Nash writes elegantly, though heavier punctuation among his wry circumlocutions and sub-clauses would help. Because he holds that postmodern theory fails to give a sufficiently rich account of the world, he pursues his ideas wittily through the cultures of clubbing, surfing and shopping, rather than a virtual forest of dead citations. Well, even if I don't read Deleuze on the bus, I am still apparently a postmodern, owing to the unfortunate historical accident of my birth. Dudgeon narrates de Bono's life with deadpan enthusiasm. De Bono's first book, The Use of Lateral Thinking , was originally called New Think in America, and emotionally he is a cold fish.
Respect is a much more usable currency.
Unfortunately, poets don't make much of a fuss about it. Some consider Cicero a wavering dullard, fiddling with his toga-strings while the republic collapsed around him. Everitt, though, sides with those who celebrate his wit, his intellect and his cunning politics. This biog makes liberal use of the man's own fascinating letters. Just occasionally Everitt descends into the breathless, anachronistic style of a pulp historical thriller, but largely his bloody epic succeeds in painting the Romans as real, venal people, rather than inscrutable, time-fogged statuary.