Bluff Your Way in the Classics

Bluffer's Guide to ...

by Ross Leckie

Be an instant expert on the classics and bluff your way amongst the lesser mortals. No heroics required, just a sense of humor.
From 'Demi-Gods' to 'Democracy', and from 'Oracles' to 'Oratory' the Bluffer's Guide to the Classics offers all you need to know to achieve the Olympian heights.

Bluffer's Guides is a series of snappy little books containing facts, jargon, and all you need to know for instant expertise.

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Since reading Classics at Oxford, Ross Leckie has worked variously as a farm labourer, roughneck, schoolmaster, and insurance broker. He is best known for his Carthage trilogy.

He is now a full time writer living in Edinburgh.

Reviews

[Paul Fitz-George · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book about twenty years ago in Waterstons, Piccadilly, London and have just got around to reading it (damn my literary sloth) and glad I did. When a section starts, 'You should consider your good fortune that, if you don't know what period of history is meant by 'the Classics', no one else does either.

A winner methinks, and full of very funny aside. Looking forward to reading this alongside my other books, watch this space! Also looking forward to teasing my classicist step-son teaching in Singapore, me being an evil historian and sworn to crush his ilk under my buskined boot!

Finished and really enjoyed it, so much so that I intended to annoy and perturb managers at work by throwing in Latin phrases into fire risk assessments (I'm an NHS Fire Officer in the day job) and see if they actually respond. First up will be 'mutatis mutandis' - The necessary changes being made' or 'you must change your underwear' - or in my case, 'repair the fire stopping, dampers and a hundred other things that need doing' inserted into the part of the report concerning something they really should do and wait to see if it actually happens. Then add some more in the next report, worth a try!

I'm ear marking Ross' other works for future reads.

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this kind of book, the author usually tries to be a bit too witty. Or cynical. And this is no exception. Still, the author obviously knows what he is talking about. And seems to love the subject. And he avoids the worst clichés. 7/10

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, witty, and possibly useful. Carthago delenda est.

[Benito · Rating 4 out of 5]

despite the seemingly flippant title this is actually a very erudite read by one of those rarest of beasts - a classics scholar with a sense of humour!