Year-end Book Recommendation

I don't even have to mention the New York Times list of The 10 Best Books of 2007, and The Guardian asked some writers and culture figures such as and came up with the best thing we've read all year list (with a part two), at the year's end, it seems suddenly all the "good books" emerged on various popular list, enabling people to once again to fill their bookshelves with books they never touch after purchase.

And there I am, talking with my friend at Dartmouth about Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, marveling at what a great book it is. Something is interesting about people's taste for books, if you see the Top books on facebook networks, be it Harvard, Yale, or any Ivy, the prominent No. 1 is always Harry Potter, but if you really ask someone what their favorite book is, no one dare to say that name, it's almost like a Britney Speares in Paperback. ( wait, did I spell Speares right? dah... and apparently, Stephen King thinks Britney should TIME person of the year=)

Anyways, that's not too bad. I have a Standford friend who listed New York Times in his favorite book, I was like " what? can you be more dorky than that? ) But anyway, if we are counting newspapers, than L.A. Times is definitely my pick; its opinion is so much better than that of the Post.

My favorite read of theyear is Free Speech In Classical Antiquity (Mnemosyne, Bibliotheca Classica Batava Supplementum) edited by Ineke Sluiter and Ralph Mark Rosen [Brill Academic]. Ya, don't ask... I have a soft spot for Ancient Rome...