is not so daft.

So which biblioblogger would you like to see following in Mary Beard's footsteps? Or would this not work in our area? Are we all a bit too dull?